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Major rule about cooking meat turns out to be wrong
- logifail 1y agoClickbait title much?
- CommenterPerson 1y agoNot sure why you got downvoted, but this is exactly what I thought. Add the mini video that follows you down along the page, this site already has two of the worst features of the internet.
- bubbajones 1y ago[dead]
- sakisv 1y agoThe "major rule" in question is whether you should rest the meat after cooking or not.
- stronglikedan 1y agoThe major rule was resting meat for a duration of time, not whether or not it should be done. The article still suggests resting meat.
- pixl97 1y agoRest it to temp, not time.
- _9ptr 1y agoAlso it's not wrong, but actually right
- giraffe_lady 1y agoYeah makes sense, fits with how I was taught working in serious kitchens too. People will have different justifications for it or models for how it works but professional cooks generally take resting pretty seriously especially for bigger pieces of meat. I don't really like the article title though, the rule seems pretty much correct? > Carryover cooking is greatly underestimated in both its speed and degree, and this has a huge impact on whether resting meat does or does not work well. That has long been my main reason for doing it and my guide for how long to rest. Until the carryover has nearly or just stopped and the internal temp is about to or has just begun dropping. For thin skirt steak or grilled shrimp this could be about as long as it takes to walk inside, for a pork shoulder or standing rib roast it might be nearly an hour. Also long been understood that there's no benefit to resting sous vide meat, since there's no carryover to manage.
- tptacek 1y agoNote that a major point in this article is a pretty serious team of cooks (the Meathead folks are competition BBQ people) arguing against resting (but cooking in such a way that resting doesn't matter).
- giraffe_lady 1y agoYeah I just clicked through and realized I've read that article several times over the years. It's old and quite well known in certain parts of the food world. Now that I know that, is there anything new in this serious eats one? Is it just a verification of the meathead OG?
- tptacek 1y agoIt's kind of a counterpoint to it! Meathead actively advocates against resting; Gritzer argues for a cooking method that relies on carryover time and thus resting to slice at target temps. Both Meathead and Gritzer agree that moisture retention is not the reason to rest, and since there's a lot of pop science out there (complete with animations and physical models) for why moisture loss demands resting, it seems worth writing about. Gritzer actually ran a relatively serious tasting experiment for this article, though I'm not sure how much it mattered to the point he's making.
- ackfoobar 1y agoTLDR: Resting is about carry over cooking (which raises the internal temperature more than you expect) than juice retention.
- cyberax 1y agoIf you're skilled enough (and if you use a meat thermometer) you can use carry-over cooking to your advantage by removing meat slightly earlier.
- ackfoobar 1y agoWell, a lot earlier. I pull my steak out of the pan when it reaches 45C internally.
- ukshariapatrol 1y ago[dead]
- lizardking 1y agoWhat is the finished internal temp when you follow this method?
- CGMthrowaway 1y agoMed rare 130F. How early to pull depends on the thickness of the meat. It takes some practice/trial and error
- ackfoobar 1y agoI'm shooting for 54C medium rare but I've never left a thermometer to see the temp rise and fall. The steaks taste good is all I can tell you.
- lizardking 1y agoIt sounds like you have steak figured out, but if you're looking for a great instant-read thermometer, I recommend the Thermapen.
- crazygringo 1y ago> Young offers a different and credible explanation for the juice loss observed by many. It's not caused by whether or not meat is rested, but by the internal temperature of the meat at the moment it's sliced. According to Young, it comes down to vapor pressure: The hotter the meat, the more energy the internal moisture has, leading to higher vapor pressure that pushes liquid outward when the meat is cut. So... you want to rest to bring the temperature down before slicing. The rule about resting isn't wrong in practice, it just had an incorrect explanation as to why it works. > But my 1.5-inch-thick chops completely defied this: Even when I pulled one a full 15°F before hitting its target temperature of 140°F, it had reached 140°F and threatened to surpass it in under three minutes. Follow the conventional resting advice, and in many cases, you're going to blow right past your target temp. This article is conflating different things. Obviously, don't overcook your protein. The best way to guarantee this is with sous vide. But in any case, the conclusion isn't to avoid resting. It's to pull the meat earlier to avoid overcooking, and then rest for the reason explained at the start of this comment.
- andrewflnr 1y agoYou're restating points the author makes as if they were contradictions. They're very explicit at the end in particular.
