I'm Just Here for the Food_ Version 2.0 - Alton Brown [23]
Both the steaks from the right side, those from zones A and B, with ice cube melt times of 24 and 35 seconds looked the best, and once sliced, the steaks were very close to perfect: the steak from zone A was on the medium-rare side of rare, and the steak from zone B was on the rare side of medium-rare. Both steaks were darned tasty. The steaks from the slower sectors were undercooked inside and out. I hypothesized from this that if an ice cube melted on the grate in 30 seconds, give or take a couple of seconds either way, you could produce a darned fine steak in 8 minutes, 4 on each side with a twist after 2. Subsequent testings bore this out. At one point, the ice took over 50 seconds to melt so I stopped and added more charcoal; 15 minutes later we were back to 25 seconds and great steak.
Next I wanted to find out how much the grate material itself mattered, so I replaced the cast-iron grates with the standard-issue grate from my Weber and retested.
GRILLING: THE SHORT FORM
• A clean grill grate is important. You can clean a grate in a self-cleaning oven or use your muscle and a pumice stone.
• For direct cooking, spread coals in a single layer that extends approximately 2 inches beyond where food will cook, with briquettes barely touching each other. For indirect cooking, place your food over a drip pan and mound the briquettes along the sides of the pan.
• The number of briquettes needed depends on the size and type of grill you’re using and the amount of food being cooked. A general rule is 30 briquettes to grill 1 pound of meat.
• Their grayish white color indicates that coals are hot and ready. You shouldn’t see much in the way of smoke or flames because the compounds that produce them are gone.
• If you need to lower the heat, try raising the height of your grill rack, spacing coals farther apart, covering the grill, or closing the grill’s air vents. On the other hand, if you want to increase the heat, try gently poking the coals or moving them closer together.
• Once the grill is hot, wipe the grates down with a rag dipped in vegetable oil. Do this every time you use the grill.
• The best way to tame a flame is to choke off its air supply using the grill lid.
• Remember, charcoal burns about 200° hotter than a wood fire. Having a fire extinguisher on hand is always smart.
The melt times for the ice cubes were significantly longer—almost twice as long on the thin grate as for the same level of fire under the iron grates. That made sense. Conduction kicks butt when it comes to delivering heat, so the denser mass and greater surface area of the iron grates would deliver more heat to the ice quicker. To compensate for the lack of actual contact, I cranked the fire up physically and put on some more charcoal. Within another 15 minutes the fire was at its hottest.13 I dropped my ice again and hit the timer.
Hoping to conserve steak, I decided not to split hairs and went with the zone with the highest contrast, zones A and B again. As soon as the meat hit, I knew I’d have to change plans, as the meat in the zone A started popping and blackening around the edges almost immediately. At the 1-minute mark I turned the steak, but held to the 2-2, 2-2 timing of the original test for the steak in zone B. After 2 minutes, I turned the steak in zone A, exposing a surface that I would have called just short of burned. I figured it was toast but went ahead and let it cook another minute, then turned it and let it cook a final minute. I let both steaks rest 5 minutes.
When I sliced the steak from zone A, it was beautiful. As terrible as it had looked sitting on the plate, once cut, it revealed a beautiful red, medium-rare interior that contrasted nicely with the charred edge. Flavor-wise, it was a great contrast of char bite and creamy meatiness. All the tasters proclaimed this as their favorite; the steak from zone