The goal is to get a really dark crispy exterior and an even pinkish colour on the inside without color banding … ie cooked to an even temperature throughout the inside of the cut. You are shopping at 1888 Certified so quality - a crucial ingredient for the perfect steak is taken care of, in fact we are 70% there already. I like to leave the other 20% of work to the meat thermometer - if you don’t have one, get one … it will be one of your best investments, I promise. The remaining 10% comes from technique and passion! Please take our advice and do not buy a thin steak (unless you have a particular reason). Your steak should always be about 4cm thick unless you are cooking something wonderful like a Bistecca Fiorentina or Tomahawk in which cases they will be even thicker… we will talk about those another time.
- Dry Brine your steaks - you should be salting at least 24 hours (preferably 48 hours) before cooking. If time has escaped you leave the salting till directly before cooking. Use liberally - I prefer a mix of 90%salt and 10% pepper. Some passionate meaties don’t like to use pepper at this point and instead wait until the final sear - up to you but I like the depth of final flavour that you get from using it at both stages.
- Setup your BBQ for 2-zone cooking - just a fancy term for working 2 different heats at the one time. You need one side of your bbq scorching hot and the other about 105-110 deg celsius. If using a gas BBQ turn off half of the burners - if using coal concentrate the coals at one end.
- Place the meat on the indirect heat side, lid down - if you have vents in your BBQ the meat should be placed under them.This allows the meat’s interior to slowly warm up evenly.
- Stand by your grill and check the meat temp every now and again with your thermometer. Flip it when it get to about 35 deg Celsius (this is where you are going to start loving the accuracy and ease of a meat thermometer)
- When your steaks interior gets to 48 deg cels remove it from the heat. At this point you are going to give your steak a well deserved rest as you let it sit off the heat for a good 10 minutes - any longer and I suggest you wrap it in some loose foil.
- Time to shift our attention to the outside so we need to increase the heat … increase your flame to high, add more pellets or coals - we are fine with whatever form of bbq takes your fancy - just get it HOT.
- Pat the exterior dry with paper towels - see later blogs on the Maillard Reaction or just take my word that without a dry surface that magical caramelisation will not happen. You can use a little olive oil at this point if you like to and re-season your steaks before the sear
- We are now going to use the hottest part of the grill with the lid open. We want the lid off so that the heat is concentrated on the exterior of one side at a time. Sear the exterior on one side for 3 to 5 minutes. If you are working with a New York cut or t-bone I like to sit the steak on its side and give that wonderful fat a good workout for a minute or so.

AND YOU ARE DONE … now comes the best stage of all - EATING!!! There are so many things we love about this method but one of our favourites is that there is no need to rest your meat - your meat has rested before it was seared so you can slice and enjoy a perfect hot steak.

Enjoy