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When to Start Grilling Steak on a Charcoal Grill

When grilling steak, should you wait until the briquettes in the chimney are covered with ash?

When grilling steak, should you wait until the briquettes in the chimney are covered with ash?

We set up two chimneys filled with charcoal briquettes: The first we allowed to burn for 20 minutes until the coals were covered with ash. The second we allowed to burn for 13 minutes, at which point half the coals had ignited and were smoking. After dumping each chimney into its own grill and letting the grills heat for five minutes, we cooked a 1-pound strip steak on each. Using remote temperature probes, we measured the temperature of each steak as it cooked and the temperature of the air near the grill grate at two-minute intervals until each steak was cooked to medium-rare (125 degrees).

The two steaks cooked in almost the same amount of time, 13 minutes on the first grill and 15 minutes on the second. Yet the color of the steaks and temperatures of the grills were very different. The first grill ran about 100 degrees hotter, with the highest temperature recorded at the four-minute mark. The steak cooked on this grill was well browned and crusty due to the high initial temperature, even though the grill gradually cooled down. The second grill maintained a fairly consistent temperature throughout, but the steak never achieved a nice crust. Igniting just half the coals in a chimney meant the grill didn’t get hot enough to give the steak a crust in the time it took for it to cook through.

THE BOTTOM LINE  For quick-cooking meats like steaks, don’t start grilling until the coals in the chimney are covered with fine gray ash.

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