Michael: My guest today is Meathead, a chef, writer, and website publisher. His website is amazingribs.com which covers everything barbecue, grilling, and smoking. His book Meathead: the science of Great barbecue and Grilling, has sold over 250,000 copies and is on the New York Times bestseller list and many other lists of top cooking books as well. And I also want to say on a personal note, your book is awesome. It’s filled with not only all kinds of great information on cooking and grilling technique, but food science and myth-busting as well.

Meathead: You mentioned spatchcocking a chicken… this is a great technique. You know, if you take a whole chicken, you have this hollow in the center where not a lot of warm air gets in, so it takes longer for the energy — or the warm air — to penetrate…. Actually, the warm air doesn’t penetrate. The warm air warms the outside of the chicken, and that energy has to penetrate. But if you cut out the backbone and spread it out flat, now it’s thinner. And this is a core concept to all cooking: indoors, outdoors, barbecue, grill… you know, in the oven, the thickness of what you’re cooking is really what determines how long it takes. So, if you cut out the backbone and lay the bird out flat, you’ve made it a lot thinner and it’ll cook faster, there’ll be less moisture loss, and you’re browning the inside of the cavity, which if you just do a whole bird, you don’t get enough energy in there to brown the interior. And brown is flavor. It’s a chemical reaction called the Maillard reaction that changes the proteins and the amino acids and some reducing sugars and creates, well…. We all know this: when we eat a roast or a steak, it’s the crust. It’s the brown surface that’s so delicious. So, spatchcocking… it shows that Chef Michael really is into… well, of course he is. He’s a professional. But spatch— it’s a great technique. Cut the backbone out, splay it out flat. I think you like the results.

Michael: Yeah… it’s a great way to cook chicken. Also, the skin gets browned more evenly… I actually did an experiment with… I’ve got… Fireboard and ThermoWorks both make thermometers, and they’re both great. They’re a little different from each other, but they both make thermometers that will track over time, and they have apps for your phone and everything…. So, I put probes in the dark meat and the white meat and watched them go up. And so, the dark meat went up to 195, which is perfect for breaking down the collagen, and the white meat… and I cook my white meat to around 150, because you know there’s going to be carryover cooking. And, as I’m sure you know, after 2.7 minutes at 150 it’s just as safe as 165, and then it doesn’t get to where it’s… I actually saw a Costco chicken recently that has on the package to cook to 185. So, you know… you cook your chicken to 165 especially if it’s a whole chicken, and by the time the all the heat from the outside (the carry-over cooking) gets to the inside, it’s just way overcooked.

Meathead: What a lot of people don’t know, and you alluded to it, is that it’s not just temperature: it’s time and temperature. Most bacteria start croaking down in the 130s… 131, 132…. They start to die, and you could cook chicken at 131 if you want, but it takes hours to kill all the bacteria, and even if you did, it would be kind of greasy and stringy. I recommend 160 rather than 165 just to be safe. One of the problems we have when you don’t get it up to 165 is the juices in the bird can be pink, and when it gets hot that… it’s a compound called myoglobin or the water mixed with myoglobin. It’s a protein, and it’s pink. It’s what makes steak juices pink and chicken juices pink, and when it gets hotter, that myoglobin turns gray. So, you get rid of all the pink if you’re going to cook it to 155 or so, and you can get it safe if, as you said, 2.7 minutes or something like that you may see some pink juices, and that’ll freak people out, but it’s safe, which is why, as you alluded earlier, thermometers are so crucial to cooking. I mean, everybody talks about how important it is to have a sharp knife, but I think far more important is having good thermometers. And you mentioned two good ones: Fireboard and ThermoWorks has some good ones. You’re up in the Seattle area, aren’t you?

Michael: Yeah.

Meathead: Have you run into Chris Young and his combustion…?

Michael: I haven’t talked to Chris directly. I actually did an interview with Nathan Myhrvold. But, yeah, I’ve watched videos from Chris, and I know he also has talked about something that you and I will probably talk about today, which is the resting meat.