- crazygringo 1y agoThey are contradictions. Let me be clearer, citing the end: > The bottom line is this: It's a good idea to pull meat early from the pan or oven and let it rest, but only long enough to give it the time to slide up via carryover cooking to the target internal temperature, which you need to track closely. Wrong. You need to let it slide up and then slide back down. The target internal temperature is for doneness. It's too high for slicing, very often. > What resting is not: a fixed amount of time for the meat to sit, which risks it overcooking and losing its crust. Once again, it's all about temperature, not time. This is a strawman. You've always rested meat until the temperature came down. The reason it takes time is because time is what brings the temperature down. The fix is not to not rest, it is to not overcook in the first place.
- colordrops 1y ago[flagged]
- xhkkffbf 1y agoI'll be that other person. Have you looked at how sentient plants can be?
- colordrops 1y agoYes, they are not sentient as far as I can tell. You are bullshitting if you say otherwise.
- xhkkffbf 1y agoThey communicate. They nurture their young. Some rely heavily on social networks. But you go on believing. Frankly, your intransigence tells me that they're more sentient than you.
- chasd00 1y agoIf it shouldn't be eaten then why is it made of food?
- colordrops 1y agoAlways this embarrassingly robotic response.
- chasd00 1y agoi'm not a robot, i like having skin just like other humans
- supportengineer 1y agoIf you take this line of thinking to the extreme, shouldn't you allow yourself to become unalive and then allow yourself to be eaten by others?
- happytoexplain 1y agoHighly clickbait title. The conclusion is that you rest meat because it keeps it juicy and lets it finish carry-over cooking. This is already the common wisdom. The only new part is a different explanation for why resting makes it more juicy.
- jdlshore 1y agoNo, the article concluded that resting meat does not influence juiciness. In the blind test the author ran, the tasters could not identify a difference in juiciness between rested and unrested meat.
- adastra22 1y agoDo you cook steak? I do, multiple times a week (my kids love it). If you cut it right away, you end up with a pool of meat juice. If you wait a few minutes, you don't. I call bullshit. Resting the meat keeps the juice inside. This is objectively the case, whether or not some blind taste test agrees. (I'm not even sure why a blind test is relevant here...)
- jdlshore 1y agoI’m talking about the article, not my (or your) experience cooking. The points you raise are addressed in the article, which is very thoughtful and thorough.
- kelnos 1y agoNo, cutting into the meat when it's at a particular temperature determines how much juice spills out, not how long you've rested it. Yes, resting it changes the cutting temperature (acknowledged by the article), but that's not really the point being made or the effect being investigated.
- huhtenberg 1y agoBased on my experience this is incorrect. Cooking to, say, a medium-rare and cutting in right away will spill a lot of juice, whereby cooking to below medium-rare and letting it get to the medium-rare temp will leak hardly anything. It's dead simple to reproduce and obvious in practice. I am aware of what SeriousEats is, but this particular article is sensationalist and was written for clicks.
- mvdtnz 1y agoThis is just a long ad for the predictive thermometer that every two-bit YouTube cook is pedalling at the moment.
- tptacek 1y agoNo it isn't, and everyone is talking about those thermometers (there's a couple competing ones, all of them are leave-in, liquid and oven-safe, and have an array of sensors instead of just one) because they rule a lot and because Chris Young is a pretty outstanding presenter.
- mvdtnz 1y agoYes, it is. And people are talking about them on Youtube because they are paid segments.
- tptacek 1y agoI'm sure there are people paid to talk about them, like about everything else, but that's not why people like Kenji and Gritzer are. Sorry, it's just a good product, and Chris Young is just an interesting guy.
- jerf 1y agoThis is sort of a neat microcosm of the story of the interaction of science and engineering over time. The original meat resting rules were essentially engineering, when it is forced to run significantly in advance of science, in this case due to lack of sufficiently accurate measurement tools (instant-read themometers that can be left in the meat). They were discovered ad-hoc. They worked. But the theories behind them turned out to be incorrect. Thermometers improved, the ability to control the cooking environment improved, and experiments could be run that contradicted the old theories about why it worked, and led to an improved methodology that could be used with more equipment. This in turns leads to engineering better meals, even if only from the point of view of doing somewhat less work to the same result. And the wheel will keep turning.
- tptacek 1y agoInteresting take, true-ish I think? But Meathead had this right, as I recall from first principles (his writing partner at the time was a physicist), I think without the measurement apparatus.
- rsyring 1y agoYep, way back in 2013: https://amazingribs.com/more-technique-and-science/more-cooking-science/science-of-resting-meat/ https://amazingribs.com/more-technique-and-science/more-cook...
