Good Eats : Reloaded – steak

rekameohs

 

The new Alton Brown show reviews and updates some of the original Good Eats episodes.  The first one was on steak.   One of the big changes he recommends is to season a steak with salt, then let it sit in the fridge on a rack for at least 5-6 hours, if not longer.   I usually salt it and let it sit while the grill heats up, so I will have to try his new way. He had a few other tips, but I need to rewatch it to recall them all.

njl

That's basically just dry brining.  It's works very well for me with spatch chicken.  With steak, it's possible to end up with very salty tasting meat.  How liberal was he with the salt?

Botch

If I did that, I'd wrap the steak tightly in Saran Wrap.  Salt will draw moisture to the surface, and the arid environment inside a frig will just let it evaporate.  With the Saran Wrap, the moisture dissolves the salt, and then supposedly seeps back into the meat, seasoning it (this goes against everything I learned in school about osmosis, but its what everybody insists happens when you salt meat).
 
I assume the new AB series is on the Cooking Channel?  My "basic" Dish sub only gives me the Food Network.  

GrillSgt

Alton has it right. That method was made popular by James Kimball of Cook’s Illustrated. Don’t oversalt and use kosher. 3-4 hours is the correct time also. If you can plan ahead leave your steaks on a rack uncovered unseasoned in the fridge for 2-3 days for even better results. I prefer to trim lightly the hard fat after this method but others don’t. 

Carolina Q

njl said:

With steak, it's possible to end up with very salty tasting meat. 

Agreed. I think it was Meathead's blog where I first read about salting in advance. I had always seasoned right before cooking (and I use very little salt anyway), but I decided to try it only 30 minutes earlier. It seemed considerably more salty even though I used my usual "just a pinch". Actually, objectionably salty to someone who has gotten used to very little salt. So, back to no salting in advance.

Most cooking shows use FAR more salt than I do and I imagine AB does as well. It's all personal taste of course, but I would be leery of salting so far in advance.

GrillSgt

I’ve never found it too salty and I certainly don’t like over salted foods, under salted either. Try it shoemaker. 

jtcBoynton

Botch said:

If I did that, I'd wrap the steak tightly in Saran Wrap.  Salt will draw moisture to the surface, and the arid environment inside a frig will just let it evaporate.  With the Saran Wrap, the moisture dissolves the salt, and then supposedly seeps back into the meat, seasoning it (this goes against everything I learned in school about osmosis, but its what everybody insists happens when you salt meat).
 
I assume the new AB series is on the Cooking Channel?  My "basic" Dish sub only gives me the Food Network.  

Osmosis is about movement across a semipermeable membrane.  There is a lot of liquid between the cells in the steak. Osmosis isn't involved so this doesn't go against what you learned.

Yes, Cooking Channel.

rekameohs

Botch said:

If I did that, I'd wrap the steak tightly in Saran Wrap.  Salt will draw moisture to the surface, and the arid environment inside a frig will just let it evaporate. 
 
I assume the new AB series is on the Cooking Channel?  My "basic" Dish sub only gives me the Food Network.  

He said that both the salt and moisture would work its way back into the meat without being covered.

It is on the Cooking Channel.  It looks like you can stream the show

https://www.cookingchanneltv.com/shows/good-eats-reloaded

GrillSgt

Yes if you take some peeks at the meat it will have beads of moisture on it about 1 hr in and it gets absorbed back in. 

Botch

 
Okay, when/if I ever get my damn teeth fixed, I'm doing the following experiment:
1.  Weigh two steaks with my very good baking scale, record
2.  Sprinkle each with exact same amount of salt
3.  Wrap one, pop both into the frig for 4 hours
4.  Weigh both at the end, note any lost weight in either steak
5.  I will report back!  

Hntrss

I believe this method was all about the crust.  It works!

SonVolt

Alton's kinda late to the ball game here since every major food publication has been raving about the benefits of dry brining for almost a decade now. I guess his show could be targeted to a less fanatical crowd that may not read Serious Eats on the reg. 

For thick steaks, dry brining makes a huge difference and improvement IMO. I salt them like you'd salt a sidewalk in February. Let it sit uncovered on a wire wrack for several hours until the liquid that's drawn the surface has worked it's way back in. The steak surface should start to dry up. 

Don't wrap in plastic wrap... for whatever reason, that can create a cured-like texture which I find extremely off-putting. 

rekameohs

SonVolt said:

Alton's kinda late to the ball game here since every major food publication has been raving about the benefits of dry brining for almost a decade now. I guess his show could be targeted to a less fanatical crowd that may not read Serious Eats on the reg.

