The Ultimate Guide To Grilling The Perfect Steak

Is there anything better than a perfectly grilled steak? There is something about an open flame that brings out the best from your favorite cut of meat. But it can be a little daunting when trying to do it yourself.

Most professionals agree a great cut of meat is essential when learning how to grill the perfect steak. But what else goes into getting it right each and every time? Thankfully, there are a few tips and tricks to help you get the steak of your dreams whenever you fire up your grill.

Getting To Know The Grades Of Meat

Not all meat is created equal. In fact, the USDA has come up with a grading scale to help people understand the meat they are getting and how to prepare it.

There are three basic grades of meat sold in the US:

Select, Choice, and Prime.

They are ranked according to the flavor, tenderness, and juiciness of the cut. This can be determined by the amount of marbling present in the meat.

Select is the poorest quality of the three. It is slightly above what the USDA qualifies as edible. It is almost always what is on sale or advertised, so don’t be surprised if it isn’t high quality as it tends to be rather lean and without much marbling.

While some Select cuts may be cooked with dry heat or grilled, without any marinating, this is not suggested.

Choice is a great cut of beef but has less marbling than Prime. Don’t worry though. If you purchase a choice cut of beef, you will still be getting a quality steak and it should be delicious when grilled if not overcooked.

However, when it comes to grilling, you really want a cut of Prime meat. All of the juice from the fat helps to create that butter-like quality to the taste and texture.

So, when shopping, stick to either Choice or Prime cuts. They will be worth the extra money per pound you will pay. And it is easier to make sure you grill it to your tastes with better cuts of meat.

However, it is important to note finding Prime beef at your grocery store may be difficult at the best of times. So, if you have your heart set on that perfect steakhouse steak at home, be prepared to shop around. Our best suggestion is to check with local butchers in your area and if you still can’t find it, you may need to settle for a nicely aged choice cut instead.

Best Cuts For Grilling

Filet Mignon

This small, thick cut of meat is known for its buttery texture. Its name literally translates to cute filet. It is a leaner cut of meat, still tasty and generally more expensive than some of the other cuts on this list.

T-Bone

This cut of meat gets its name from its distinct shape; it looks like the letter t. It is basically two steaks in one, with a bone running done the middle of the cut. Known for its taste and texture, it is what most people think of when they think of steak.

Porterhouse

This is cut is like a T-bone’s big brother. It is another two steaks in one and is HUGE. It tends to be used in eating challenges due to its large size.

Rib Eye

This cut of beef has a nice ratio of meat to fat, so it has a great flavor to it. It is also known for being easier to cook than some of the others on this list. So, it is great for learning how to grill the perfect steak.

New York Strip

This boneless cut of meat is known for being tender and having a good meaty flavor when done correctly. It may also be called a Kansas City steak or a Delmonico steak.

Skirt Steak

This is a thin but still flavorful cut of meat. It is on the lean side, so it helps to marinate it a little before grilling.

Hanger

Another thin but beefy flavor cut of meat. Thanks to its looser muscle fibers it is another cut that is good for marinating, as it will soak up a ton of the flavor.

Prepping To Grill

Before you start to grill, there are some things you are going to need.

1: A Grill

This one is a given. It doesn’t matter if it is a charcoal or gas grill, as long as you are comfortable with it.

2: A Digital Instant Read Thermometer

We will go more into this later. But make sure you have an accurate instant-read meat thermometer. And make sure it is digital.

3: Grilling Tongs

These will make sure you don’t accidentally puncture your steak when turning it.

4: Make Sure Your Grill Has 2 Temperature Zones

Two temperature zones will make sure you can grill your steak at the right temperature. But more on that later.

Grilling Your Steak

You may have read for a perfect medium-rare steak to grill it 3-5 minutes on each side. However, this is just a sort of rough estimate.

Because no two grills, cooking surfaces, or pieces of meat are the same you will need to get familiar with how the steak feels before it is introduced to any heat. This is because the texture and density of the meat will change as it cooks.

So, to help ensure you cook your steak just the way you like it, you should spend some time getting to know what your cut of beef feels like before it is ever introduced to a flame.

Raw steak will be soft to the touch. There will be little to no resistance when you push on it. As it cooks the resistance will increase and the meat will get tougher to the touch.

For example:

A rare steak is still pretty fleshy when you touch it. Imagine poking yourself in the cheek.

Medium rare is a little tougher, like poking your chin.

Medium well is pretty tough, like poking your forehead.

Well done has almost no give at all.

There are those who say that to make sure you still get a little bit of the flavor from the meat you really shouldn’t cook it past medium-well. However, you should obviously cook your meat the way you like it.

