The Beginner's Guide to Steak, the fundamentals you need to know.

i cooked 15 steaks over the past few days and have the smell of beef permeated throughout my apartment so we could answer these topics and questions regarding steak and a thank you to butcherbox for sponsoring today's video and also supplying me all the steaks they made this video a lot easier to make more on that in a bit the scope of this video is to give you a fundamental food science based understanding of cooking steak at home and really the three most important variables are just choosing your steak salting your steak and applying heat to your sake now i didn't cover things like cast iron versus carbon steel pans or reverse sear versus sous-vide because in order to make and understand those videos which i do plan on making at some point we first need to start with the fundamentals lastly all the sources i use to gather the information for this video are all listed down below and they're also mentioned several times throughout the video itself sources like on food and cooking the food lab the science of great barbecue and grilling salt fat acid heat the professional chef all listed down below if you do want to read them for yourself and check them out but with that let's hop into the video and start at the top with how do i choose a good steak when choosing a steak the two main variables that have a large influence on how we enjoy that steak is number one the fat content and number two the tenderness of the muscle that the steak was cut from let's talk about that fat first according to the professional chef there are eight grades of beef recognized by the usda now obviously if you are in a different country these won't be the same but they are great for helping me explain the differences from highest to lowest quality they are prime choice select standard commercial utility cutter and canner now if you're wondering why you may have never heard of five of those is because these are not used for human consumption leaving us with prime choice and select what's the difference well it's all about the intramuscular fat also known as marbling which is the fat that exists inside the muscle for example on a new york strip steak the exterior fat cap is inner muscular meaning outside of the muscle whereas the marbling is inside the muscle now i don't want to hone in on the usda system because it's different around the world instead just look at the stake here's a choice new york ship versus the one from butcher box and you can clearly see which one has more marbling this marbling has a direct effect on both the texture and taste of the meat in terms of texture this fat is solid at room temperature but when it is cooked that fat melts away leading to juicier meat in terms of taste you may have heard the phrase fat is flavor because it's actually the fat that provides us most of that beefy flavor that we know and love for example a super lean piece of steak from the same cut will taste less beefy than the same cut with more marbling and fat throughout the cut of the steak though also makes a big difference in the fat content of the steak which brings us to what cut do i choose when choosing a steak for pan searing there are three that are probably most common the ribeye the strip steak and the tenderloin also known as the filet mignon as mentioned in the food lab for all three you are really making a choice between beefy flavor and tenderness placing beefy flavor on a scale first generally a rib eye will have the most marbling and fat and thus the beefiest flavor this will be followed by the slightly leaner new york strip and then fairly far down on the list will actually be the lean tenderloin or filet mignon the filet mignon is often the most expensive of the cuts but it will actually have the least amount of fat and beefy flavor which may make you ask why do people covet it so much well it's because of the tenderness the filet comes from a muscle that is rarely used and is thus supremely tender compared to anything else the new york strip is also tender and then that is followed closely by the rib eye whichever you do choose is up to you test them out next time you go to the grocery store for me the new york strip is my go-to as i really prefer the balance of flavor and texture but i absolutely love a rib eye as well the filet mignon is actually my least favorite the texture is incredible don't get me wrong but it's generally the most expensive and leaves a bit to be desired from a beefy flavors perspective so that's why it's really nice to pair with a pan sauce or something like that so to sum up this section first ask yourself do i want a beefy steak with more fat or do i want a really tender one to choose the cut based on the first answer and then look for that cut with the most intramuscular fat as this will lead to more flavor and a juicier stay and if you want to make it easy and ensure you are getting plenty of intramuscular fat in your steaks check out today's sponsor butcher box butcherbox is a high quality meat delivery service offering proteins like 100 grass-fed and pastures beef free-range chicken heritage breed pork products and wild caught seafood they source the meat you choose a custom-made or curated box and then it is delivered to your door in an eco-friendly box and always with free shipping when i started developing