Cooking a Steak

Hey Everyone,

I bought Steven's book and love it. I do have one question though. He states to turn the grill on High and let it run for 15 mins to get it good and hot. My question is once I put the steak on the grill, do I close the lid and put it to medium or do I leave the grill on High with the lid open. I am using a gas grill. Reason being that I recently cooked a steak and took a lot longer to cook then expected. Any help would be greatly appreciated

A lot depends on the cut and how you want it done. I like to take my time with a steak so I will sear it on both sides, reduce temp to medium, close lid and grill for 4-6 minutes per side, take it off and let it sit for a few minutes. Then I throw some herbed butter on top, grilled onions and tomatoes, a nice red wine and enjoy!

I use a thermometer that rests on the grate. The last time I grilled steaks I tried to maintain 500* - I cooked the steaks (1" porterhouse) about 6 minutes per side and ended up with medium/medium well steaks. I left the lid down during the searing process and had the gas on full throttle . Thru trial and error I hope to consistently produce medium rare for me and medium well for the rest of the family.

I cook at a high temperature the whole way through. That said, I almost never have steaks less than an inch thick. In my pit at a high flame the steak takes about 9min per side to come out medium and very nicely browned. Occasionally I have someone ask me for a steak above medium, I find the least appatizing looking one and after doing one side I will move it to a cool part of the grill and cook it until it is over done. Forgive my bias.

I'll add my vote for cooking 1 - 1 1/2 inch steaks over high heat all the way. I like mine medium-rare and SWMBO likes hers medium. On my Weber Genesis Silver B, that takes about 4 mins per side for mine, and six mins per side for hers. Use the touch method to tell doneness, no need to use a thermometer, which makes a large hole for the juices to escape.

It's hard until you have it down then you will never mess up again. I used a combo of time and touch on a grill I have had for years. Everytime my timer was up for turning or last side I touched. I wanted to know when to turn and when to finish. Now i trust my touch and also I have a sense on my grill of when to check etc..

Best of luck,
George

use high heat to sear both sides. reduce heat after both sides have a good sear. use a probe thermometer with the metal cable. i usually only turn my steaks once. the probe thermometer takes the guess work out of getting the desired doneness. always remove the meat about 10 degrees below the desires doneness. it will rise in temp. (i did notbelive myself untill i watched the thermometer go up the 10 degrees every time.

I, like the rest of you it seems, like my steak rarer than the wife does. My problem is timing and getting the nice grill marks on my steak. Like most, I leave the grill on high while grilling, but never quite get the level of darker grill marks that I like on mine. Now, I could of course always go to a thicker piece of meat...