....or letting the meat start at room temp rather than pulling it from a cold fridge and dumping it in a smoker can change optimal cook times significantly in thicker cuts.
No, I have not, sadly. The best pulled pork I've I made myself in the oven and it was not smoked... 8 hours at 250 deg IIRC.Ummm wow, you've never had BBQ pork that's been smoked at 200 degrees for 24 hours then.
That's been proven false. There's absolutely no reason to let meat come to room temp. That's not to say that people still won't preach that as gospel. They heard it somewhere so it must be true!
If not... of course it's true, it's simple science. If it's cold, it takes longer for the heat to get to the center, so it takes longer to cook and it's more diffficult to cook it evenly.
I think it might be a different tale with barbecue, if you're doing a hunk of meat that's more like 5-15lbs versus 1lb.Here's just 1 link, many others like this exists. Awaiting any counterpoints with actual data.
Here's just 1 link, many others like this exists. Awaiting any counterpoints with actual data.
The Theory: You want your meat to cook evenly from edge to center. Therefore, the closer it is to its final eating temperature, the more evenly it will cook. Letting it sit on the counter for 20 to 30 minutes will bring the steak up to room temperature—a good 20 to 25°F closer to your final serving temperature. In addition, the warmer meat will brown better because you don't need to waste energy from the pan to take the chill off of its surface.
The Reality: Let's break this down one issue at a time. First, the internal temperature. While it's true that slowly bringing a steak up to its final serving temperature will promote more even cooking, the reality is that letting it rest at room temperature accomplishes almost nothing.
To test this, I pulled a single 15-ounce New York strip steak out of the refrigerator, cut it in half, placed half back in the fridge, and the other half on a ceramic plate on the counter. The steak started at 38°F and the ambient air in my kitchen was at 70°F. I then took temperature readings of its core every ten minutes.
After the first 20 minutes—the time that many chefs and books will recommend you let a steak rest at room temperature—the center of the steak had risen to a whopping 39.8°F. Not even a full two degrees. So I let it go longer. 30 minutes. 50 minutes. 1 hour and 20 minutes. After 1 hour and 50 minutes, the steak was up to 49.6°F in the center. Still colder than the cold water comes out of my tap in the summer, and only about 13% closer to its target temperature of a medium-rare 130°F than the steak in the fridge.
You can increase the rate at which it warms by placing it on a highly conductive metal, like aluminum,* but even so, it'd take you at least an hour or so to get up to room temperature—an hour that would be better spent by, say, actively warming your steak sous-vide style in a beer cooler.
*protip: thaw frozen meat in an aluminum skillet to cut your thaw time in half!
After two hours, I decided I'd reached the limit of what is practical, and had gone far beyond what any book or chef recommends, so I cooked the two steaks side by side. For the sake of this test, I cooked them directly over hot coals until seared, then shifted them over to the cool side to finish.* Not only did they come up to their final temperature at nearly the same time (I was aiming for 130°F), but they also showed the same relative evenness of cooking, and they both seared at the same rate.
*Normally I'd start them on the cool side and finish them on the hot like in this recipe, but that method would have obscured the results of this test.
The cooking rate makes sense—after all, the room temperature-rested steak was barely any warmer on the inside than the fridged-steak, but what about the searing? The outer layer of the rested steak must be warm enough to make a difference, right?
Here's the issue: Steak can't brown until most of the moisture has evaporated from the layers of meat closest to the surface, and it takes a hell of a lot of energy to evaporate moisture. To put it in perspective. It takes five times more energy to convert a single gram of water into steam than it does to raise the temperature of that water all the way from ice cold to boiling hot. So when searing a steak, the vast majority of energy that goes into it is used to evaporate moisture from its surface layers. Next to that energy requirement, a 20, 30, or even 40 degree difference in the temperature of the surface of the meat is a piddling affair.
The Takeaway: Don't bother letting your steaks rest at room temperature. Rather, dry them very thoroughly on paper towels before searing. Or better yet, salt them and let them rest uncovered on a rack in the fridge for a night or two, so that their surface moisture can evaporate. You'll get much more efficient browning that way.
http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/06/the-food-lab-7-old-wives-tales-about-cooking-steak.html
I think it might be a different tale with barbecue, if you're doing a hunk of meat that's more like 5-15lbs versus 1lb.
Also, we now know thanks to the AmazingRibs.com science advisor, Dr. Greg Blonder, smoke sticks better to cold surfaces. Here are three beer cans. The one on the right sat on my desk during the experiment. The one on the left was filled with ice water and placed in a smoker. The one in the middle was empty and placed in the smoker. You can see that the cold wet surface of the one on the left attracted more smoke and thus more flavor.
I like hipsters joining the BBQ world. Many have classic culinary trainings and backgrounds and they bring new insights. You need new blood and experimentation for the field to advance. As someone who loves BBQ, I welcome it as long as I can still buy cheap meats.
Ns1, at Mensho Tokyo SF, hispanics were doing the prepping and the cooking in the kitchen. I watched them as they made my ramen. So does that mean it's not good ramen shop as well?
Sriracha
Strawberries
Red apples
Sushi
I was just throwing it out there. Interesting though.The science of amazingribs.com says to start cold.
http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/mythbusting_letting_meat_come_to_room_temp.html
The science of amazingribs.com says to start cold.
http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/mythbusting_letting_meat_come_to_room_temp.html
It's called overrated.It's called steak.
If you call something else steak, you have to qualify which type.
If by "classic culinary training" to mean those couples classes hosted by other hipsters out of their own kitchen, then yes, they're trained alright. No, a shit-ton of these guys come from money and they most likely have degrees from Duke or Brown. They are the slightly younger generation of family whose older brothers now make "bespoked" beer.
No, I have not, sadly. The best pulled pork I've I made myself in the oven and it was not smoked... 8 hours at 250 deg IIRC.
I guess any pork is going to be awesomesauce when smoked for 24 hours - pulled or not. So the "pulled" part is probably still overrated
Sarcasm?
If not... of course it's true, it's simple science. If it's cold, it takes longer for the heat to get to the center, so it takes longer to cook and it's more diffficult to cook it evenly.
wait. wait. wait.
did zimfamous say that bacon is better than ham?
no. no. fuck no.
given the choice between bacon and ham, ham wins every time.
Damn, this thread is making me hungry. Now I have a craving for ham.
Sperm is actually called milt. It's a different delicacy, distinct from uni.
I escaped from an event with about 2 liters of fancy white truffle oil and thought I was somehow running away with liquid gold. And then i opened it, and tried to put it on a few things....I love mushrooms and truffles occasionally, but I have no idea what this white truffle oil is for, other than making food taste like butt.
LOL.
The truffle salt I bought smells awful, but tastes wonderful as a finishing salt. Based on your *review* of white truffle oil, I'm certainly not gonna be adding it to my grocery list anytime soon.
Give truffle salt a try, you may enjoy it.
All kidding aside, I can't believe you actually knew that and had to look it up to confirm.
actually, I prefer Shoulder Ham instead of leg ham.If you're talking about that nasty ham that people serve during the holidays eww.
Gimme some good euro ham any day.