- brudgers 1y agomicrocosm of the story of the interaction of science and engineering over time. Science requires measurement. Engineering requires cost benefit analysis. Rules for resting meat are more like religion than science or engineering…resting meat is a morality play of socially acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Eating without resting is labeled crass because it is the sort of thing a starving peasant might do. That’s how the results can be contrary to tradition.
- b_e_n_t_o_n 1y agoI prefer the term "impatient peasant".
- charlie0 1y agoGreat article! Though it's sure to ruffle some feathers, it's no tabs vs spaces debate.
- thrill 1y agoSince it's a great article, I'm sure it was written using vi.
- StillBored 1y agoThey should be weighing the final cuts rather than trying to quantify the amount of fluid on the plate. Otherwise they are simply failing to account for the amount of water that is evaporating away. And given how much my food steams while cooling, its not a trivial amount.
- jsbg 1y agotry reducing a sauce and you'll see how much energy it takes to actually evaporate "not a trivial amount"
- gabrielsroka 1y agoChris does that in the video that is linked in the article, iirc. Fun fact, Chris's co-author is Nathan Myhrvold.
- post_break 1y agoSous Vide taught me resting meet was a farce. There's zero rest time when cooking that way, and it causes the meat, especially steak, to come out perfect every single time. There's a reason why it's pretty much banned in most cooking competitions.
- tptacek 1y agoWhat cooking competitions ban sous-vide/low-temp cooking?
- post_break 1y agoPretty much all rib cooking competitions ban it.
- tptacek 1y agoI would be shocked if you could win a rib competition with sous vide ribs. I've done them a bunch of times. They're fine. They're not revelatory.
- post_break 1y agoI mean it's not unheard of: https://kbindependent.org/2023/04/17/after-sous-vide-controversy-bbq-team-smokes-kb-rib-off-prize/ https://kbindependent.org/2023/04/17/after-sous-vide-controv...
- tptacek 1y agoYeah, I acknowledge that low-temp is banned in a lot of competition BBQ. Weird! But ok!
- freddie_mercury 1y agoThen why the need to ban it?
- 1y ago
- jeffbee 1y agoWell it's great that they are writing down reasons for resting that aren't total nonsense. The old folk wisdom about resting for the juice never survived any amount of critical thinking. But, it's unfortunate that they've still fallen short of learning anything about heat transfer, because they still aren't mentioning anything about the conditions under which the meat rests. The air temperature, the material the meat is resting upon, and the initial temperature, size, and other properties of that material are going to make a large difference in the outcome.
- tuna74 1y agoJust a random tip: When I rest meat I put it on a mesh and keep it in the oven set to 50 degrees Celsius. That have given me pretty good results I feel and then you can finish off whatever else you want to do after cooking the meat (like vegetables or sauce from the same pan).
- CGMthrowaway 1y agoI have a warming drawer in my kitchen that is always at about that temp. It's perfect for keeping prepared food warm while I do another dish, or for warming plates in there on which I will serve hot food
- comrade1234 1y agoSo I just let it sit on a cutting board for five minutes before I slice it or I put it in an ice bath like a molecular gastronomist weirdo and slice it 4 minutes earlier?
- bigbuppo 1y agoUnless you get some enjoyment from being a weirdo, don't do the weirdo molecular gastronomist crap. I mean, it may be fun to figure out how to make water gravy, but if you try that with my hamburger steak you're getting tossed out like DJ Jazzy Jeff.
- stronglikedan 1y agoThe problem with the ice bath is that you'll have to deal with carryover cooling when you take it out to slice it.
- _9ptr 1y agoI only eat fresh-frozen steak from seasoned cutting boards
- Aeroi 1y agomy take away after wasting minutes of my life reading this is that you remove meat slightly sooner, rest for 5-6 minutes. that way juice is retained and internal temperature is on target when sliced.
- andrewmcwatters 1y agoSomething that has always sounded really stupid to me about resting meat could be summed up by asking, “Are all of you people seriously letting your freshly cooked food get cold for a quarter of an hour before eating it?” I might be able to understand if you unintentionally rested meat because you poorly timed the finish of sides, but as soon as food is cooked, it should be served hot immediately, preferably with warmed plates from the oven if it wasn’t in use for your cook. Completely asinine to me that people are letting food sit to get cold before eating it.
