The Original Dry Bag Steak | Make Artisan Dry Age Steak at Home › Forums › Recipes › UMAi Dry® Recipes › How do you like your steak done?
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Scott Mark.
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April 5, 2012 at 4:44 am #1390
Scott Mark
MemberLook, I know this is probably a controversial subject. And I have no interest in stirring the pot. Please join in ONLY if you can present your own viewpoint whilst respecting others’.
I wonder if dry-baggers tend to prefer one particular done-ness of steak, or if we run the rainbow of preference.
I’ve got my own preference, which (I think) is rare / medium rare. I do the steak sous-vide to 129 F, then pan sear briefly. My daughter claims that it’s overcooked, but what does she know? Sometimes I think that Meateater’s Monthly has a new cover model in the offing.
To posit: I posit that the folks who are interested in dry-aging tend toward the less-cooked (call it medium-rare for the moment) steak. Regardless of the reason.
It’s fine if I’m wrong. Am I?
Toasty
April 5, 2012 at 11:43 am #5954Andy Starvaski
MemberI prefer my steak mediium rare with a nice crust. Depending on the weather, I’ll cook either in a cast iron pan and then transfer it into the oven, or grill it over high heat.
I like to cook to an internal temperature of 118 and then it rest, covered for about 5 minutes. 🙂
I just picked up a Weber Gensis grill with a sear station and wow! Does that grill get hot. It can sear a steak beautifully.
It’s going to be a great summer! B)
April 5, 2012 at 12:46 pm #5955Barry
MemberMedium rare here too. The sear station sounds nice. Enjoy!
April 5, 2012 at 5:21 pm #5956Ron Pratt
MemberCount me in the medium rare group as well!
April 5, 2012 at 5:50 pm #5959MemberI admit that I started this because I was confused.
I was talking to a guy, and invited his family over for dinner. People being diverse, I asked “Do you eat steak?” and he answered “Whenever we can”.
But then, later, I asked all invitees to tell me if they didn’t like medium rare (Because we pre-cook the steaks in the sous-vide water bath, we need to know the temperature in advance — hang on. MAYBE we need to know the temperature in advance. I sense another experiment in the works!)
Anyway, he replied that they like steak in the medium to medium-well range.
I don’t judge this, but I don’t understand it, either. Cooking to that point removes a lot of the flavor. Why would one do that if one ate steak “Whenever we can” ??
It’s like saying “I love it, but I don’t like the taste, so cook that out.”
I’m quite perplexed by this.
For Monday, I’ve got a full ribeye dry-aging (it’ll get a week. Better than nothing). I’ll have 13-14 people for dinner. I’ll plan to sous-vide enough steak for ALL of us at the medium-rare (129F) level, to be sure that we don’t run out before _I_ get some, and enough for the claimed “medium” people at 145F. And we’ll see if anyone converts.
April 5, 2012 at 8:01 pm #5961MemberScott,
you didn’t start a controversy – but what gets me going is to see some dude in our favorite steak house (that we only visit once a year or every two years now) grab a bottle of A-1 and drown a $45 dry aged steak! Once I heard a guy exclaim “ain’t that great steak?” which drove me up the wall!
RonApril 6, 2012 at 2:49 am #5966Dave Kirkwood
MemberI would like to chime in here and try to answer Toasty’s question as to why people like thier steak medium to medium-well, my theroy anyway, from personal experience.
First let me state that the wifey and I like ’em medium rare.
At one point in my life when I was younger, i thought that I would get sick if I ate an “uncooked” steak, that had blood oozing out of it when I cut it. I was really turned off by the sight of it, so I would cook them to medium-well to well done.
Then I met my wife who like’s them medium rare, and I must say it slowly took me over the course of a couple of years, to convert to meduim rare, along with some education that I will not get “sick” if eating a steak that is medium-rare.
So to sum up, part of it may lay in the visual sense of a bloody steak, and another part is that it is unhealthy (get sick, trip to te hospital) to eat a steak that that is not “fully cooked”, which is not true.
Just my two cents is all….
April 6, 2012 at 3:52 am #5968MemberLet me start by saying that I respect everyone’s right to their own preference.
point 1: I admit that I like to dip sirloin in A-1 (actually, there’s another brand I prefer, but I don’t have either on hand and I can’t remember it. Something lofty in name, but not that expensive.). But, only sirloin. In my experience, sirloin has a different beefy taste than the other steaks, and it stands up well against (and is complemented by) steak sauce.
point 2: My parents are now pretty demanding about having a sauce at every meal, to the point where they become angry if I forget to make a sauce while they are visiting.
point 3: My biggest success yet with drybagging was a top sirloin that was aged for 30 days, cooked sous vide at 133 for five hours, and server for New Year’s eve dinner with three sauces: a very good mushroom whiskey sauce from Steamy Kitchens, a Bernaise sauce that consisted of McCormick powdered mix (use butter and heavy cream instead of margarine and milk.) and a jus made by the chef who was hosting. Everyone (except the chefs. that’s not a surprise) commented that this was the best beef they’d ever had, and it was _sirloin_. Not ribeye, not tenderloin. The sauces (especially the jus) may have helped. And it was kind of a jovial mood. So, take it with the proverbial grain of salt. Yes, I hate to see a great steak drowned in any kind of sauce. But, just as I enjoy a good rub for steak or ribs, I enjoy a hint of sauce on some steaks.
