Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to temper the steak to room temperature when I take it out of the fridge?
I don't think so. Suppose you have a piece of steak that weighs 340 grams (12 oz). You start at 4°C, and you want to cook it so that 10% is crust at 130°C and the other 90% reaches 60°C. Beef is about 75% water. So, to dry out the crust, 25.5 grams of water needs to be vaporized. The specific heat of beef is roughly 3.2 J/g·K. The specific heat capacity of water is 4.18 J/g·K. The latent heat to boil water is 2259 J/g.
Assume room temperature is 25°C. A typical gas burner delivers 15,000 BTU per hour. With 20% efficiency, it delivers 175 Joules per second to the steak. Under these conditions, it takes about 12 minutes to cook a steak starting at 4°C, and about 10 minutes to cook a steak starting at 25°C. Only a difference of 2 minutes.
It’s because the energy needed to vaporize the water in the crust dominates the energy needed to bring the rest of the steak to temperature. Don’t waste time tempering the steak. Monitor the internal temperature of the steak while you brown the surface. If the interior of the steak is not cooked when you are happy with the browning, put the steak in a slow oven to finish cooking. You will save time and get better results.
How often should I flip the steak?
Many people say you should leave the steak alone and flip it only once. Heston Blumenthal’s method is to flip it every 15 seconds. I have tried it both ways. I don’t detect a difference. But one trial in a home kitchen by an amateur cook is hardly a controlled scientific experiment. When experiments are inconclusive, we look to theoretical predictions for guidance.
Three types of boundary conditions are commonly studied in heat transfer theory:
- Constant temperature at the boundary.
- Constant heat flux at the boundary.
- Convection surface as the boundary.
We can assume our stove delivers constant heat output, so the bottom side of the steak that touches the hot pan is under the second boundary condition. The top side is exposed to air, so it’s under the third boundary condition. The steak itself can be modeled as a plane wall. Simulation shows that by turning the steak more often, you get a thinner crust. A bigger percentage of the steak in the middle stays at the ideal temperature. In other words, you get a juicier steak, along with all the wonderful flavor compounds generated by the Maillard reaction.
But that’s assuming you have perfect timing. You can overcook or undercook the steak with either method if you are a couple of minutes off on either side of the ideal time. The real important lesson from the simulation is you should worry more about the internal temperature of the steak than how often you flip it. By the way, as long as your pan is hot enough and you use enough oil, you shouldn’t have a problem with the steak sticking to the pan even if you flip it often.
Grill on fire or pan-seared?
Let me first say, regardless of the taste, the atmosphere of grilling is irreplaceable.
On a grill, the steak mostly receives heat in the form of infrared radiation. In a hot pan, the heat is conducted into the meat. Charcoal burns very hot. Since radiation heat is proportional to the fourth power of the surface temperature, charcoal grills deliver much more radiant heat than either a propane fire or a hot pan can. Therefore, you get the best crust on a charcoal grill. As meat juice drops into the fire and gets burnt, many new flavor compounds are created and give your meat the special grill flavor. Make sure after you get the crust, move the steak to the part of the grill that’s not directly on top of the charcoal, and finish cooking the steak with gentle warm air.
The steak seems to turn grey by the sous vide process. Is it ruined?
No. Raw meat is red due to the protein myoglobin. It’s not the same protein that causes blood to be red: that’s hemoglobin. Red juice from raw meat is commonly mistaken for blood. In reality, the blood of animals has been drained at the slaughterhouse to decrease the risk of spoilage. (Turning live animals into meat is a carefully controlled process. Many things can go wrong. For instance, if cows are left in cold rain before being slaughtered, the meat quality will suffer.)
As myoglobin is cooked to around 60°C, the protein denatures and gets oxidized. Its color turns brown. However, color is not a reliable indicator of the meat’s temperature. There are too many variables in the reaction between the pigment, other proteins, and trace elements of different forms of nitrogen. Use a thermometer to be sure.
The grey color is not appetizing, and Maillard reactions did not happen at the sous vide temperature. That’s why all the recipes recommend you sear the meat after sous vide cooking.