- bootsmann 1y agoIts not really getting cold, a big part of the resting is about the internal temperature increasing (at the cost of the outside dropping from 80 to 50 celsius, which is still more than warm enough)
- andrewmcwatters 1y agoThere’s considerable difference between food sitting out for nearly 20 minutes and food served immediately after having been cooked on a cast iron surface, or a side out of a stainless steel pot. I mean there’s no comparison. Same with fresh bread rolls out of the oven. People are just overwhelmingly OK with literally cold food.
- Hikikomori 1y agoMaybe 20 minutes för a 1kg roast. For a small steak its a few minutes. It doesn't get cold in that time
- Dylan16807 1y agoIf it's literally cold, they screwed up. That's not what resting is supposed to be.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- CGMthrowaway 1y agotldr: Resting meat after cooking is traditionally believed to retain juices and enhance flavor. However, new evidence suggests this isn't true. Resting doesn't affect juice retention; instead, it helps manage carryover cooking, allowing the meat to reach its target temperature without overcooking. This is not news to anyone who actually cooks and knows how. (prepared for the downvotes for sounding snobbish but idk how else to say it)
- metabagel 1y agoThe 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 strongly. The title is click-bait. The major rule is correct, not wrong. But, now we know a little bit more about why this rule works. > As the meat rests (and therefore cools) that vapor pressure decreases, and so does the juice loss. It's not about reabsorption or thickening as the juices cool, which is another common explanation that's been offered over the years. It's simply about pressure. Control for final internal temperature, and—rested or not—the juice loss is the same.
- IsopropylMalbec 1y agoDoes this mean that cooking at lower temperatures will lead to lower pressure and less moisture loss?
- pdq 1y agoYes. Kenji Lopez has done this experiment using sous vide cooking. See the chart halfway down here: https://blog.thermoworks.com/coming-heat-effects-muscle-fibers-meat/ https://blog.thermoworks.com/coming-heat-effects-muscle-fibe...
- woooooo 1y agoWouldn't thickening of juices also be temperature- rather than time-dependent? Fats and collagens melt at specific temperatures. I always thought the whole point of resting is to do with temperature rather than time.
- ars 1y agoIt has nothing to do with vapor pressure, rather the liquid congeals when it cools and doesn't run out.
- chasebank 1y ago"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?
- dataviz1000 1y ago"Searing the meat seals in the juices" -- every chef on every cooking show. Can we do a study on that too? hmmmmm. I want to grill two steaks, the same size, and to the same internal temperature on the same grill. Let one rest for ten minutes in a pie pan and cut the other into 4 pieces letting it also rest for ten minutes in a pie pan. Probably also wrap them in tinfoil. Then weigh the released juices at the end. There is a huge difference between eating a steak that has rested allowing the vapor pressure decrease vs one that hasn't rested even though the internal temperatures in the middle are the same. edit: I found a video of the experiment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYA8H8KaLNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYA8H8KaLNg
- CGMthrowaway 1y agoReal cooks know the point of the sear is to create browning (maillard). Anyone who says otherwise either doesn't understand or is just speaking to a basic audience
- fsckboy 1y agothe flavor enhancement of the maillard reaction does not mean that searing is not also sealing the meat. I'm not saying it is either, just, saying your statement is not an answer to his question, as anyone can see. almost anyone.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jghn 1y ago> "Searing the meat seals in the juices" -- every chef on every cooking show. I could be wrong on this but I think Kenji was the first prominent writer to debunk this. I bring it up given the context of who all we're talking about.
- tnorthcutt 1y agoI think Alton Brown covered this on his show Good Eats quite a few years ago as well.
- henry_bone 1y agoThe opening line:- "The traditional wisdom says resting meat keeps it juicy. But when we put that idea to the test, we found a different reason to rest—one that has nothing to do with juice." I don't rest meat to keep it juicy. I rest it to finish the cook. It's not quite ready when it comes off the heat. Now I'll read the rest. :-)
- Hikikomori 1y agoI mean you could cook it to your desired temperature and cut it right away them as that stops the cooling process quickly.
- throwaway984393 1y ago[dead]
- QuercusMax 1y agoI've noticed a major difference with resting when I'm doing tri-tip roasts, not with juiciness but with tenderness. Letting it rest for 10-30 minutes after hitting around 130F internal temperature results in a much more tender results, which has gotta be due to carryover cooking continuing to break down collagen, etc.
