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How do I know when my meat is cooked?

So you’ve had your cut of meat sitting over the glowing embers for an hour, watching as the surface chars and the fat bubbles down the V-Grills and you’re just waiting for the exact right moment to take it off to rest. But you’re not sure when that right moment is?

Different Methods

In the wild & turbulent landscape that is cooking videos and blogs, you may have seen a variety of ‘tips’ and ‘easy life hacks’ for knowing when your meat is ready. I’ve seen folks squeeze their fingers together so the flesh under their thumb emulates different rareness levels, some take note of the size and shape of the cut and calculate the cook time, and I’ve even seen some people just cut directly into it to check the colour.

But they don’t work, not really. At best, they’re a guess, and at worst you’ve just ruined a succulent cut of meat you’ve spent hours on. This is why we advocate for an instant-read thermometer every time.

In the video we’ve linked, we’re reverse-searing some ribeye steaks on the Parrilla Grill. We’d had our steaks on the cooler side for about forty minutes and had flipped them halfway through. Checking the internal temperature with our instant-read thermometer, we could see they were sitting at around 113°F (45°C), with that, we lowered our grill and put the steaks in the hot zone to give them a nice sear bringing them up to that final target temperature.

Our steak's target temperature was around 130°F (54.5°C) for a nice medium-rare finish. It’s important to note that heat has momentum. So, as you remove the steaks to let them rest, they’ll continue to cook, raising the temperature by a few degrees.

By using the instant-read thermometer we were able to track the exact temperature, with no guesswork, and no estimations. This high accuracy can also be achieved with a meat probe, we like the Meater 2 plus series (Now called the Meater Pro); multiple sensors give a nice average reading, and with the new design, it can withstand some direct flame contact all while connecting to your phone.

How do I properly use an instant-read thermometer?

The thermometer itself is simple, you just have to insert the probe into the protein. However, try to remember that you’re looking for the coolest spot in the steak. If you have the probe too far through or barely breaching the surface you’ll find the probe is only reading the temperature closest to the heat source, and thus, will be significantly hotter than the centre of your meat. If you push the instant-read thermometer past the point that you believe to be the centre and slowly pull the thermometer back, you should see the temperature fall, indicating you’ve found the centre.