this video i needed a lot of steak like a lot here was the table that i said to butcher box and thanks to them i was able to create a custom box with all the cuts that i needed simple and convenient right now they are running their free ground beef for life promo where new members get two pounds of high quality ground beef added for free with every order during the lifetime of their subscription so to take advantage of this limited time sign up offer visit my link in the description below grab some steaks and now that we have those steaks chosen let's talk salt before we hop into the various methods i tested let's first go over what does salt actually do to a steak so first and most importantly salt amplifies flavor secondly it can affect the texture depending on when it is applied from sulfate acid heat it is noted that salt has its own taste but also enhances the flavor of other ingredients for our steak we want it to be salted but we don't want it to taste salty so for me i generally eyeball it and make sure i just have even coverage all over the steak but if you do want to rule i like to use 1.5 percent salt by weight for a dry brine so for a 280 gram piece of steak this would be about 4 grams of salt now if that's too salty for you or not salty enough just use more or less depending on what you see fit another interesting tidbit about salt is that salt or well seasoned food activates our saliva so all else being equal a well-salted piece of steak will be made juicier not only by the liquid in the steak itself but also by the saliva that is released in our mouth as we eat it from that savory goodness now i think everyone will agree that steak needs to be salted but let's talk about the more nuanced topic when should steak be salted so depending on when salt is added to the steak it can affect its internal seasoning and its texture time is the variable we are looking to test here so in general you can salt your steak right before cooking salt it in advance or salt it after it's cooked you see when salt is applied to a steak it begins to diffuse into the meat internally seasoning it and here's a test to see that i salted a steak two hours before cooking it and then salted one right before cooking it seared them both cooked to 130 degrees fahrenheit internal then let them rest before cutting off a slice to eat and here's the plot twist i cut the exterior off the one that was salted two hours ahead of time tastes seasoned and enhanced still but the one that was salted right before tastes fairly bland because all the seasoning was on the exterior it didn't have time to diffuse into the meat now let's take texture into account so salt also initiates osmosis which draws water out of the steak and you'll actually be able to see some water droplets on your steak after just 10 or 15 minutes but don't worry that water will go back in with enough time though the salt dissolved protein strands in the steak that allow it to absorb and retain water as they cook with these protein strands slightly dissolved the more water they retain and the juicier the meat will feel when we actually go to eat it my question is though how much juicier let's experiment so these are the figures listed from a table in the science of barbecue and grilling for brining for a one inch steak the bare minimum you need is about two hours so i wanted to test both sides of that for both texture and flavor i took four new york strip steaks noted the weight down before salting then salted one overnight for 18 hours salted one for two hours before cooking one right before and then left one completely plain for cooking which i will salt afterwards once it is sliced i cooked all the steaks to 130 degrees fahrenheit and immediately documented their weights after cooking and here are the percentages for the moisture retention at each stage so from this data it looks like we can say that yes saltine in advance will increase moisture retention and thus juiciness however i will say the biggest factor for steak texture is what temperature the steak was actually cooked to for example even if you brine a steak but then cook it to 150 or 160 fahrenheit internal it's not going to be magically as juicy as one that was cooked to 130 or 135 that wasn't brined more on that in just a bit the more important benefit in my opinion is the even seasoning that we get from salt diffusion and here are my thoughts and rankings on these various methods after tasting them so i have all these steaks and just taste tested all of them thought i'd give you my kind of personal ranking on the various salt methods so first of all all of them taste good like i would have no problem eating any of them but to start with this one this is seasoning after so i cut it up mixed in some salt kind of mixed it with the juices and whatnot so for me this one is kind of salt forward so it's because the salt is all over the exterior it's kind of you know from the juices coating it with the salt you kind of get a salt like reaction right away which for me is not exactly what i'm looking for in a steak i want it to be kind of a more subtle thing and then the salt kind of disappears right away though as you're biting through it like it sticks on your tongue but then it quickly goes away and then you kind of just have like the the plain meat taste which for me is is not what i like then