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Major rule about cooking meat turns out to be wrong

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Re: Major rule about cooking meat turns out to be wrong

#171

Post by gerdesj »

chasebank wrote: post #135
metabagel wrote: post #103

The article actually doesn't refute the idea of resting meat to retain the juices. In fact, it supports it. It just provides a reason for why this works which is perhaps different than conventional wisdom. Retaining the juices in the meat has to do with the temperature at which the meat is cut. Resting allows the temperature to drop, which creates less pressure, so the juices aren't forced out of the meat nearly as s…

"Resting allows the temperature to drop, which creates less pressure, so the juices aren't forced out of the meat nearly as strongly." I was always under the impression that if you pull your meat at let's say 128, resting it will bring the internal temperature up, finishing at like 132-134. Is this wrong?

"I was always under the impression that if you pull your meat at let's say 128"

Please state units. In en_GB (at least) "pulling your meat" is ... ambiguous.

Re: Major rule about cooking meat turns out to be wrong

#172

Post by Biganon »

silisili wrote: post #151

> Inside the meat, heat was flowing from the hotter exterior towards the center, cooking it further, a phenomenon colloquially called "carryover cooking. Yes, this is the exact reason I always rest mine. When you cook a steak on a cast iron, if you wait to pull it until the internal temp is reached, you'll end up either burning it or drying it out depending on temp. The best way is to cook it as absolutely hot as pos…

Same with cakes. Whenever my friends bake a cake, they remove it from the oven when a knife inserted inside comes out clean. I've read this advice many times on cooking sites, too. But it's wrong, and the cakes in question are always dry.

You should remove the cake from the oven when the knife comes out slightly dirty. The cake will finish cooking outside the oven.

Re: Major rule about cooking meat turns out to be wrong

#173

Post by jdpage »

matt3210 wrote: post #149

Juices? You mean blood?

Meat is typically exsanguinated as part of the slaughtering process[1], so no. The juices that come out of e.g. a steak are a mixture of water and proteins such as myoglobin, but can also include fat.

Adam Ragusea has a video[2] on the topic that goes into more depth, though the same information is repeated across a lot of sources of varying quality if you do a quick web search.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat#Slaughter

[2]: https://youtu.be/gLvQzwjI-IM

Re: Major rule about cooking meat turns out to be wrong

#175

Post by noahjk »

twodave wrote: post #168

I cook (and eat) a lot of steak. Probably 3-4 per week, 1.5" thick ribeyes. For me, resting has always been about temperature normalization. I like to sear my steaks in a cast iron skillet. I use an induction cooktop and tend to start at medium-high and ramp up to as hot as the stove will get. I think the ramp-up is important to render some of the fat without just letting it all evaporate. I turn the steaks over freq…

How long does the steak generally stay in the pan to sear? Have to ever tried reverse searing instead (which I believe is just oven first)?

Re: Major rule about cooking meat turns out to be wrong

#176

Post by flaminHotSpeedo »

metabagel wrote: post #103

The article actually doesn't refute the idea of resting meat to retain the juices. In fact, it supports it. It just provides a reason for why this works which is perhaps different than conventional wisdom. Retaining the juices in the meat has to do with the temperature at which the meat is cut. Resting allows the temperature to drop, which creates less pressure, so the juices aren't forced out of the meat nearly as s…

The article categorically refutes the idea that resting is important for juiciness but that's not the same as saying resting will not improve juice retention. Proof that a relationship once though to be causal is not is a pretty big deal, and the conventional wisdom is wrong.

As a counterexample: let's say the only things I care about are juiciness of the center of the cut of meat and the time it takes me to make it. By the conventional wisdom I'd have to rest the meat, adding time, but now we know that I could simply keep cooking the meat for longer, since that will raise the center temp faster, and then cut it immediately after cooking.

Or another scenario: if I know the precise internal temperature for my preferred level of juiciness, I know exactly what temperature to set a sous vide to.

Re: Major rule about cooking meat turns out to be wrong

#177

Post by bookofjoe »

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #142
chasebank wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Resting allows the temperature to drop, which creates less pressure, so the juices aren't forced out of the meat nearly as strongly." I was always under the impression that if you pull your meat at let's say 128, resting it will bring the internal temperature up, finishing at like 132-134. Is this wrong?

It's not wrong, it's incomplete. It will briefly bring the temperature up as everything stabilizes but then it will start going back down. How quickly is entirely dependent on the environment it's in as well. Keep it in a warming oven? It's gonna a be a much slower process than sitting on a cool countertop.

"It's not even wrong." — Wolfgang Pauli

Re: Major rule about cooking meat turns out to be wrong

#178

Post by DrewADesign »

gerdesj wrote: post #171
chasebank wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Resting allows the temperature to drop, which creates less pressure, so the juices aren't forced out of the meat nearly as strongly." I was always under the impression that if you pull your meat at let's say 128, resting it will bring the internal temperature up, finishing at like 132-134. Is this wrong?

"I was always under the impression that if you pull your meat at let's say 128" Please state units. In en_GB (at least) "pulling your meat" is ... ambiguous.

In steak/chop sized pieces, carry-over cooking of the center finishes very quickly. If you get a really fast probe thermometer like a thermapen, you can watch it in real time. The entire piece will have cooled sufficiently after common resting times (e.g. 10 minutes.)

Re: Major rule about cooking meat turns out to be wrong

#179

Post by 0x457 »

chasebank wrote: post #135
metabagel wrote: post #103

The article actually doesn't refute the idea of resting meat to retain the juices. In fact, it supports it. It just provides a reason for why this works which is perhaps different than conventional wisdom. Retaining the juices in the meat has to do with the temperature at which the meat is cut. Resting allows the temperature to drop, which creates less pressure, so the juices aren't forced out of the meat nearly as s…

"Resting allows the temperature to drop, which creates less pressure, so the juices aren't forced out of the meat nearly as strongly." I was always under the impression that if you pull your meat at let's say 128, resting it will bring the internal temperature up, finishing at like 132-134. Is this wrong?

Well, yes, as soon as you take meat off the heat, temperature continues to raise for some time, but it starts dropping off during the rest period.

I cook til 125F, take it off, let it rest, cut. I have a probe that measures it in multiple points, allowing it to more accurately estimate core and surface temperature.

There are so many cases like this in cooking because no one bothered to actually test validate science as long as it produced claimed results (i.e. juicy steak in this case)

Re: Major rule about cooking meat turns out to be wrong

#180

Post by phs318u »

gerdesj wrote: post #171
chasebank wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Resting allows the temperature to drop, which creates less pressure, so the juices aren't forced out of the meat nearly as strongly." I was always under the impression that if you pull your meat at let's say 128, resting it will bring the internal temperature up, finishing at like 132-134. Is this wrong?

"I was always under the impression that if you pull your meat at let's say 128" Please state units. In en_GB (at least) "pulling your meat" is ... ambiguous.

Off topic, and please forgive the way my mind works, but having read your comment I couldn't help thinking that the interpretive ambiguity would be resolved if the unit stated was "pulls" per minute (128 ppm while vigorous, is still plausible).
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