But – a hint only. And I find that, through drybag aging, the flavors are stronger and I _could_ use more sauce, but I _prefer_ to use less or none.
On to Kwood:
My understanding (and there MUST be some Medical Doctors on this list – please comment if you are willing) is that muscle cells contain liquid, but this liquid is not blood.
I understand what you are describing about getting sick. Meat at that point was different from what it is now, and getting it cooked medium was a safer plan. I remember a friend who was maybe 8 years older than I was telling me that he’d grown up with medium / medium-well beef, and had a total eye-opening experience when his brother took him to a restaurant and told him to order medium-rare.
And these people I’m having over — they’re in about that same age range, where they might have grown up in a “better medium than sorry” age. But they’ve passed that along to their kids! These guys are 14. Properly handled beef is safe to eat _raw_. Trichina is a thing of the past. Tonight we had pork loin that was cooked “sous-vide” at 129F for two hours. That would be unthinkable even 20 years ago.
So, I’m going to offer steaks at 145, and encourage them to try steak at 129 and see which they prefer. Sadly, I think I’m going to waste some 145 beef, but I think these kids are worth the expense.
April 8, 2012 at 6:33 am #5975Matthew Garcia
MemberI am in the medium rare group on this one but how do I achieve that?
As mentioned above I do the pan sear (I should lean to grill).
I heat the oven to 500F and throw the cast iron pan in for 15 minutes and then it will go on my hottest burner (16,000 BTUs) for 3 to 5 minutes. Basically the pan is pretty much white hot. Steaks are very simply seasoned with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Drop the steaks onto that pan and the fun begins. I sear for 45 seconds to 60 seconds on each side and then back into the 500F oven for 21/2 minutes on each side. For a 1 1/2″ steak this usually works very well to create medium rare steak with a lovely crust on the steaks.
April 8, 2012 at 6:36 am #5976MemberKwood wrote:
quote :I would like to chime in here and try to answer Toasty’s question as to why people like thier steak medium to medium-well, my theroy anyway, from personal experience.First let me state that the wifey and I like ’em medium rare.
At one point in my life when I was younger, i thought that I would get sick if I ate an “uncooked” steak, that had blood oozing out of it when I cut it. I was really turned off by the sight of it, so I would cook them to medium-well to well done.
Then I met my wife who like’s them medium rare, and I must say it slowly took me over the course of a couple of years, to convert to meduim rare, along with some education that I will not get “sick” if eating a steak that is medium-rare.
So to sum up, part of it may lay in the visual sense of a bloody steak, and another part is that it is unhealthy (get sick, trip to te hospital) to eat a steak that that is not “fully cooked”, which is not true.
Just my two sense is all….
It is has been my experience that people from the more rural areas prefer steak medium well to well (ugh) and people in the urban areas prefer rare to medium rare. Just my limited observation.
April 8, 2012 at 12:59 pm #5977MemberClaydon wrote:
quote :It is has been my experience that people from the more rural areas prefer steak medium well to well (ugh) and people in the urban areas prefer rare to medium rare. Just my limited observation.It has also been my lifetime observation that many people raised on a farm will not touch chicken…they must know something and don’t care to share it! :laugh:
April 10, 2012 at 3:47 pm #5986MemberOr the multitude of folks who wont touch pork unless it’s completely and utterly cooked through and dried out.
April 10, 2012 at 3:56 pm #5987MemberAndy wrote:
quote :Or the multitude of folks who wont touch pork unless it’s completely and utterly cooked through and dried out.We were discussing that very thing yesterday evening. We had a bunch of people over for dinner, which was based on (one-week-aged) ribeye from Sam’s Club. Several in the group were avowed medium / medium-well lovers but I think a few converted to medium-rare before the evening was over.
But the interesting thing (to me) was that — many years ago, trichina was a real threat, and cooking pork through was kinda necessary. And, maybe at that time, it was important to cook beef through.
But some of the KIDS preferred medium well to medium rare. I’m thinking “The days of cooking beef (cuts, not ground) through for safety are over. Why are you kids insisting on it?”
I don’t get it. I understand why people who learned to be wary of less-cooked beef would stick with their preference. But I don’t understand how it gets passed to the next generation, who haven’t grown up with a reason to fear it.
All told, I did some medium rare (129 F) and some medium / medium well (147 F) and everyone seemed happy. And I think I got a few converts.
Amazing how much fat there is in a ribeye, at twice the price of Top Sirloin. I am very much looking forward to the results of the 30-day side-by-side comparison of a Sam’s Club Top Sirloin and a Sam’s Club Ribeye.
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