The "reloaded" is to review, update and correct some of the original Good Eats shows. He said the one on steak (that this episode was updating) originally aired in 1999, so it was about a decade ahead of those food publications.

My friend, who has Volumes 1 - 3 of the cookbooks based on the show, asked when he was going to send her all of the corrections for her books !

HeavyG

rekameohs said:

SonVolt said:

Alton's kinda late to the ball game here since every major food publication has been raving about the benefits of dry brining for almost a decade now. I guess his show could be targeted to a less fanatical crowd that may not read Serious Eats on the reg.

The "reloaded" is to review, update and correct some of the original Good Eats shows. He said the one on steak (that this episode was updating) originally aired in 1999, so it was about a decade ahead of those food publications.

My friend, who has Volumes 1 - 3 of the cookbooks based on the show, asked when he was going to send her all of the corrections for her books !

Quite likely that there will be a "Good Eats: Reloaded" book for sale when the series has completed.

Botch

rekameohs said:
The "reloaded" is to review, update and correct some of the original Good Eats shows. He said the one on steak (that this episode was updating) originally aired in 1999, so it was about a decade ahead of those food publications.

That's interesting, and I hope he updates the following two items:
 
First, he taught to "punch down" a risen ball of pizza dough, and let it rise a second time.  This set my pizza-making adventures back at least 18 months.  The first time I let a risen ball warm up (frig rise for me) and roll or toss to a pizza shape, ONCE, was a revelation: no gluten "snap-back", and no excess dough bubbles when baked in the Egg.  
 
Secondly, I've always disagreed with his "every tool must be a multi-tasker", 'cept the fire extinguisher.  Poppycock!!  Balderdash!  Some tools do only one job, but do it so well you need to keep it on hand (I'm an amateur woodworker, and have many tools that fit the same niche).  I remember seeing his collection of uni-tasker waffle makers; and he really bad-mouthed one of my most-used tools, the steel stockpot with lid, shallow perforated basket (for steaming anything) and deep perforated basket (perfect for removing all the solid items from a homemade soup stock).  I use this multi-tasker constantly, yet he claimed it was "noisy" and "fiddley".  Fiddlesticks!  
 
Still a huge AB fan, though; I miss his shows.

GrillSgt

I can’t attest to the pizza dough but the multitask thing drove me crazy. Loved the old shows and the new ones seem good. 

marysvilleksegghead

FWIW:  pineapple meat marinade 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahe9xtwwUlA&t=11s

anyone try this approach?

SonVolt

I've never had a NY Stip and thought "I wish this steak was more tender." 

GrillSgt

Glad someone broke the ice. Just say no. And that includes you Costco. 

Raymont

That new Netflix show "Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat"-- now that girl used a lot of salt!!! I couldn't believe how much she put on everything... So of course last weekend I salted some steaks (2 filet's and 2 ribeyes) about 3 hours pre cook. The ribeyes came out the best I've ever done but the ribeyes were seriously salty. I can only guess that the filet's were thicker than the ribeyes as the difference. 

SonVolt

Raymont said:

That new Netflix show "Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat"-- now that girl used a lot of salt!!! I couldn't believe how much she put on everything... So of course last weekend I salted some steaks (2 filet's and 2 ribeyes) about 3 hours pre cook. The ribeyes came out the best I've ever done but the ribeyes were seriously salty. I can only guess that the filet's were thicker than the ribeyes as the difference. 

How thick were your Ribeyes? What kind of salt are you using?

Raymont

SonVolt said:

Raymont said:

That new Netflix show "Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat"-- now that girl used a lot of salt!!! I couldn't believe how much she put on everything... So of course last weekend I salted some steaks (2 filet's and 2 ribeyes) about 3 hours pre cook. The ribeyes came out the best I've ever done but the ribeyes were seriously salty. I can only guess that the filet's were thicker than the ribeyes as the difference. 

How thick were your Ribeyes? What kind of salt are you using?

They were 1# thick; used a coarse sea salt. Next time will use Kosher coarse.

SonVolt

Use Diamond Chrystal if you can find it. Overly-course salt takes longer to dissolve and probably resulted in over-salting. 

GrillSgt

Why would taking longer to dissolve have anything to do with the salt content? Actually logic would tell you the opposite since more sat undissolved on the steak for a longer period of time. 

SonVolt

GrillSgt said:

Why would taking longer to dissolve have anything to do with the salt content? Actually logic would tell you the opposite since more sat undissolved on the steak for a longer period of time. 

It's about surface area. If his salt granulates were unusually coarse, then 3 hours may have not been enough time to fully dissolve and work its way into the steak via osmosis. If the majority of that salt was still sitting on the surface then it can taste overly seasoned since the salt is concentrated to a smaller surface area.