Grilling The Perfect Steak: 'The Rule of Threes'

Welcome! My name is John and I’ve been writing a food blog called Grilling24x7 for the past couple of years. My interests include low and slow barbecue, grilling, and Ravens tailgating. I’ve lived in Glen Burnie for about 15 years and I was thrilled when the Glen Burnie Patch invited me to share some of my recipes and grilling methods with you. Let’s get started.

For my first post, I want to share a really easy and successful method for grilling a steak. So often I hear from people who burn a steak or undercook it and the point of this post is to provide you with a reliable method to properly grill your steaks. The ingredients are not elaborate because in my opinion grilling a steak should not require a lot of ingredients. It should be simple and the primary flavor should be STEAK! I call this method the “rule of threes” and it works perfectly for a steak that is about 1-1.5 inches thick. 

Ingredients:

New York Strip or Ribeye steaks about 1-1.5 inches thick
Salt and pepper
Butter

Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the steaks and let them rest at room temperature while you are preparing your grill. Fill the charcoal chimney to the top with coals and start the fire. You want a high heat here so use at least 50 coals. Alternatively, crank your gas grill as hot as it will go. Once the coals are ready, dump them out only on one side of your grill and spread in an even layer. This will be the direct heat side. The other side where no coals are will be the indirect heat side.  You should be able to hold your hand over the direct heat side for no more than 2 seconds without screaming “ouch!” 

The rule of threes now comes into play. The rule of threes is simple and applies to cooking a 1-1.5 inch thick steak on very high charcoal heat:

3 minutes direct heat on side 1
3 minutes direct heat on side 2
3 minutes indirect heat on side 1
3 minutes indirect heat on side 2

If your heat is right, this will turn out a perfect medium or medium rare steak. It works well.  The time spent over direct heat will sear the steak and give it a great exterior, while the indirect heat will finish cooking the steak without burning it. A good rule of thumb is to never keep your steak, regardless of size, over high direct heat for more than 3 minutes or you will burn it. 

After the steaks are grilled, take some butter and let it sit on top of the finished steaks. Once the butter has melted the steaks are ready to serve. If you want a more well-done steak, increase the indirect cooking time an extra 1-2 minutes.  This should get you closer to a medium-well/well-done steak. Delicious steaks … it’s all about the technique; it’s all about temperature and time.

Check out more grilling recipes and methods from John at http://www.grilling24x7.com and follow John on Twitter at http://twitter.com/grilling24x7.  E-mail comments and suggestions to john@grilling24x7.com.