smoked steak

I know people that smoke anything and do, but I don't.

Do a search on steak and you'll see some threads.

Hey, got for it, report to us.

I find it interesting they talk about searing, as chefs now and I thought ATK also said search is getting to be less well though off (someone did a test and said more moisture is lost when you sear)

did the email talk about searing do or don't in detail?

Smokin'

It was a video. Looked pretty a straight forward sear. In a saute pan, hot smoking oil, maybe a table spoon, about 2-3 min per side. They also seared the sides of the steaks.

Go for it, nothing like someone giving us a report.

Here's some searing info. For me, I don't sear to sear, I sear to get a good crust.

quote:

So what is searing? By definition, searing is to cook something hot and fast to brown the surface and to seal in the juices. Yet many of the leading cooking experts agree that searing does not seal in juices. Harold McGee in his book On Food and Cooking shows scientifically that a "seared" steak has less juices than an equally cooked not "seared" steak. Frankly the idea that you can somehow melt the surface of the meat into a material that holds in all the juices has always seemed a little strange to me. Conclusively it seems that science is agreed that sealing in juices just doesn't work and is not the real goal of searing. Searing is a process of cooking that creates the crusty surface texture most people find appealing and the caramelized sugars that gives us that steak flavor we want.

I mostly throw my steaks on the grill at the highest heat and let it rip. The outside sears (not like in a pan), and the inside comes out a nice medium rare.

Every once in awhile, we pan fry a steak in Roasted Garlic Grapeseed Oil (actually healthier than olive oil). It carmelizes nicely, cooks to perfection with a nice crust/medium rare inside and makes for great eating. It's moist, not sure if it's more or less moist than the grilled version cause my taste buds just aren't that sophisticated.

I think the idea of smoking the steak then finishing in the grape seed oil sounds interesting and been meaning to try it. If you shoot for medium rare, will it actually pick up much smoke flavor. Any one try this?

I've smoked a few rib-eyes. But I put them in the Cookshack at 225 with hickory for maybe 15 minutes max. Then I take them straight to the grill to finish them. All I am looking for is the smoke taste to the steak. I don't do it often, but it's good when you have the time. Still need that high heat of the grill on a steak in my opinion.

This is one of the family favorites - no kidding. Hickory and/or cherry are nice, smoke for about 45 minutes and finish on the grill with high heat. I find that the thicker steaks work better. I have had the best results with a 1.5" thick porterhouse from my favorite butcher. Buy the right meat and it will melt in your mouth. I don't think it detracts from the steak at all. Be careful not to use too much wood. An ounce is plenty. It will get bitter quickly.

Done. Next steak. Thank you. Porterhouse sounds great.

If I'm remembering the article correctly...let me know if not...I think it suggested taking the temperature of the "thick" (an operative word) steak slowly to an internal of 110 (?) (maybe 90 to 105, but I'm remembering hotter) degrees, "roasting" it first, so to speak. And then move it to sizzling hot (anything...grill, pan, flat top, etc.) to darken/caramelize/Maillard/brown...whatever, the outside.

And, yes I do cook steaks that way, or a modified version. I've always added the touch of smoke from the grill (chips or pellets) started from the beginning of the cook.

I would bet that if doing for a big crowd one could put all the steaks (thick) into a CS at a slow temp. (200 deg. or less) with a bit of wood, and then finish quick, almost to order, on a fair sized grill.

Would probably, for me, need to be a bunch of steaks though to warrant the extra fooling with the CS, especially when if on your grill you have pretty complete control and they are right in front of you so that you don't over cook at the beginning.

It would be pretty cool to have 20 to 30 steaks or so 'smoke-roasting' in the CS, pulled out to order, and then 2 min. per side to finish on the grill!

quote:

Originally posted by Thousand Oakie:
I would bet that if doing for a big crowd one could put all the steaks (thick) into a CS at a slow temp. (200 deg. or less) with a bit of wood, and then finish quick, almost to order, on a fair sized grill.

Would probably, for me, need to be a bunch of steaks though to warrant the extra fooling with the CS, especially when if on your grill you have pretty complete control and they are right in front of you so that you don't over cook at the beginning.

It would be pretty cool to have 20 to 30 steaks or so 'smoke-roasting' in the CS, pulled out to order, and then 2 min. per side to finish on the grill!

Sounds like a brilliant idea! You will be one popular host.

I think nothing of tossing even one steak in the CS to smoke before throwing on the grill. The foil can be used again since you don't muck up the inside with grease so it's literally toss in the meat, toss in the wood and turn it on. I wouldn't get hung up on how long / what temp to smoke - COOK the meat, especially if you already have a method for cooking the steak on another appliance. Just put it in for a short time and take it out. It will absorb a lot of smoke flavor quickly, so I would err on the underdone side.