Meathead: Well, that’s something I’ve been on for years, and I get booed and hissed when I walk in the room and I say you don’t need to rest meat. And every chef from Anthony Bourdain on down the line says you’ve got to rest meat. And, finally, Chris, who’s a real food scientist, jumped on board and backed me up. And that’s really gratifying, because it’s been a lone voice in the wilderness. But the reason I brought him up is: he’s got a company called Combustion, Inc., and they make a thermometer that’s really amazing. It’s wireless, so you just stick this spike into the meat, and it’s got eight probes built into the — well, it’s one probe, but it’s got eight sensors. So, it locates the center of the meat for you. You don’t have to worry: “Am I in the middle?,” you know. “Where do I come in?” It locates the center along these eight sensors, and it’s got some predictive capabilities. It’s not precise yet… it’s an early version. But after you’re cooking for maybe 20 minutes or so it’ll tell you, “Hey; you’ll be done in 15 minutes.” So, it’s really very cool.

Michael: He’s been working on that predictive technology. I I think he was hoping to have it released this summer. Fireboard has predictive technology as well, and I’ve used it, and it works pretty well. It’s not perfect, and it gets better over time. Obviously, the closer you get to done, but yeah; I agree. And you mentioned the USDA. I haven’t checked for a while, but on their website they have a chart for chicken for different temperatures and the amount of time at each temperature you need to get to the same level of food safety.

Meathead: Yeah; I’ve reproduced that chart on my website, and it’s really interesting and useful. But they hide it.

Michael: Yeah; it’s hard to find.

Meathead: They really don’t want to make a big deal of it. I understand why they want people to be careful about bacteria, and so their food temperature guide is very straightforward and it tells you just cook your chicken at 165, and if you do, you got nothing to worry about. And you can read all you want about bacteria and stuff, but if you cook it to the USDA temperatures, you’re going to be safe. But if you’re really into food and cooking, you can learn that there are exceptions to the rule, and on my website, amazingribs.com, you can find those numbers from USDA about time and temp, and it’s really interesting, but I mean… USDA has been saying, “Cook steak to 145” for years now. If every steakhouse cooked steak to 145, they’ go out of business in a month, because medium rare is 130 to 135 and not a penny higher or a penny lower. And if you like medium rare…. And medium rare is the temperature at which steak is the most tender and the most juicy. And we know this because there’s machines that can tell you how tough meat is.

Michael: Right… it’s a little like a little blade.

Meathead: It presses on the meat… I think it’s called a Warner-Bratzler machine, and it presses on the meat, and it measures how much pressure it takes to penetrate the meat. And we know in that 130 to 135 range, it’s most tender and most juicy. And you know people who insist on cooking their meat well done, they do that because there’s no pink juices that come out of there. And they think that that pink juice is blood. It’s not blood. It’s not blood. And you know, if you’re sitting at the table and somebody says, “You know, there’s juice in the… anybody want blood?” I mean every time you say that somewhere in Indiana a teenager becomes a vegan.

Michael: You know, myoglobin is a protein molecule which is very closely related to hemoglobin. Hemoglobin basically has four similar molecules kind-of grouped together. Myoglobin is just one, but it’s not in cells like red blood cells, which are just packed….

Meathead: If we can get this message across to people who want their steaks well done, then maybe they’ll come down to having it medium or medium rare. But it’s not blood, and it’s nothing to be feared. And it’s often misunderstood.

Michael: Yeah… but, I mean, even if it was blood, so what? I mean, we eat all these parts of an animal and… You know, offal, and, you know, people are scared of certain “variety meats” and so forth.

Meathead: I love blood sausage.

Michael: Yeah, and blood and myoglobin, like I said, which is all the red in meat, are very closely related. And why would you eat one and not another? And also, a lot of people like what they call the “blood” coming out of the meat. But, as you said, they’re freaked out… you know, if they see a chicken…. Or, you know, chickens are grown so quickly, the bones don’t have a chance to fully develop. And so, you’ll have that little pink area…. Even in a properly cooked chicken, it’ll still… and people think it’s undercooked, and they freak out. Or, like if you said, a lot of things…. it’ll retain that. Well, I’m sure we’ll talk later also about the smoke ring which happens because of the way the nitric oxide sets the myoglobin in the meat before it has a chance to denature in the way that turns it brown.

Meathead: It’s so nice to talk to you, because I speak to a lot of people on consumer radio, and they have no idea about these things. And so, it’s really starting at “ground zero” trying to educate them and then their audiences. So it’s cool that you know all this stuff.

