Newbie Needs Steak Cooking Tips!

johnkitchens

Hello Everyone! 

I am as "green" as my new egg. I grilled on a gas grill forever. Exactly one year ago I switched over to a charcoal grill. I just purchased a large egg with the small table on Saturday. I got the cover and the cast iron cooking grid. So far that is all of the accessories that I have. 

The only things I "normally" grill are steak, hamburgers, ribs, and chicken breasts. Like I said I am a newbie! I do however plan on using it for more than that.

I haven't lit my grill yet, and from what I read I am not supposed to get above 350 or so degrees for the first couple of cooks in order to let the seal cure. 

For my first cook I am going to grill steak. My steaks are ribeyes 1 1/4" thick. What do you experts recommend temperature and time wise for grilling my steaks? 

I have a LOT to learn, and I really don't want to ruin perfectly good steaks through ignorance on my part. I plan on using my cast iron cooking grid for the steaks. 

Any help you guys can give me will be appreciated!

HogHeaven

Hmmm... It depends on which cast iron grate you bought. If it is 18" in diameter it's not going to help with steaks much. If... It's the I13" cast iron grate that fits the medium BGE then... You are in business. If you try to cook your steaks at the top of the fire ring level, it won't come out looking very good because... You're baking them at that level. You will get a really good steak that you can cook to any temp you want. 130,135, 140 pick your desired done ness you can have it. But... If you want to get Steakhouse quality steaks that are a beautiful dark mahogany color on the surface and pink, bumper to bumper in the middle, on your BGE... You have to get the meat down closer to the direct heat for a few minutes during the cook. If you do that at the start of the cook, it called the T-Rex method. If you do that at the end of the cook, it called the Reverse Sear method. Most Egger's are one or the other and they argue like cats and dogs as to which one is correct. I'm a Reverse Sear guy! Why... Because when you are cooking with a device that heats up very quickly and is very, very slow to cool off, building that roaring enferno of a fire makes no sense to me. Waiting a half hour to cool the Egg off just makes no sense to me. If you bake it first and then open lid and your bottom vent wide open it will heat up very quickly. Anyway if you got the 18" cast iron grate not good. If you got the 13" CI grate good for you. However to use that down low you need to buy a spider. It is a device that has three legs that can be set on your fire ring either up or down. Then you set your 13" CI grate on it so that you can cook very close to your red hot lump. That's how you get that tasty seared finish to your steaks. Go to Ceramicgrillstore.com they have the spiders. I 1/4" steaks on a LBGE. This is what I do... I fill my fire box so the lump is 2" below the top. I light the fire and then I put the BGE GX grill extender right on top of the fire box. It is a 13 1/2" grid, so you don't need a spider. It costs the same as the spider does... About $25. Then I put my 18" grid on top of my fire ring. You don't need your platesetter for this cook. Stabilized your dome temp at 350 degrees. Put your meat on and close the lid.when the meat is at 85/90 degrees, open the lid and turn the meat over to cook the other side, close the lid. When the meat is at 110 degrees open the lid, tkae the meat off and put it on a plate. Remove the 18" grid from the fire ring, open the bottom vent wide open. You want your fire to get red hot. You lid will be open for the rest of the cook. Place the meat on the lower grid... Now you are searing the meat 2" from the hot fire and that is going to give you the crust you want, that dark mahogany color, not black. 3 or 4 minutes per side and you're done! Once you transfer the meat from the top grill to the bottom grill you want to take your meat thermometer out of it and just use your thermapen. Hopefully you already have those and know what I'm talking about. If you don't ask me. Anyway... There you have it, all that I've learned while Egging. Oh... 1 last thing. Day one... Don't cook anything. Just fire that baby up and learn how to control the temps. Here is a good exercise to do that. Get you meat thermometer, cut a potato in half and stick through it so you can rest it on your grid. Then take the Egg up to 225 degrees and hold it there for an hour. Then move up to 325 degrees and hold it for an hour and so on. Then once you have that figured out... You are ready to cook. Happy Egging!