We started a thread on smoking rib-eyes here in 2005, and it evolved over several months into a great recipe. I'm an outdoor cooking writer for the Examiner, and just published an article on smoking then grilling steak.
We used the Cookshack to smoke a steak cut from a rib-eye roast, then grilled it. Perfect!

Here's the link. How to Grill a Better Steak Than Morton's

quote:

Originally posted by LCNSac:
We started a thread on smoking rib-eyes here in 2005, and it evolved over several months into a great recipe.

Do you know where the forum link is?

Good article, you did a good job with it. I do get a "404" error (not found) when I click on the cookshack link in your article. Was that a link to it?

Smokin. The link worked for me. I bookmarked it.

Pags,

Are you talking about the one in his article? Well, in my IE7, it's broken.

Smokin'

The cookshack.com link didn't work in his article. The rest did.

The 404 is fixed, and the Cookshack 2005 article is now linked. My fault. It's very elusive, that thread, and often I can't find it on search. Thanks for the heads up.

John

Here's the link to the Cookshack steak thread:

http://forum.cookshack.com/eve...641034983#9641034983

I finally got around to smoking a steak. I used a Costco Rib eye, about 3/4 to 1 inch thick. Applied Montreal rub and let it sit in the Frig about 3 hours. Smoked at 275 about 30-40 minutes, two small pieces of hickory, to an internal temp of 125. Pulled from the CS and on the seer burner of my grill about 2-3 minutes on a side plus a little on the edges. Turned out great. A little on the meduim well side, only slightly pink in the thicker parts. Good crust and great flavor. Next time I will smoke a little less maybe 110 or 115 and try for a medium pink on the inside

Smoked my first couple of steaks last night... tenderloins about 1 inch thick.

We like our steaks very, very rare here so the idea was to just get the smoke flavor and not cook the steaks much in the CS. Smoked them with a chunk of hickory for about 35 minutes (225), then let them sit for about 15 mins outside (40 degree temp) then cooked them 3.5 mins on a side.

Excellent and still very rare!! Will be doing this again.

This thread got me wanting to experience grilling a smoked steak.

Started 020 at 250 with 1oz or so of oak. Loaded a nicely marbled 2" NY strip (rubbed with olive oil, sea salt and cracked pepper) into remote cold smoke box. Waited for white smoke to clear and connected vent hose for 30 minutes.

Steak still nice and cool when removed. Finished on grill to med - med rare. Best steak of the season. Will do again soon.

On par with steaks cooked over an oak-fire grill in way expensive restaurants.

CS rocks again.

I have to ask.....Why, is throwing soaked wood-chips-of-choice unto the coals and then cooking on the grill not good anymore?!?!? Just askin'. Jamey

quote:

Originally posted by greenebelly:
I have to ask.....Why, is throwing soaked wood-chips-of-choice unto the coals and then cooking on the grill not good anymore?!?!? Just askin'. Jamey

It never was good, people just didn't know.

The wood smolders and doesn't burn and smolder wood gives off nasty smelling smoke, not the good clean smoke you want.

I'd say:

1) We like our steaks really, really rare and it would be tough to get much smoke in the 3 mins per side that we usually cook them.

2) As opposed to puting in the smoker and letting them get up to about 90 degrees over a 1/2 hour to 40 mins. Good smoke flavor with that method.

3) I've always had a problem trying to get much 'grilled' flavor out of a steak without cooking it for more than we like. We have tried freezing steaks (and London broil) and then putting immediately on the grill in an attempt to get a black outside and still retain rare on the inside. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

As my wife said while eating a smoked steak last night, "this steak alone is worth having the smoker." And that's the first comment she has ever made about the smoker (other
than really liking the output from it)

I have to admit, I have never tried putting wood chips on the grill for smoke flavor, but I don't think I ever will.

quote:

The wood smolders and doesn't burn and smolder wood gives off nasty smelling smoke, not the good clean smoke you want.

I try to compare it to a family camping. What's the last time Dad said "Hey kids! Let's find soggy leaves and rotten wood and start a campfire!"

Just use chunks if possible, agree?

OK. It's my son's and grandson's birthday today. How's that for a coincidence? So I bought some 2" New York strip steaks for tonight's dinner.

I'm going to smoke them until they hit 110* per Ranger DF. Going to use hickory. I rubbed my steak with a Texas Steak Rub and rubbed the kids steaks with half John Henry's Pecan Rub and half home made beef rub. I think they'll enjoy the slightly sweeter flavoring. Only intend to sear them for a couple minutes on each side once I remove them from the smoker. Garlic bread. Caesar salad. Baked potatoes (sweet potatoes for me and my granddaughter). Paired with a nice Cabernet Sauvignon, for the adults of course.

