Reverse Seared Bone-In Ribeye Steaks
What a treat for fathers day. Instead of the obligatory socks and jocks for fathers day, my wife bought a couple of Bone-in Ribeye Steaks. Couldn’t have asked for anything better. For a BBQ loving dad, this is just perfect. The plan was to reverse sear these great looking bone-in rib eyes on the Kamado Joe classic.
After cleaning out the firebox and putting the ashes to good use. It was time to fill her up again. Added some fresh gidgee lump charcoal and 3-4 chunks of apple and cherry wood for flavour and colour. I find the cherry wood adds an amazing colour to the meat and the apple provides a nice subtle smoke flavour.
Reverse Sear Set-up Kamado
The reverse sear method is so easy on the kamado joe with the D&C system. Set up 2 zone cooking with one-half of the standard grates in the low position on the left and both deflectors in the low position on the right-hand side. The other half of the standard grate is placed above the deflectors in the upper position on the right-hand side.
The fire setup is pretty straight forward. I like to light the fire in 3 places using samba natural firelighters and then just let the fire take hold and come up to your desired temperature. This allows the ceramic to be fully heat soaked before you start cooking.
I like to leave the dome open for ~ 10 minutes and then close the dome with vents fully open for another ~ 10 minutes or so. I find this establishes a good draft through the lit coals and helps stabilise the temperatures. Once you are around 10C [50F] from your desired dome temp set your vents to your estimated positions.
Once the Kamado is up to your desired temp, for this cook I was happy with 135C [275F]ish. It’s ready for the steaks.
Steak Prep for Reverse Sear
My steak prep was something that I had not done before. With these awesome bone-in ribeyes, I tied them. My thought process was just to keep that awesome round looking steak. Did it make a difference to the cook – probably not? Would I do it again – probably not? 🙂
My wife and I love the Ancho Espresso rub from Lane’s, so that got a call up for the first steak. The other one was a new rub for me, SmokeyQ Beef Rub, an awesome local product with a great range. This one smelled pretty good straight out of the packet. We were both excited to try it out.
I let these steaks come up from fridge temperatures, not fully to room temp as I run out of time but enough to have the chill out of the steaks.
With the addition of the 2 probes from the Maverick ET-733, it was time to add the steaks to the kamado. It was more important for me to monitor the steak internal temps so instead of running 1 grill probe I utilised them both as meat probes – worked a treat.
Turn up the Heat for Reverse Sear Steaks
As soon as the steaks got to an internal temp of 49C [121F] – 51C [124F] it was time for a rest. Once the steaks were firmly wrapped, the top and bottom vents on the kamado were opened fully. Similarly to my previous experiment, the temperatures were at searing temps in no time. From opening the vents till achieving my desired searing temp ~260C [500F] it was less than 10 minutes.
These two steaks were seared for 3 minutes on one side and slightly less on the other, I was conscious that I was already pushing the upper end of medium-rare. My new Thermopen Mk4 measured the internal temp at ~58C [137F],for me this is about as high as I would like to go.
The ultimate proof is in the cutting – BOOM it was perfect!
Medium rare for the most part, tender and juicy and the flavours were amazing.
Served with a basic salad and some beer battered chips – nothing could have been better. Family, good food and a cold beer. Life is good!
Till next time – Joe On!!
Here’s my youtube summary of the cook. Please like and subscribe.