- quickthrowman 1y ago> In Young’s tests, he controls for that crucial variable: the final core temperature at the moment of slicing. Rather than pulling all his meat samples at the same temperature and then slicing them at different times, he uses his Predictive Thermometer to ensure that each piece is sliced at the same final internal temperature, whether it was rested or not. This approach isolates the effect of resting itself. The result? Juice loss is the same either way, no matter if the meat rested or not. Doesn’t this approach necessarily mean that some of the meat will be cooked longer than other meat?
- matt3210 1y agoJuices? You mean blood?
- jdpage 1y agoMeat 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat#Slaughter [2]: https://youtu.be/gLvQzwjI-IM https://youtu.be/gLvQzwjI-IM
- rsanek 1y agoTitle should have been changed, we try to avoid clickbait here
- silisili 1y ago> 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 possible to get a good sear, then just let it sit. As long as it's fatty enough(or you use enough oil, depending), the center will continue to heat long after you remove it.
- Biganon 1y agoSame 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.
- sebtron 1y agoI had never heard of this "major rule" (resting meat) before, and I have cooked plenty of meat.
- Havoc 1y agoSteak technique is to men what astrology is to teenage girls.
- ern 1y agoI think that's because it's been heavily monetized (YouTube, social media in general, books, products).
- twodave 1y agoI 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 frequently (30s intervals), which keeps the inside from cooking too much while the outside gets nice and crispy. I take them off the heat probably 2-3 minutes (but keep flipping! The pan is still really damn hot) before they go into the oven (at 400F). I take the steaks out when they hit 120 and pull them out of the pan ASAP. During the “rest” that follows I add pepper and butter to the tops of the steaks. The outsides of these steaks become way, way hotter than the insides. But the size of the layer that is so hot is very thin due to the frequent turning. So they don’t need to rest long, and the temp doesn’t rise too much once they’re out of the oven.
- noahjk 1y agoHow 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)?
- twodave 1y agoAbout 5-7 minutes, tops. I haven't tried the reverse sear, I'd worry about overcooking.
- bigmadshoe 1y agoYou just set the oven super low and cook it until it’s a certain amount under (I forget, maybe 30F under). It’s honestly probably easier to overcook by your method. You get an even better crust because all the surface moisture has evaporated in the oven before it hits the pan.
- twodave 1y agoSurface moisture from the fat on the steak is what actually produces a good sear IMO
- djfivyvusn 1y agoAs someone who watched this unfold months ago on YouTube I'm slightly annoyed I had to read the whole article to find nothing new.
- linsomniac 1y agoA trick I've been doing since I got the Combusion thermometer is, if I'm trying for a 205 temp target: I run it until the surface temp reaches 205, then turn down the heat to get the ambient temp to around 205 for the rest of the cook until the interior gets up to 205. I've tried it a couple times and had really great results.
- _giorgio_ 1y agoDo you need to rest the meat after cooking, yes or no?
- rafavento 1y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYA8H8KaLNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYA8H8KaLNg
- swiftcoder 1y agoI swear I read a version of this article 1-2 years ago. Did a different cooking lab put out a similar article?
- Kiro 1y agoMost cooking techniques you think matter do not and you wouldn't pass a blind test.
- moomoo11 1y agoReject factory farming
- SV_BubbleTime 1y agoMentioned in the article lightly, the combustion inc thermometers… game changer. If you’re on the fence, do it.
- randomcarbloke 1y agoit's funny watching cooks and amateur chefs come to the same conclusion that professionals reached over one hundred years ago, I assume nobody asked, but with steak for example you use resting in a controlled environment to ride the temperature up to chosen doneness, nobody has ever (to my knowledge) thought it to do with preserving juices. and another delicious L for James Lopez.
- rob_c 1y agoThere is an entire realm of culinary science which actually goes into stuff like this and has actually been demonstrating these things for years rather than pretending sous chefs are raised on mysticism and folk lore. Unfortunately most of that is undone by self proposed experts on cooking shows, blogs, tiktok, ...
- lo_zamoyski 1y agoEggs are a common food where carryover cooking can ruin a soft-boiled egg, for example.
- grymoire1 1y agoSummary: The temperature will continue to rise after removing meat from a grill. The thicker the meat, the more temperature is retained. You want the cut the meat when the proper temperature is reached. So if the meat is at the target temperature - slice it right away. If the temperature is below the target temp, and the meat is thick, wait until the target temperature is reached, then slice it. The trick is knowing how thick the meat is, how much the temperature will continue to rise after removal, and therefore when to remove the meat.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]