kind of a similar thing happens with just saltine right before you know throwing salt on then cooking it it's definitely more seasoned on the outside because that's where the salt is but as you kind of chew through it you kind of realize like hey this is like not that great especially when i cut off the exterior it was wildly different like it was a bad steak when i cut off the exterior um as far as the brines i 1 000 it is so worth it if you have the extra hour or two to do a brine these ones are significantly better than these two in my opinion um just very well seasoned and there's not a big difference between two hours versus 18 hours at least i didn't i can't really notice anything in there so give yourself at least an hour or two if you know for like an inch steak i think is perfectly fine but all of these are very good i will say the brines they didn't have a massive effect on juiciness like i feel like these are just as good because really i think the kind of the perception of juiciness we get is really more about the temperature not the brine assuming that these are both cooked to the correct temperature so that's kind of my personal ranking brian if i have the time then i guess i'd do salt right before and then saltine after be the last one but ultimately the big mistake would be using no salt at all so keep that in mind and let's watch the rest of the video so all that being said this brings us to our big conclusion on this section first make sure you salt your steak at some point however if you do have the time salting in advance at least one to two hours for a one inch take will internally season the meat through diffusion and slightly increase moisture retention and juiciness through osmosis now salt is a powerful level that affects the taste and texture of the steak but another lever that also affects both of these massively is how we apply heat to our steak and this leads us to our next topic how do i cook a steak for most an ideal steak is a juicy interior with a browned and slightly crisp crust if possible and when you think of cooking a steak think of it like this the method i choose to apply heat is a way to control the temperature and thus the interior and exterior of the steak as the steak is cooked energy is transferred to the exterior which in turn transfers heat to the interior through conduction so the next question is why do people like rare and medium rare steak well that all comes down to the meat protein structure and moisture retention at various temperatures from the usda this table shows how much water is in the muscles of meat and shockingly to me at least for beef it's as high as 70 percent water and no matter how we cook a steak at least some of this water will be released but in general the lower the temperature the less will be released this is why a rare steak at 120 degrees fahrenheit will have less moisture loss than its well done counterpart at maybe 160. so i recreated an experiment from the food lab by j kenji lopez alt i took four new york strip steaks salted them for two hours before weighed them before cooking then pan seared them to 120 130 140 and 150 internal i weighed them and then collected the data then i did the same test with a different methodology by slicing up a single unsalted steak into roughly equal pieces then slowly bringing them to temp at 250 degrees fahrenheit in the oven and here is the moisture loss for both of my data sets as well as kenji's and obviously it's not a perfect lab test but we can clearly see a trend here in the data sets and as expected the rare steak had the least amount of moisture loss this would make you think that rare steak must have the best texture right well it may be for some but i would argue that it has worse texture and worse flavor in my opinion the more important factor in the texture of steak is the actual meat protein structure and thanks to this amazing chart from on food and cooking we can see what happens at various temperatures take a look at the meat qualities column so at 120 degrees the steak is becoming firmer but it's still fairly slick which some may like but i definitely prefer the slightly firmer texture at 130 or 135. additionally if you see the connective tissue collagen column at 130 degrees fahrenheit the collagen sheets begin to weaken which turns into gelatin and also remember that marbling we talked about earlier that fat will begin to render at 130 degrees which lubricates the meat making it taste juicy and more tender while also delivering fat soluble flavor compounds meaning it tastes beefier for a rare steak at 120 degrees the fat does not render and actually will feel a bit mushy or slippery which is why many people do not like rare steak also when you taste it it is noticeably less beefy in a side-by-side test just give this one a try next time you cook some steak the obvious next question is how do i cook a steak to a certain rareness sous-vide reverse seer pan searing broiling they're all methods to cook steak that i will be covering in a separate video at some point but at the end of the day these methods are all about controlling the doneness that you like for a basic pan-seared steak i think using a thermometer is the easiest way to do it from my point of view if i'm going to spend 10 or 15 dollars on a nice steak at home i'd rather use the thermometer and know my steak