Awesome, do you have a picture of any slices? What are your thoughts on reverse sear vs the other methods?
I didn't think about pix of slices before we'd all torn into it - I was starving before I even started cooking!
I actually thought reverse-sear was fantastic. It's pretty clear that it optimizes for a moist piece of steak. I've tried the Alton Brown method where you sear the heck of it the steak for 60 seconds on each side and then pop into a 500° oven for a couple minutes on each side. That turns out really good also, but (A) it's hard to do for more than a couple steaks and (B) it makes an absolute freaking mess. Of course, it also lacks the flavor added by the charcoal.
I'm 50, have made a ton of steaks over the years, tried a variety of things and those were easily as good as the best steaks I've ever made, and they were just basic thin(-ish) Angus rib-eyes from Aldi. It certainly makes me want to get some really good Prime steaks and have a go, which brings me to another thought.
I've never done the 2"-thick steak thing because I always felt like the thickness exponentially increased the chance of the steak winding up overcooked or under-cooked (I've never had a remote leave-in thermometer setup until I got my Weber last month). Even as a guy who leans to the Rare side of Med-Rare, I didn't generally love the thick steaks coming off my grill. Cooking indirect first makes that a relative non-issue, and the process I used where the steaks come off the grill to be patted-dry and seasoned with pepper before searing (as seen in a couple videos) makes me think the ability to finish to varying temps (Rare, med-rare, etc.) would be easier.
FWIW, here's the process I used:
- Started a half-chimney of (Weber) briquettes and dumped them in the Slow & Sear when hot (it was a little windy, so they were pretty hot). I had the vents pretty tight so things didn't get too hot and let them "settle" a bit.
- Temps seemed to stabilize pretty close to 300F, which seemed fine, so the steaks went on. (I'd probably go low/slow for thicker steaks, and frankly I was planning to run lower than that here, but temp stability and hunger made the call in this case)
- I flipped them when temps hit 90F or so. At that point, I also started a little bit (a bit more than 1/3 chimney) of (Fogo black) lump.
- I got a little busy in the house, and temps went to almost 120F before I got back outside and grabbed the steaks.
- I patted them dry with a couple paper towels. I was surprised how little was coming off them TBH, but this step apparently helps the sear since you don't have to boil off the water on the surface of the steak. Makes sense I suppose, and this is where the opportunity lies to pull-early/leave-longer to a particular done-ness.
- I removed the whole grate dumped the lump in the S&S, spread them out and blew on them a bit to get things really hot. I replaced the grate with the spinning one (from the S&S kit I got) to try the "cold-grate" thing (more on that in a sec).
- I waited a minute, and rotated the grate, flipped the steaks while moving them back over the coals. I did that a couple more times, though I was sweating over-doing it so they weren't a full minute. Then I pulled the steaks and took the pic in my original post.
All of that flowed pretty well. The one rough patch was that the grates want to foul a bit on the bolt heads from the lid-holder on my Performer when inserting/removing grates. That's a bit annoying/stressful when things are hot and you're got a hot grate, a cold grate, hot coals, a hot chimney/etc. to deal with. If there's a hack to minimize the profile of those things I'm interested to hear it. I assume I'll get the hang of that and it will be a minor detail over time, but it's the one thing I kinda hate about the Weber Kettle right now.
Anyway, I'll probably be doing a salmon before I get back to steaks, but that was a great example of the grill being easy and fast. That was a concern of mine when I "switched" to charcoal (my 20+ year-old Weber gas grill is still sitting next to the Performer, but has been unused since the arrival of the kettle), but (as y'all know very well) it's just an order-of-operations thing - start the coals before prepping food, etc.