Somethings NOT To Do When Grilling A Steak

1: Cook Meat Straight From The Fridge

Many professional chefs think to let your steak get to room temperature before you start to cook it helps it to cook evenly. Most suggest leaving it on a prep rack for an hour should do the trick, So, use this time to salt or season your meat.

2: Don’t Use The Wrong Salt

That’s right. There is a right and wrong salt to use when prepping your steak. It turns out table salt or any other fine-grained salt is going to have too much weight per volume and you will run the risk of over seasoning.

Instead, use something like sea salt or kosher salt. Both have a nice medium to large grain which will give it a nice taste without being too overpowering.

3: Don’t Season Too Soon

If you don’t have at least an hour or so to season your steak, it is best to leave it until right before it goes on the grill. This is to make sure you can get that beautiful and tasty crust on your steak.

4: Don’t Start If Your Grill Isn’t Super Hot

The flames will need to be going for at least 20-30 minutes before you even think about starting to grill. This is to make sure you sear the outside and lock all the flavor in.

5: Make Sure You Have A Meat Thermometer

Yes, we know we did just tell you to check the fleshiness of your meat with your finger. However, unless you are a total pro, it is still better to use a meat thermometer to check the temperature. Here is a helpful table:

Rare: 120-130°F

Medium rare: 130-135°F

Medium: 140-145°F

Medium Well: 150-155°F

Well: 160-165°F

6: Flipping Your Steak More Than Once

Flipping your steak more than once can actually make it lose some of its flavors. Simply turn it once on each side to get the lovely criss-cross grill marks and then flip it once.

7: Don’t Forget To Let It Rest

Meat doesn’t stop cooking once it is off the grill. By letting it rest a little before serving it, you give your steak the perfect chance to finish cooking and let the juices settle.

Many experts suggest pulling the meat off the grill when it is about 10 degrees cooler than your desired temperature and then let it rest in a warm place (you don’t want a cold steak) for about half the time you cooked it. And if you want it hot, then just pop it back on the grill for a little warm-up and you should be good to go.

8: Do NOT Cut Or Puncture It To Check If It’s Done

Cutting into a piece of meat to check its readiness is just going to let all of the juices out of the steak. This means it will dry out the meat and cause it to lose flavor.

This is where the digital instant-read thermometer comes in. It will let you check the internal temperature of your steak without having to puncture it. Every grilling enthusiast should have one.

Now To The Grilling

Cooking Thin Cuts

When cooking thin cuts of meat, like a skirt or hanger, make sure you cook it directly over the hottest part of the grill. This will ensure it is cooked evenly throughout. Just remember to take it off the heat a little early and let it rest before serving.

Cooking Thick Cuts

This is where the two temperature zones on your grill are needed. The cooler zone on your grill is only going to need to be about 225 degrees.

So, first, you are going to put your steak in this cooler part of the grill and cover it with the lid. This will help circulate hot air around your meat, making sure it is heated evenly on both the top and the bottom. Think of it like creating a little mini oven.

Start checking the temperature after about 15 minutes. If it isn’t at the desired temperature, check again in five minutes and so on until it is about 10 degrees lower than the desired temperature. So, if you want a medium-rare steak, it would need to be about 125 at this point.

Once it hits that number, you'll want take it off the grill for a second so you can crank the heat up and get it ready to really cook. For gas grills, close the lid and turn up all the burners. For charcoal grills, gather into a pile or add half a chimney’s worth of fresh coals to the mix.

Now that everything is all heated up, put your steak in the direct heat zone and flip it once to make sure it is properly browned evenly on both sides. Be sure to take it off the grill once it hits the lower temperature of how well you want it done and let it rest.

How To Grill A Perfect Steak

It can be tricky grilling the perfect steak. However, with these helpful guidelines on what to do and what not to do, you should be able to up your steak game and wow everyone at your next outdoor event.

For more helpful hints on how to get perfectly grilled meat or vegetables, check out the rest of our outdoor section.

Bill Andrews

Chuck Blount

Sausage and chicken cook over indirect heat in a Weber grill.Photo: William Luther /Staff photographer

Two split logs rest on a small pile of charcoal briquettes to get an offset smoker to the correct 250 degree temperature. — Two split logs rest on a small pile of charcoal briquettes to get an offset smoker to the correct 250-degree temperature. Photo: William Luther /Staff photographer.

Robles, a world champion barbecue cook based out of Weslaco, is the type of guy who constantly tinkers with his recipes, cooking devices, and meat preparations. He’s so precise with his demanding command of temperature, he counts the number of charcoal briquettes that are used to grill up his chicken.