is going to come out exactly how i like it and you can critically see and taste the differences if you do want to do some testing for yourself i'll leave links below to the various thermometers that i have and like to use depending on the situation now if you don't like to use a thermometer you can absolutely do it by feel you just have to develop the knack for what a rare medium rare well-done steak feels like for the various cups and also keep a better eye on it throughout cooking some steaks like the filet mignon are harder to tell because they feel really tender seemingly at every temperature i typically let my steaks go on their own and then i'll touch them when i think they are close-ish and then i'll just verify it with my thermometer for me i like to pull my steaks roughly 5 degrees before the preferred target temp due to carry over cooking though truthfully it is hard to judge so what is carryover cooking well as soon as you take that steak off the heat it doesn't just stop cooking the exterior here is still 170 degrees fahrenheit so even though a lot of that heat will start expelling outwards into the room some of that heat is still going to work inside to the meat increasing the temperature and how much depends on the thickness of the steak a thicker steak holds more energy than a thinner one and thus will increase the internal temperature more for this roughly one inch strip steak i observed an increase of about six or seven degrees after pulling it on the pan again we'll cover methods in a separate video but for now think about that chart and use a thermometer to nail the texture you want your steak to have at home with the internal temperature covered let's talk about what's going on the exterior with why do you want a sear on your steak the reason we want a good sear or crust on the steak is partly for texture and color yes give me those crispy little brown bits all day but more importantly it's for flavor and let me introduce you to mr louis mayar the mayor reaction is the chemical reaction that causes food to brown when sugars and proteins are heated like roasting mead or getting a brown crust on bread this browning creates flavor compounds that create complexity and is another reason why the steak tastes beefier here's a chart from on food and cooking showing some of the flavors from this reaction it's the same key reaction behind the crust on smash burgers and many of the foods that we know and love so now that we know we want a good crust the question is now how do you get a good crust on a steak again from our friend kenji he notes that in order for a steak to brown these three things will need to happen in order first the exterior surface temperature of the steak must rise to 212 degrees fahrenheit second the heat must evaporate the surface moisture and third the heat must increase to approximately at least 300 degrees fahrenheit or higher where the mare reaction or browning actually starts to occur so you may be thinking if the steak only needs to hit 212 and then 300 why does everyone say you need a ripping hot pan well the key is you want to spend as little time as possible in those first two stages and here's a simple experiment showing why i took a rib eye steak and cooked one with a pan temp of 300 degrees using some butter basting and i just cooked it until the final temp was 130 internal but as you can see there's no delicious brownie in sight then i cooked another steak this time at roughly 350 degrees fahrenheit until i developed a good crust beautifully brown this time but when you slice it open it's as dry as the sahara desert in both cases the pan wasn't hot enough and as you can see you'll either get a properly cooked interior with no browning or a great brownie with a supremely overdone interior and we want to find the happy medium between those two now it's really the second step that needs to be filled as fast as possible because the moisture is the number one thing that will stop a steak from getting nice and brown this is why i shoot for at least 450 degrees fahrenheit on the surface of my pan so in order to make our steak sear as efficiently as possible here's a little checklist that you can go through first start with a dry surface on the steak excess moisture takes longer to sear second use a heavy pan the heavier the pan the more energy it will retain which is why many prefer cast iron though carbon steel or stainless steel work just fine as well i think i'm going to do a video testing pan types third use a ripping hot pan again i'm shooting for 450 degrees fahrenheit or higher if you don't have a surface thermometer though as kenji points out you can use the lead in frost effect i'll link the article for you if you want to check it or if your pan is smoking that's typically a good sign fourth and finally use a fat using oil in the pan or right on the steak is going to increase the thermal contact between the meat and the pan meaning more efficient heat transfer and using these four guidelines should help you get to a beautifully brown crust it's also prudent to note that thicker steaks make it much much easier to get a browned exterior and medium-rare medium interior since it takes longer to cook and more heat to do so for a thinner cut steak you're definitely going to have your work cut out for you now there are a lot more areas for exploration such