I made this time-lapse doneness chart. Share here in case anyone finds it helpful

At some point, I learned that after sliced open, the slice color would change and become redder over time. This is because the myoglobin in the meat turns into oxymyoglobin after exposure to oxygen in the air. Existing doneness charts are not that accurate as they barely provide photos at a single time.

After realizing this, I decided to make a time-lapse doneness chart to have a better understanding of the colors. (The details of making the chart are at the bottom.) P1 and P2 are the doneness time-lapse animation and chart. The steaks were bought from Whole Foods. P4 and P5 are an earlier version made with steaks from Meijer. They didn’t look that satisfactory due to the white fat, so I redid everything and made P1 and P2 instead.

As you can see, the color itself isn’t always an accurate doneness indicator. But it can be made a lot more accurate when combined with juiciness or perhaps fiber contraction.

Note that there are many other factors that can affect the color: cow breed, cut, cooking method, lighting, etc. So, take with a grain of salt the charts I made here.

Perhaps this post might not be liked by many as it’s more on the science (and boring) side. Thanks for bearing with me though! Have been in this sub for half a year ever since I started cooking steaks, and I learned a lot about steaks and how to cook them. So, in addition to getting my curiosity satisfied, hope this post can help people in this sub struggling with figuring out the steak doneness.

— More details about making the chart—

The steaks are NY strip steaks from the same store (P1, P2 Whole Foods, P4, P5 Meijer). They were cooked via sous vide to the exact target temp for 1.5hrs, followed by quick pan searing. The lighting and camera shooting setup were fixed for every slice, and the white balance of the camera was also calibrated.

by dzdhr