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Caveman Steak: Cooking Right on the Coals

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Elderberry:
ThermoBlog by Martin Earl

Meat + Fire = Dinner is the primal recipe for mankind’s first meal. The ancient discovery that cooked meat is objectively tastier than raw meat is part of what made our society—part of what made us, well, human. And isn’t that true of Thermapen® ONE, also? Maybe not, but it sure helps you cook your meat more precisely than early man did. And we all know that it’s fun sometimes to go back and cook old family recipes, so celebrate that earliest of cook-outs with a caveman steak!

What is a caveman steak?

Caveman steaks, also called dirty steaks, fire steaks, or even Eisenhower steaks (after the president, who liked to cook very large sirloins this way), are thick-cut steaks (1.5–2” thick) cooked directly on the coals of a lump charcoal fire. This is literally cooking at its most basic.
Steak cooked on the coals: why it works

HOT coals

When we usually talk about searing a steak, we recommend heating your cast-iron pan to scorching heat. This goes beyond that. Real lump charcoal has a tastier, smokier flavor than briquettes, but more importantly, it burns hotter. How hot? Well, we pulled out an IRK-2 infrared thermometer to check the heat of the coals before we started cooking. The IRK-2 has a maximum temperature range of 1022°F (550°C), and it read “Hi,” indicating a temperature in excess of its maximum reading. So we pulled out an Industrial IR, with a higher maximum temperature of 1400°F (760°C) and found the temperature of the lump coals to peak just above 1200°F (677°C). If you want a good sear on your steak, that temperature is going to give it to you.

What about the ash?

The first thing everyone asks about cooking meat directly on the coals is, “What about all the ash?” And the honest answer is, “It’s really not a problem.” Before you throw your steaks on the fire—literally—fan off any excess ash from the surface of the coals with a newspaper, palm leaf, or any piece of cardboard you have lying around. When you put the wet, oxygen-impermeable steak on the coals, the part that is touching the meat gets, in essence, extinguished, and can’t reignite. It produces no ash during the cooking. All the heat in the coals will be generated within the coal itself, not on the exterior.

That being said, many people like to keep a natural-bristle pastry brush on hand to brush any ash off that may find its way to the meat. However, Alton Brown says he doesn’t brush it off, that the little extra char flavor is welcome to him. We agree.

Some recipes you will find for this method avoid seasoning the steak with anything but salt, but we prefer to cook caveman steak as the cavemen of ancient India may have: with lots of pepper. People tend to avoid seasoning the steaks because they fear the seasonings might burn. We didn’t find this to be a problem. Yes, some of the peppercorns burned, but that happens with any steak au poivre. And flavorful ash is literally all the rage in the fanciest of restaurants these days. If it offends your sensibilities, brush it off with that pastry brush we talked about. But it’s tasty.

Temperature for steak cooked on the coals

Carryover cooking is all about gradients. If the outside millimeters of your steak are only 10° above the center, then there isn’t as much heat exchange that will happen after cooking as when the outside is 75° hotter than the center. Given equal thicknesses and starting temperatures, a steak cooked in a hotter environment will experience more carryover cooking than one cooked in a cooler environment.

Well, when the exterior of your steak is sitting in a bed of 1200°F (649°C) coals, there is a lot of thermal energy being pumped into that exterior. The internal temperature gradients can be steep in steak cooked this way, so you’ll need to plan for a lot more carryover than you would with a steak cooked in an oven or on a grill. Plan for up to 15°F (8°C) of carryover at the thermal center, rather than the standard 5°F (3°C). This means for medium rare, you’ll want to pull your steak at a temperature as low as 115°F (46°C) to finish at 130°F  (54°C )—or pull at 120°F (49°C) to finish at 135°F (57°C) for medium doneness. And pay attention. This cooking method is fast. It will only take a total of 3-5 minutes per side on a thick steak, but we find the doneness is more even if we flip the steaks about every 60–90 seconds during the cook. It takes a couple flips for the sear to set, but it does eventually. Six to ten flips and the steak is usually ready.

More: https://blog.thermoworks.com/bbq-grilling/caveman-steak-cooking-right-on-the-coals/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpO8kb1SG5c

240B:
Have always cooked steak this way. Never knew what to call it or that it was common.
Burnt steak outside, rare on the inside, is my perfect steak.

Sighlass:
They are doing about 125 degrees in the center, I think 165 (if memory serves me) is what is highly suggested to kill stuff (especially pork). I tend to cook mine a little hotter though I agree you get more flavor not overheating.

I risk some red in my steaks, not my porkchops.

roamer_1:
BIG YEP... Or on a hot rock. Different, but same theory. The rocks of the fire pit are often dang near as hot as the coals... But best is to spit the thing and put it in the smoke for a while... THEN finish it off in the coals or on a close grill.

roamer_1:
And btw... eating ash... well charcoal... is natural de-wormer, and can settle your belly.

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