as butter basing using mayo and testing different pans but here are the basic principles learned from this section on heat so as soon as you pull that steak off the heat there are now three more things you may want to think about carryover cooking resting and slicing so we covered carryover cooking earlier but as a quick reminder the heat on the exterior of the steak will move inward and continue raising the internal temperature of the steak depending on the thickness for the newer strips that i cook i typically target about 125 internal and then just let it come up to 130 on the plate now let's talk about resting so if you cut into a steak right away you may notice juices start to expel on your plate compared to one that maybe has rested for five or ten minutes why is that well as we talked before when cooking a steak we are expelling moisture through tightening of the muscle fibers but when those are allowed to cool a bit two key things are happening number one the structure of the muscle fiber loosens allowing them to hold more moisture and number two the proteins and dissolved fats will start to cool and thicken up both of these things result in a steak that when cut retains more moisture in its slices giving us a succulent mouth feel so it sounds like you should just rest your steak every time right well not so fast here's the other side of the argument so i recreated an experiment done in the science of great barbecuing and grilling i took two steaks cooked to 130 degrees internal then immediately sliced one of them into strips then i let the other rest and then cool down to 125 before slicing them as soon as they were cut i placed the strips in a funnel and collected the juices in a beaker for both so clearly the one that wasn't rested at all has a lot more juices lost down in the beaker however this is only like 10 milliliters in practice both are still absolutely delicious and i think it depends on the situation if you need to rest it or not for one it's not like these juices are just gone you can always just pour them over your steak which is exactly what i did but let me explain a scenario for you so i typically rest my steak all the time especially if i pull it off early at 125 and account for the carry-over cooking it should give me the perfect doneness and allow everything to relax however if i accidentally overcook my steak and don't pull it off until 135 or 140 if i let this steak to rest that carryover cooking may bump it up all the way to 150. so i have a decision make do i slice it now to kind of halt that carryover cooking process but have more juices expelled or do i let it cook but retain more juices in the steak itself i'll let you decide at home but lastly let's talk about slicing so you may have heard always slice across the grain for a steak and this does matter a lot for certain cuts like tri-tip flank and skirt steak because these are whole muscle cuts however all of the cuts that i talked about today have already been cut from a whole muscle for example if you stack these new york strips the muscle is running long up and down and thus these stakes have already been cut across the grain now you could technically make a diagonal cut to go against the grain again but it's really not necessary and with that here's the recap on the section of what do you do with your steak after you pull it off the heat so i know that was a ton of information in this video and like i said everything's time stamp below including just the little recaps of each section if you want to refer back to them but i think it's safe to say that we all have our bachelor's degree in steak now again this video was all about the fundamentals of cooking steak you know there are already so many other ideas and video topics i have planned like you know what's the best pan for searing a steak how about different fats mayo versus oil or how does the steak change when you use reverse sear versus a sous-vide and what are pros and cons of both but before we get to those videos they're really all built on the fundamentals that were discussed in this one so if you guys have enjoyed definitely drop me a like and subscribe thank you again to butcherbox for sponsoring today's video and let me know down in the comments if you do enjoy this type of video for me it is a lot more work but i really do enjoy making these and i feel like these videos don't really exist that kind of cover holistically the basics of you know what how do you cook a steak or maybe how do you make bread or some of these other topics so i'd like to do more of these videos in the future but that's going to wrap it up for me in this one i will catch you all in the next one go make some mistakes peace y'all you

Channel: Ethan Chlebowski

Views: 200,184

Rating: 4.9653282 out of 5

Keywords: Ethan Chlebowski, everything you need to know about steak, steak 101, steak basics, steak, how to choose a steak, select vs choice vs prime, what cut of steak, cuts of steak, steak cuts, when to salt a steak, steak dry brine, what does heat do to steak, how to cook a steak, rare steak vs medium rare, how to sear a steak, how do you sear a steak, carryover cooking, how to slice a steak, resting steak, how to cook steak, how to cook the perfect steak, medium rare

Id: LBWlPS0sTfA

Length: 24min 26sec (1466 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021