Michael: All right. So; well, let’s get back to talking about meat. So, you mentioned Chris Young and the work that you did — I think even prior to modernist cuisine — about resting meat. And I think the, probably, number one myth in food (and meat in particular) is this “searing locks in the juices,” which I don’t think we need to talk about because, hopefully, everyone watching this already knows that that’s not true, and it’s been proven a million times. And Harold McGee for years and years and years has tried to like quash this myth. But the “resting meat” is one that almost everyone in culinary school and Gordon Ramsay and Thomas Keller and all these people are like, “You absolutely have to rest the meat.” Meathead: Everybody… all professional chefs tell you [that] you have to rest the meat. I don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t think it’s a great, harmful thing, but there is potential for hazard when…. All right; we were talking earlier about the chicken and how energy cooks the chicken…. You know, hot air doesn’t cook the inside of the meat. Hot air cooks the outside of the meat. Hot air is loaded with energy, and that energy cooks the outside of the meat. But the air cannot penetrate into the meat. It’s the energy that loads up the exterior of the meat that travels down to the center, slowly, and cooks the meat. And because the meat’s about 70 75% water — and water is a great insulator — it takes time for it to get to the center… which is why having a good thermometer — and you don’t need one of these expensive thermometers we were talking about. You can get for 20 bucks: a really good, instant-read thermometer that’ll tell you in 5 seconds. But it’s long been believed, especially by chefs, that if you take say a steak off the grill if you let it sit for a few minutes somehow or other the juices redistribute and you lose less juice when you cut into it. First of, all the juices don’t redistribute. I mean, there’s no information… or, there’s no juice highways inside the meat where they can go running around. They’re trapped in fibers — muscle fibers and in-between the muscle fibers. And there’s a little movement, but not a lot. But when you take it off, that energy that has saturated the exterior is still there, and although some of it escapes into the air, a lot of it will continue to penetrate into the meat. And you use the term “carryover.” That’s what it’s called. It’s called “carryover cooking.” So, you bring the steak in at 130, which is perfect medium rare — or 135 in that range, and if you let it sit around for 10 minutes it goes up to 140-145, and it’s no longer medium rare. It’s now medium. And so… and this is a common problem with Thanksgiving. You’re cooking turkey, which you cook the same way you do chicken (and a lot of people do USDA recommended 165 which is pretty dry). They take it out; they let it sit on the counter for a half an hour, wrap it in aluminum foil — so now it’s really trapping energy. It’s carryover cooking, and by the time they serve it, it’s 175 and it’s cardboard. So get the meat out now. I’ve done the experiments, and yes… if you slice into a really-right-off-the-grill steak, there’s slightly more juice that comes out than if you let it sit for five minutes. Five minutes is all. But that juice isn’t… nobody throws that juice away. What happens: you got a piece of steak on your fork, you swab it around, and you suck the juice back up. That juice isn’t wasted. If you got mashed potatoes, just mix it in with the mashed potatoes. That juice isn’t lost. There’s no harm done. The plate is clean. So, you know, serve hot! If we’re worried about the moisture in the meat (and that’s why we’re resting, because somehow it’s moister), one of the greatest, most important factors in creating moist meat is saliva. I know. Don’t be grossed out, but saliva…. When you see a sizzling hot steak, it’s coming in and it’s still got sizzling going on, you can smell it, you can hear it. Man, that saliva gets rolling. And that makes moisture. And that’s really important. Serve it hot! It’ll cool off sitting there. And all these experiments they do that purport that if you don’t let it rest it’s going to lose a lot of juices… the experiment is, they’ll take the steak off and they’ll slice it up into 100 pieces. Well that’s not the way we eat a steak. We eat a state by cutting off one bite, then we have green beans, then we have some potatoes, then we have a sip of wine, then we talk politics… go back and cut another piece. By now five minutes have gone. So; you know and Chris, who’s a food scientist, did some really interesting experiments. I think you can see them on YouTube. Try Chris Young or Combustion, Inc. Combustion is his company, and that’s the [name of the] thermometer. And there’s a really good video. All his videos are really good. He’s “sciency,” and he does it in a very non-technical presentation.

Michael: Yeah; and you… another thing I think a lot of people don’t realize: there are some meats like ribeye, for example, where you cook them, like you said, maybe to 130°, and you want to retain that moisture in there. But there are working meats [muscles], like the dark meat on a chicken, that, to the temperature it’s cooked to, it’s actually super dry, right? All this moisture has come out of it, and it’s the gelatin (the collagen turning to gelatin) is what’s creating that moisture. So, there are a lot of meats that we cook, [like] brisket, where we’re cooking them really slow over a really low temperature, but we want to create that that gelatin, and that’s what’s actually giving us that that sensation.

