1st Reverse Sear

I never let a steak rest, the last bites are already cold anyway, so I dig in as soon as it comes off the grill to eat as much as I can before it loses temp.

Nice job!

For steaks...I don't suggest doing an intentional rest after pulling them off the egg. By the time you pull em off, ring the dinner bell, and fix your plate...you've pretty much rested your steak for 5 minutes.

I pull em off and place them directly on a sheet pan with a cooling rack and place them on the table. Planned rests just mean that your guests don't have their first bite till about 10-15 minutes. Guest will remember their cold steak in the back of their head.

Also, train your family and guests to eat their steak outside in and not cut it down the middle!

Your steaks look great! Nice job.

Nice looking steaks!  What are you using on your hands to protect from the heat while removing the platesetter?

And the steaks look great man.

RRP said:

Personally I never reverse sear steaks, nor TRex but I prefer to hot tub mine for an hour and then just do a QUICK high temp sear and go to bed happy with a full stomach! 

Actually, that is a reverse sear. Wether you cook at 225-250º then blast with high temps or hotub, then sear or sous vide then sear, it is all the same. The traditional method (whatever traditional is) was to sear the juices in then cook. Slow cooking with whatever you like, then high heat to obtain Mailard is a reverse sear. I think. 

RRP said:

OK - technically you are correct, but my point was I don't mess with heating and removing my PS or whatever indirect method, then tenting, foiling and blessing the meat! LOL

@RRP You have more than 1 BGE, just roast on one and sear on the other.

Reverse searing, Trex, and hot-tubbing are all doing the same thing: breaking the cook into two parts.

One is to cook the meat through to a desired temperature (or bring it very close), the other is to sear it.

This is the rationale for leaving a steak out to get to room temperature as well, although no one ever truly waits long enough for the steak to reach room temperature. Note that the other cooking methods raise the internal temperature higher than room temperature though.

Who cares which way you do it? I choose the easiest and most predictable for my purposes.  Your choice may be different.

I thought the purpose of the final rest was to allow the juices to redistribute and stabilize in the meat? 

Looks like the different methods of searing have been addressed.  This concerns resting the steak.

The steak is rested not so much to allow juices to "redistribute" (although it sounds logical, and is difficult to unlearn), but (according to Harold McGee, highly respected food scientist) to simply allow the meat to cool a bit. This is for the purpose of retaining as much liquid as possible, because the colder the meat is, the more liquid it will retain. 

The idea is not to foil, because it will cause more over run, as well as delay cooling.  We're not talking about letting it get truly cold.  But if someone liked theirs steaks at (for ex.) 135-140, the exterior is that much higher, and needs to cool somewhat before eating anyway. 

If you cooked it to 160, and cut it immediately, we all agree there would be the maximum amount of juice on the plate, both from the high heat (cell damage) and the fact that the hotter it is when cut, the more liquid there is that will come out.

But if you cooked it to 160 (and no one wants that, just taking it to an extreme), and never cut it, but rather put it into the refrigerator until cold.  You'd be able to cut it and no juice at all would run out. 

Same for raw meat, which contains the maximum possible amount of moisture/juices.  If you cut it cold, no juice runs out.  There's no cell damage, except for where you slice it.

All other things being equal; cell damage from cooking, and meat temperature when sliced, are the two factors determining how much juice there is on the plate. 

Let the meat rest a bit.  It won't be cold when sliced, but will be cool enough to retain more moisture.

Funny thing is, juiciness is only perceived when the juice is free running anyway.  If you you could make it so that no juice at all ran out, the meat would be perceived as drier than one with juice on the plate. 

From "On Food and Cooking", Harold McGee: "Large oven roasts should be allowed to rest on the countertop for at least half an hour before carving, not only to allow the carry over to finish cooking the center, but also to allow the meat to cool down, ideally to 120°F/50°C or so... As the temperature drops, the meat structure becomes firmer and more resistant to deformation and its water holding capacity increases. Cooling therefore makes the meat easier to carve and reduces the amount of fluid lost during carving."

He's actually less enthused about resting for steaks.  Practical experiments showing no true benefit to resting a thinner cut.

There's no real need to rest pulled pork, because by the time it is done you have already cooked as much moisture out of it as possible.  The long stall is evaporation, actually, not the break down of collagen.

It just so happens that although that moisture is long one, the melted collagen makes the meat feel moist in its place.

Cut a slice from a pork but at 135-140, and it should be as moist as a pork chop.

At 165-170, it will be dry, with most of the water driven off.

But at 200, it feels wet again.  That's the melted fat and collagen, not moisture from water.
There's always some amount of water left, sure.  Which means that when you take the pork butt off the smoker, it is in peak condition.  If you pulled it right away (and heck, I do), it will steam.  Steam is water saying goodbye.  So, sure, better to maybe let it rest until it isn't 200 internally, but who can wait?

But resting for a couple hours in a cooler doesn't magically cause the meat to be more juicy.  It is an excellent way to control serving time, allowing you to park the pulled pork for a few hours.

I agree, NPHuskerFL

But ook deeper and you will see that these are all essentially the 'same' method.

Which is: Heat in one manner to achieve desired internal temperature, then heat again in another manner for the desired sear.  Either order works (sear forst or last), with allowances for carryover depending on when you sear.

Each of these has one purpose: to deliver a properly seared steak to the table, which internally is heated to the desired temperature as evenly as possible across the entire thickness.

The lazy way, searing until done, creates a small core of 'perfect' surrounded by a continuous gradient of evermore overcooked meat.

For thin steaks, it's irrelevant. just sear.  But for thick steaks, two-part cooking is the best way to achieve optimal results.

Sous vide then sear. 

Hot-tub then sear. 

Sear, rest, roast.

Roast, rest, sear.

Roast, hold, sear.

They are all two-part cooks, effectively achieving the same thing on the plate. It's just whichever you prefer.

@SenecaTheYounger It's freaking great to have you back. I truly missed your input!

Caz is just being loco, hombre.  He was bottle-fed and he's thinking you're some reincarnation of an old poster "Pliny_the_elder_egghead".  Ignore his trolls.

Sorta the same story here.  Your comments are logical and I can't argue with them except with petty nit-picking, which I sadly can't help myself on occation.  It's self-indulgent to always want to be right, but it feels good to mostly be right and play a devil's advocate for that last inch, lastly, it's satisfying to have an intellectual conversation about anything.  That is you, internet friend.