I noticed that almost in every post in this sub that mentions ribeye or steak in general, people are always debating between 137°F/58°C vs lower such as 131°F/55°C
The main argument is that 137°F renders fat better, which results in more flavor. On the contrary, lower temp like 131°F prioritizes texture and juiciness. Yes, I am aware it's a subjective topic. In the end of the day, people does have different taste afterall.
HOWEVER, just a wild thought: What happens if combine both to bring out the best of the world?
For example, a 2inch/5cm thick ribeye, cooked 2 hours at 131°F to set the doneness, then followed by 30 mins at 137°F to render the fat more. Has anyone tried this before? Or is this simply not possible?
by Miserable_Boot2999
10 Comments
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I’m curious what people say, but I have a sense that turning up the temperature and leaving it in long enough for the entire piece to have its fat rendered all the way through is going to just cook it to the higher temperature and lose any of the effects of the lower temperature
I don’t know the answer, but I’m curious to see the feedback to this.
I’m on team 131 but would like my fat a bit more rendered so I’m following…
A sous vide steak is like butter after it’s cooked. The next day of there’s leftovers is still soft and juicy. A grilled steak has a bit more chew not saying it’s bad just different. With being said I’ll take sous vide all day
Wouldn’t that still cook the whole steak to 137? 30 minutes is a long time once inside starts from 131.
I’ve recently moved to smoking my steaks instead of sous vide – and I aim for 125 personally because then I get a better sear and baste without it getting well done in my cast iron and it seems that the fat renders pretty much to smoky tasty custardy texture. I also tend to cut up the 4 different sections of the ribeye and slice them up separately – except the rib, I just gnaw on it.
The doneness of a steak is determined primarily by the peak temperature it reaches during the cooking process – this is why carryover cooking must be considered when pulling a conventionally cooked steak off the heat source. In other words, once the interior of your steak hits 137, its juiciness will be that of a steak cooked at 137 the whole time.* Because of the relative speed of muscle fibers contracting, it really is an either/or in this case.
* Yes, prolonged cooking times will cause additional changes to the texture of the meat, but those take much longer times (>4 h) to occur.
My procedure is to bag and cook blue-rare for a couple hours. Then pour the jus into some other application (pan gravy, save for onion soup, even pasta sauce — works great). And finally pat the steaks dry and give them a few seconds on an infrared grill which is cranked hot enough to melt salt.
Could work. Try it. But it’s a question of how long it actually takes to render those fats vs denature the proteins. But start low, like 10 mins at the higher temp. Or find some science about how long it takes for those two processes.