Try to let them rest for awhile before you grill them. Can't do it tonight, but I like them sitting overnight after smoking.

I've been doing more cold smoking lately. That would be worth trying with a steak. You'll like it.

If you like a sweet rub try Costco's Sweet Mesquite rub. Use sparingly. I like it better than John Henry's.

Get your strips at Safeway? They have a great special this week, $3#. If you don't get my weekly specials, you should check the column every Wednesday.

Here're the fresh steaks in the smoker. OK. I cheated and didn't replace the foil from yesterday's pork butt. The grates were cleaned in the dishwasher. New foil in the morning.

Here's the finished product. I didn't sear them a lot since I left them in the smoker until 122*. I traded in a more seared finish for the medium rare. They were tasty, moist and had a fairly strong smoke flavor. I used a sample packet of hickory wood chips I got from Candy Sue and smoked the steaks for 35 minutes.

LCN Sac. I haven't been buying my meat from Safeway because they only carry "select". They may carry a few items in "choice", but I got these "choice" beauties from Raley's specialty meat counter.

Take a close look at Safeway's meat, and compare it side by side to Raley's/Bel Air. I have done it, and with Save Mart too. I think for a Porterhouse I'd lean toward graded Choice but anything down from there you may not be getting what you think you're paying for. Take a look, see what you think. Took me a LONG time and a lot of talking with meat folk to come around to the nuances of grading, branding, and marketing.

Your steaks look great! I'll bet the combo of smoking and searing worked out well. Nice job!

I've been more pleased with Raley's meat than Safeway. This may be psychological because of the "choice" vs "select" terms.

Are you saying I should be looking for certain cuts or grades? I agree that Safeway near us has some great sales on their meat. I've also bought pork butt there for $ .89/lb. and some very cheap chicken/turkey.

Safeway claims their branded meat "Rancher's Reserve" is about halfway between Choice and Select. I bought some Top Round from Safeway and from Bel Air recently for jerky and the SW meat for $2 pp less looked better. I think you have to work at it, and maybe buy a couple of samples and compare. I used to eschew anything not USDA Choice but a visual and taste comparison turned me to at least considering cheaper alternatives when on ad. Not on ad, I just go with Choice especially if it's a better cut like Porterhouse or Cowboy Ribeye, but the specials are so great I rarely buy anything not on ad anymore except at Costco which is always good quality, but not always the cheapest.

Beef prices are off 20% from last year so they producers and retailers have room for pricing.

The sleeper is Save Mart. They have not cracked our market yet and have some killer deals. A few weeks ago they had USDA Choice Rib-eye roast for under $3.00. That's the roast on which I based my BBQ Roast series and it was top quality.

This weekend Safeway had fresh Dungeness Crab for $2.49. No other chain was close to that price and it was extremely fresh.

I think we in Sacramento/NorCal are so used to Raley's/Bel Air we need to be pryed away and the competition is doing it with predator pricing. Have a look--I know you have a good eye and palate and want to hear your opinion.

Sorry for the "regionalized" post.

John

quote:

Originally posted by RangerDF:
...cook in the oven for about 20-30 minutes to a temp of 90-105 internal. Then sear the steak to about 125 to 130...

I thought the same thing, that the smoker would be perfect! I went back to my old emails from America's Test Kitchen to get specifics and they upgraded the recipe to "premium" -- no tickie, no washie and I'm too cheapie! But I tried the concept anyway using the CS smoker at 250F since that was where I found it, a pecan chunk chipped into about 6 pieces, and a Poulder thermometer. I was shooting for 100F before pulling it out. (When the poulder read 90F, I turned the Smokette down to 225F.) It only took about 1/2 hr total and I was rushing around to get the grill hot so the thermometer got to about 105F after pulling the steaks out of the smoker. I put the three steaks (NY cuts) on the very hot grill for about 1 min, rotated 45 degrees for the next minute to get nice grate marks, turned over for 1 min, and then rotated 45 degrees for the last minute and finally pulled them off. My poudler was wacking out so I got out my Thermapen and it read 115F which was a little low. I put them back on the grill for a minute or so and darned if the temperature didn't jump up to no less than 135F. I hurriedly pulled them off and let them rest covered for about 10 minutes. They turned out medium, consistently pink, no thick gray area on the outer surfaces, and tasted great! The pecan yielded a rather mild taste. Mesquite (which grows wild in my back yard) would have be good (or hickory), I suspect.

Next time:
- Have everything ready to go at the start.
- I would use 225F or lower.
- Mesquite or hickory.
- I would pay more attention to temps and end at 125F for the grilling.
- Make more since it disappeared too quickly.

What I learned most of all: I will never use liquid smoke again now that I have my CS.