Interestingly terrible steak on the kettle

[LMichaels]

... Sleep... Sleep would be nice...

This is also in the back of my mind. That was also why I wrote it down. I am tempted to repeat the cook. But its hard to justify: "Honey, why don't we try some more terrible steaks? What do you mean with 'No'?"

Just "bad meat" is the most boring plausible explanation. The butcher is the biggest in the region I bought it from. The biggest, not the best.


That's interesting. What temperatures are you cooking your steak?

Because this would be a counter example to my hypothesis. My current hypothesis is that thanks to the on/off direct heat and the closed lid I had high (200c/400f-ish) convective heat, which is bad for tenderness. And a tender steak is a combination of even/low heat, and you sacrifice some tenderness for a good maillard reaction.

First Jonas I usually cut my own steaks. I will buy a primal then break it down. I.E. I buy whole strip loin, then take off the sirloin side for about 5"-6" and that becomes a strip loin roast. Then I cut my steaks at 1.5" To my way of thinking thinner steaks don't lend themselves well to how I like a steak. I will do the same thing with a rib primal. I buy the whole boneless primal. One part becomes a "roast" the rest is cut into steaks. Occasionally I do buy a cowboy steak from Sam's Club. They're usually between 2" and 2.5" thick. Occasionally closer to 3".
Now as for temps. I will usually do them on my Super Smoke setting (160), let them go until they hit 90-105F internal temps. Then I finish them at higher temps. If it's a large cowboy I'll stay in the 375ish range on the pellet grill. If one of my thinner steaks I'll run at 425 until my desired temps internally.
I am not a fan of insanely high heat cooks. I find not liking a steak cooked at temps beyond necessary for a nice Maillard reaction. This gives me just the right "char" on the fat, and perfect edge to edge cooking. One thing that truly helps on a pellet grill is they're very much like a convection oven. So there is a surprising amount of internal air movement.
If doing them on a gas or charcoal I think a relatively higher (but indirect) heat would be called for. Again I like to avoid that distinctive taste when a steak is done on insane heat levels