Question About Reverse Sear

bicktrav

I'm into the concept of the reverse sear, but confused by this one element.  How do you hit a precise target temp?  If you pull at 125 internal; then you sear it for a few minutes each side, the internal temp will rise, and I can't imagine it always rises by the same amount.  Just seems like you can hit your target temp more easily if you are searing first.  Am I wrong on this?  How do all you fans of the reverse sear get the temp correct?

corey24

You just need to keep that trusty thermopen close by.........

BYS1981

Practice makes perfect. I never sear for a few minutes a side, usually 30-45 seconds a side.

Foghorn

You are exactly right.  There is a little trial and error involved the first few times you do it.  I underestimated a couple of times and ended up with medium when I was shooting for medium-rare.  Ultimately, I came up with the plan of pulling 15 degrees below my target temp as the temp will rise 5-10 degrees even if you don't sear and then the sear will add some more heat.  The other key is to keep the sear relatively short.  I limit it to 1 minute or less for a steak, 2 minutes or less for a bigger cut like a prime rib.

The main advantage of a reverse sear is that on a kamado it tends to be easy to get the grill to heat up but harder to cool it down - so saving the hot part of the cook to the end makes more sense.

bicktrav

Foghorn said:

You are exactly right.  There is a little trial and error involved the first few times you do it.  I underestimated a couple of times and ended up with medium when I was shooting for medium-rare.  Ultimately, I came up with the plan of pulling 15 degrees below my target temp as the temp will rise 5-10 degrees even if you don't sear and then the sear will add some more heat.  The other key is to keep the sear relatively short.  I limit it to 1 minute or less for a steak, 2 minutes or less for a bigger cut like a prime rib.

The main advantage of a reverse sear is that on a kamado it tends to be easy to get the grill to heat up but harder to cool it down - so saving the hot part of the cook to the end makes more sense.

That all makes sense.  Only concern would be that on something like a tri-tip, which is pretty big, you'd have to keep the sear 2 minutes or under to avoid the temp rising too much.  I've found that to get a good crust on most tri-tips, you need 3 minutes each side.  Anyway, forgetting that, I'm wondering is there any advantage to the reverse sear beyond the whole it's harder to get it to cool down than heat up argument?  Can you get better smoke flavor if you're smoking because the meat is encountering the smoke when it's cold (as opposed to T Rex when you throw a chunk in after the sear). 

Skiddymarker

Dry it after the rest, before the sear. Other than salt, everything else will burn anyway. You can't get surface browning until the surface moisture steams off, so dry the outside with a paper towel and browning happens in less than two minutes. 

NDG

Also, the reverse sear limits the GREY RING I used to always get when grill/sear a steak.  You never see this grey ring at a nice steakhouse, but I always had one at home.  The reverse sear helps roast more uniform and creates more juicy pink throughout rather than the grey/pink layers.  Here is shot of my reverse sear on V-Day . . pink from crust to crust!