Meathead: Absolutely. I mean, 155 is well done. That steak is gray. It is dry, and it is boring. But barbecue Pit Masters cook beef brisket to 200 to 205. I mean, it’s way past well done, but it’s at its most tender and juicy because, as you say, it’s now melting the collagen, which is gelatinous and is… we call it “Wubba Wubba.” You know; it makes the meat go “wubba wubba” when you touch it. Also, fat I is a very important part of the moisture sensation, and it melts as you get up into those mid-range temperatures. So, fat, collagen, water in the meat or “myo water” and saliva… those are big players. So, I’m an advocate of when you’re bringing the meat in from the grill, bring it in. By the time you get it in, get it on the table, carve it up… it’s been five minutes. You’re not going to have a loss. Serve hot food. People like it better that way. Don’t worry about resting. Well, then you’re serving cold food, and it’s very…. Carryover can be dangerous. You know, nothing worse than going out and buying an expensive piece of USDA prime steak for the boss and his wife coming over for dinner, and you serve it, and it’s overcooked. Oh, my goodness.

Michael: But, I mean, going back to the chicken, the reason that I cook it to 150 to 155 is ‘cuz I know there’s going to be carryover cooking, and it’s going to keep going up to, depending on how thick it is, you know, it can go 5, 10 degrees or more higher, and it’s going to A) pass the time threshold for safety, and B), it’s going to it’s going to go up so that it’s more evenly cooked to the same temperature, rather than the outside being overcooked and the inside, not so much. So, I think if you understand that, you can use carryover cooking to your advantage. But as you point out, a lot of times, with cooking steak and getting a good sear on the outside without overcooking the inside… that can be hard to do, and [there’s still] carryover cooking. But also a lot of people value the crispness of a chicken skin or things like that. And so, if you rest it, it’s going to ruin that. So, even if maybe you lose a little bit of moisture, it may not be worth that tiny percentage [of water] to lose that crispness of the skin of a fish skin or something like that.

Meathead: Yeah; absolutely. And as I say, you really don’t lose it. It’s on your plate, and you’ve got the meat on your fork. You just mop it right up. Everybody does. I mean, I’ve never sent a plate back to the kitchen that had running juices still on it. I mean, I don’t think many people do. Now, you raise an interesting point, though, about flabby skin. Here’s a fun myth that I like to bust. People cook their turkeys in these big gorgeous Calphalon pans with high sides and a rack that is V-shaped and that turkey sits down deep in that, right? And so, the energy in the hot air hits the sides of those pans. A lot of it bounces off. They also put an inch of water in the bottom because the drippings… they want to capture those drippings, either for use in sauce, or… they want to make sure that they don’t burn, because if you don’t have some liquid in the bottom of that pan, the drippings are going to hit the pan and they’re going to burn. And once they burn, they put a carbon flavor into the meat. So, you put a little water in that pan. Now, water cannot go above 212. And this is a really important factor in learning about cooking science. Water can’t go above 212, so it will heat up that water to 212. Well, if the top of the turkey is in the oven at say 350 or 400, the bottom is at 212 or maybe it’ll go… the air between the water and the turkey will go up to maybe 275. You’ve got the walls of the pan blocking. You’ve got the water down below cooling the air. And that’s why the underside of your turkey is tan and rubbery, right? And so, the technique for improving your turkeys is: raise the bird up…. You can use that big pan if you want, but take a rack off your grill or out of the oven, and set the rack on top of the pan. And then put the bird on top of that rack so air can circulate all around the bird. Or, better still, what I love to do on the grill is spatchcock it, like you say, and then put the pan a couple of inches below. The bird goes right on the cooking grate, but the pan goes down on the charcoal or on the burners, so it’ll catch the drippings.  But you’ve got a couple of inches of air in-between the bird and the pan, and now you’re cooking it all over evenly, and you get good crispy skin all around and crispy chicken skins right up there with potatoes.