“The magic number is 47,” Robles said. “That will usually get my grill to about 350 degrees, which is the temperature that will cook and finish the chicken the way I like it in about an hour.”

If you don’t want to spend hours experimenting briquette by briquette, here is a simplified formula: Take the diameter of your grill and multiply that number by two. That’s how many briquettes are needed to ballpark 350 degrees with the cover applied and your meat placed away from the hot coals.

There are other ways to take command of your outdoor fire, making the cooking process as simple and consistent as anything that could be done in a conventional kitchen oven. Here are some ways to do it:

Setup

The charcoal: You can go either the hardwood lump or the conventional briquette route. Both have key strengths and weaknesses.

The lump charcoal will burn about 5 to 10 degrees hotter than the briquettes, provides a cleaner wood flavor and won’t cook down into pure flaky ash. That makes it perfect for the caveman style of cooking directly on the coals. However, since the charcoal pieces are randomly sized (some chunks as big as a human fist), it can be a bit unpredictable.

On ExpressNews.com: Youth pitbuilders showcase their handmade pits that rival the pros at San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo

Briquettes are of uniform size and will hold the heat a little longer, with a signature flavor that reminds everybody of the backyard cookouts they grew up with. Kingsford charcoal, the industry leader in briquette charcoal by a wide margin, is a staple on the competition barbecue circuit because of its ability to win over judges that score with a nostalgic palate.

Wood: Manny Olivo, owner of the Schertz-based Cow Tippin BBQ food truck, keeps his fire pure with pecan wood by taking the scraps, starting the fire small, and building it up into a blaze. “It take a little more time, but it’s worth it for the flavor,” he said.

Remove the bark from the logs and accumulate the shavings and scraps that can be pulled off the wood. As it burns, add larger pieces until you are burning chunks that are about the size of a rolling pin. One or two logs on a bed of coals will get a traditional off-set steel pit into that magic temperature window between 225 and 250 degrees. Avoid large logs, which have a tendency to smolder and can add a funky taste to the meat.

Ignition

Lighter fluid: It can make life easier in a pinch, but I avoid it at all costs, including the charcoal that comes coated with it. The fuel never completely burns off, and the flavor will transfer into the meat like a seasoning.

On ExpressNews.com: 1 smoker, 10 store-bought sauces. Which got smoked?

Chimney starter: The metal contraption that’s shaped like a German beer stein is the perfect vehicle for getting a good fire going. Stuff a few sheets of newspaper or a couple paper towels coated in cooking oil underneath your briquettes, light it up, and you should have a perfect blend of hot charcoal that glows like lava in about 20 minutes. A full starter will hold about 70 briquettes.

Flamethrower: Don’t laugh. This is a thing, and it’s legal. They sell open-flame devices, often marketed as a weed-killer in the garden section of your local hardware store, that hook up to a propane tank and will light the charcoal or wood in seconds.

Temperature control

The full spread: Unfortunately, too many outdoor cooks think that the proper way to set up a grill is to blanket the bottom with coals. That’s a disaster recipe for burgers that end up looking like charred hockey pucks because of out-of-control flames that erupt when the meat grease hits the coals. The heat above the coals is usually about 550 to 600 degrees, making it impossible to cook with precision outside the realm of a quick steak cook.

Two-zone setup: Stack all of the charcoal to one side of the grill for a hot and a cold zone that provides tremendous flexibility with anything put on the grates. This is the Robles method, and it should be yours, too. Put the meat on the hot zone to finish or establish blackened grill marks, but most of the cooking time should be spent on the cool side. If your cook lasts more than an hour, add eight to 10 new coals to the hot side after an hour.

Other two-zone setups promote putting the coals on the outside with a metal pan filled with water in the middle. Eh. The water does little to moisten the meat, and the end result is mostly a wasted pan.

Vent control: All nongas grills and smokers come with vents that are located below and on top of the device. They can help control the temperature, but I’ve always found it best to keep them open all the way from start to finish. Airflow gives every fire life, and it delivers a better flavor. If the fire is burning too hot or too cold, it’s probably because an error was made in the original setup.

It shouldn’t take very long for these tips to become second-nature in your outdoor grilling process. When fanning the flames, it’s always best to maintain control.

Chuck Blount is a food writer and columnist covering all things grilled and smoked in the San Antonio area. Find his Chuck's Food Shack columns on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com, or read his other coverage on our free site, mySA.com. | cblount@express-news.net | Twitter: @chuck_blount | Instagram: @bbqdiver

No Room For Mis-Steaks