Ultimate Guide to Grilling a STEAK on a Charcoal Grill

Not all steak grilling methods are created equal .

You have to know how but more importantly when to apply them .

Let's take these two steaks for an example .

I've got a Fabulous 2.5 inch thick tomahawk rib eye as well as a one inch thick T bone .

Now , the tomahawk is gonna take a lot longer to cook and you're gonna have to do it a different way .

So let's get started for thick steaks over an inch and a half thick .

You're gonna want to use the method of choice and that is the reverse sear and that's where you start off low and slow to get it warmed all the way through .

Then you get a dripping hot bed of coals and get an amazing crust in the end .

The biggest mistake that I've made with grilling steaks is using the verser method when I shouldn't for a thin steak .

If you start to warm it through and then go and sear it .

If you're shooting for medium rare , you may end up in medium well territory or all the way to well done .

This really only works for the thicker steaks of an inch and a half thick or thicker to set up the kettle for the verse .

Sear add about 15 charcoal briquettes and that should be enough to get us to 250 degrees .

That's not enough charcoal briquettes to use a chimney .

So , go ahead and use whatever your favorite fire lighting method is .

Another one of the big mistakes that I've made is not waiting long enough to put the steaks on the grill .

It should take 10 or 15 minutes after you shut the lid .

But the smoke is the best tell if it looks like that , it's not ready .

What you want is something that's a lot closer to clear .

Otherwise you're gonna mask the flavor of the beef with some nasty smoke and you want that steak to shine through .

Now , we're ready to put it on the grill .

You want to take your meat and put it on the side opposite the coals , the coals are over here and the meat's over there that'll keep it from burning .

Then you put the vent right over the meat and that's gonna give you better convection .

So the heat will move over the steak and out through the vent , it's gonna cook a lot better .

That way .

I'm gonna let this go until it reaches 100 and 15 degrees internal temperature for medium rare .

But I'm also gonna flip it halfway through somewhere around 90 degrees because it's gonna cook a little bit faster from the top to the bottom and we want to keep things even .

And if you're wondering how I prep the steaks .

I used a half a teaspoon of salt per pound of meat and then I put them in the fridge uncovered .

So that way they can dry brine a little bit .

The thin steak was for eight hours and the larger steak was overnight , or at least it would have been if it wasn't frozen solid yesterday .

But you gotta pick your battles .

Now , go ahead and try it both ways .

If you have a dry brine steak versus a regular steak , you're gonna find that the dry brine steak is a lot juicier and the salt flavor goes through it rather than just on the surface .

And now for my favorite part , the sear , if you're doing this right , you wanna start three quarters of a chimney of charcoal and make it fully lit .

Right .

As that steak reaches that magic temperature of about 100 and 15 F , it is pretty hard to do that and get it timed .

Exactly .

Perfect .

And so if you have to air on the side of getting it done after the steak reaches that temperature , so you can always take it off and put it off to the side and then get those coals later .

But if you've got a pile of ash , you're gonna have to start over and get the coals lit again .

Now that the coals are fully lit .

I'm gonna bank them on one side of the kettle .

So that way we get a really hot sear zone and that would have been a little bit easier with something like the slow and sea , which helps gather everything together , but you can totally do it without any extra accessories .

I'm going to let that sit for a minute or two just to make sure the coals are fully lit and I wait until the last minute to put the grill grates on because if they're sitting there over the fire , they're going to get really hot and you're going to burn your meat as soon as you put it on there .

The trick here is to sear each side for a minute twice .

So that would be a total of four minutes and that should give you a pretty good sear .

After that , we'll check the internal temperature .

If you're not getting the sear that you like in the second round , let it go just a little bit longer and then you can get a beautiful crust and I'm going to cook the thin T bone the exact same way .

I'm going straight for the sear , gonna go one minute per side twice for a total of four minutes and then we'll check the temperature and if they're not quite done , I'll just go put them over on the cool side , put the lid on it and then let it cook for just a little bit longer .

Don't let it go too long because it's going to heat up pretty quick .

And when it comes to medium rare , I like to pull my steaks at about 130 F because it'll warm up just a little bit after you take them off .

Both steaks have reached 130 F .

So I'm gonna take them off and let them rest .

This little one is going to take a little bit less time , maybe a couple of minutes before you cut in to it .

But if you have a big thick tomahawk , like this one , you're gonna want to give it five or 10 minutes before you cut into it that allow the juices to redistribute and make it extra juicy for you .

You probably noticed that I didn't put any seasoning other than salt before I cooked it and that's because the sear will absolutely burn any seasoning that you put on there .

Now is the time to add it with a little knob of butter .

It's gonna be out of this world .

The steak is so good and I wish I could share it with you .

But what I can share with you is my guide to getting the juiciest chicken breast is right over here .

I'll test three different methods and find out which one comes out on top