Rob's Rants

Full disclosure - I got the picture from Wikimedia Commons. I usually eat my food rather than photograph it.

Grilling continues to gain popularity in the United States. And message boards all over the internet are alive with people asking how to achieve the perfect grill marks on their steaks. Grill marks are those blackened lines on a grilled steak, often in a diamond pattern when seen in a restaurant or on the Food Network. Most people quest for these grill marks believing that they offer the final aesthetic touch to their food. And there are all sorts of hints and tips and processes discussed for how to go about getting them.

But these people are missing the point. Grill marks are not created as part of the perfect grilling process. They are the result of the perfect grilling process. Grill marks are not made — they emerge when things are done well. They are a symbol of perfection.

What’s required to achieve this perfection? Many things must ace in harmony to enable these marks:

1. Proper heat: the grill must be hot enough to sear the meat and create the Maillard reaction, but not so hot that the part of the meat not touching the grates is also charred. This also requires flame / flare-up control. Thus, grill marks indicate that the cook understands heat control.
2. Proper heat transfer: well defined grill marks are produced when the grill grates can transfer a sufficient amount of heat over a sufficient amount of time into the meat to enable the browning reaction. Not all grates can do this. Cheap thin grates do not have enough thermal mass to build up a reservoir of heat to maintain the temperature necessary. And shiny, smooth grates don’t have enough surface area to enable the reaction. So showpiece grills made to look nice don’t work. Real tools are required — a quality grill with heavy (usually cast iron) grates is necessary. And these grills require more care and effort than something made of shiny stainless steel. Thus, grill marks signify that the cook has invested in quality equipment.
3. Grill marks are achieved with a minimum of movement of the meat. Again, this relates to heat control. The meat must be left in one position long enough to allow the grates to sear the lines in the meat, but not so long that the lines burn or the rest of the meat cooks too much. To achieve the diamond pattern, one rotation on each side is required.  Then the meat is flipped and the technique is repeated on the other side. Why a single turn and a diamond pattern? Because, a grill cooks through several heat transfer methods (conduction, convection, radiation, etc.) but conduction is a critical component and the most efficient. So putting the meat on a grill with sufficiently hot grates and leaving it without a rotation would result in areas touching the grates cooked more than other areas not touching the grates. So the meat must be moved at least once to even out the cooking process. Therefore, the bare minimum number of movements for a perfect steak is four: on the grill, rotate, flip, rotate, serve. More than four movements result in lines all over the steak. While making five or eight or ten movements might not make much of a difference on your home grill, for a professional working dozens of steaks at a time, efficiency is paramount. Too many movements and the cook won’t be able to keep up with all the orders. Thus, grill marks signify the cook’s mastery of the cooking process. Diamond grill marks show that the cook understands the heat, equipment, and technique well enough to properly cook a steak with a minimum number of movements.

So if you want to know how to get good looking grill marks on your steaks, it’s simple. Get good equipment. Learn to control the heat properly. Practice knowing how long to cook a steak. Master these things and the grill marks will come on their own.

What do grill marks demonstrate? That the cook knows what he or she is doing. The ultimate test: when a cook can put multiple steaks on the grill and cook them all to different requested levels (rare, medium, etc.), each with four movements, and with even grill marks so that the lines in each direction and on both sides are all the same color. That is the mark of a master.

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Related posts:

1. A Yankee’s Guide to Bar-B-Que Part 3 – So You Wanna’ Buy a Grill?
2. Smoked Pork Ribs on My Grill
3. Steak Tips for a Beginner
4. An Iron on the Fire