Michael: Delicious; I know. And you mentioned Julia Child earlier, and she’s got a great recipe for cooking turkeys where you break it into two parts, so you have the dark meat, the white meat, and you sear the dark meat, and then you put in the oven…. I’m not going to go through the whole thing, but you cook it over a pan with your stuffing…. Well, not stuffing but your chopped up bread, and so all the drippings are going right into the bread as it’s cooking. And it… her whole method is really worth doing. It’s a lot of work: you debone the thighs and put herbs in, sew them up, and everything…. But it’s a great recipe, and the stuffing is delicious.

Meathead: I haven’t seen that. You know, a lot of people still stuff the bird. If you stuff the bird, now what you’ve done is you’ve made a bowling ball. You’ve made a giant thermal mass, and juices get into that stuffing and those juices can be contaminated, so you not only are now cooking the thigh to 165, you’ve got to cook the center of the of the stuffing too. By the time you get the stuffing cook,… and I have Thanksgiving with my brother-in-law every year, and he insists on stuffing the bird in the oven and the meat is just bone dry because he’s got to cook the stuffing to 165. Take the stuffing out, let warm air in the cavity. Or, better still, as you’ve done: spatchcock and let it circulate. It cooks faster, stays moister…. But what I do with my turkey recipe, and this is in the book and on amazingribs.com: I take that pan that’s underneath the bird, and I put the neck, I put the gizzards (not the liver — I save I save the liver), I put spices and herbs, an apple, half a bottle of white wine, maybe some chicken stock, some celery, some carrots… basically I build a stock underneath the bird, and the water in that stock is cool, and cool surfaces attract smoke. And we can talk more about this in a bit, but it gets a little smoky, and so when the bird is almost done — not quite — I’ll pull that pan out, strain it, get rid of all the solids, taste it, and it is just phenomenal. Sometimes it’s a little thin, so then I’ll throw it on the stove top and reduce it or cook it down, but I don’t add any kind of flour or starch to it to make a thick. Now, there are people who want that thick stuffing (I mean thick gravy), but it just sits on top of the meat. I’ll use this thin stock as my gravy because it can penetrate the meat and improve the flavor. So, it’s a great technique. Just put everything you would do if you were making a chicken stock or a turkey stock under the bird and then strain it just before you bring in the bird, and you’ve got yourself one. And I usually do it with… I almost always have enough so that there’s, like, a quart left over, and the next day I just drink this. It’s just turkey soup. It’s fantastic.

Michael: There’s a technique called beurre monté, which you’re probably familiar with, that would be — since you’re not using a roux — that would be a great technique to finish that sauce and also thicken it up a little bit and give it a little more flavor and shine.

Meathead: Yeah; “beurre monté” meaning adding butter, and butter works with everything.

Michael: Actually… I’m sorry: it’s not beurre monté it’s monter au beurre. Beurre monté is a butter sauce with water, whisking those together. But, yeah, just take a knob of butter and whisk it in. You know, I’m glad you mentioned the thing about water and the 212°, and it’s a really important thing for a lot of… for people to understand cooking and it’s not just the temperature, you know geting stuck there, but water has a very high thermal mass, and because of the very polar molecules… I mean, you probably know this, but to go from freezing temperature liquid (0 degrees) to 100 is… you know, it takes a calorie per [degree] Centigrade, right? So, it’s takes 100 calories for a gram of water to go from freezing temperature all up to boiling temperature. It takes 540 calories to evaporate that 1 gram of water. It’s a huge amount of energy, so, like, when you’re cooking a steak, this is why we pat them dry. Because otherwise that water has to evaporate off, and it’s taking a lot of heat out of the steak. And so, you’re going to cook a lot further down in, and you’re not going to get that nice crust on it without overcooking the middle. And there are all kinds of applications for this. So, understanding water… why we use a bain Marie when we’re cooking custards and stuff like that is super important for people to understand. And with just a little basic knowledge of how that works, that can really inform why we do these things.

Meathead: We recommend, and it’s gained popularity since I started promoting the idea, that you divide your grill into two parts: that you have a hot side and a not-hot side. So, it’s like being in the sun or being in the shade. You have the hot side where you’re getting infrared energy from the burners in the gas grill or from the coals, and you’re getting infrared energy from directly below the food. But on the other side, you have the burners off, and there’s no charcoal, and you’re… and what the meat is doing is it’s sitting in convection air flow, and that is a great way to cook most everything outdoors on a grill — gas or charcoal. Divide it in two zones and put the food on the indirect, in the “shade,” so that it will gently warm from convection airflow. And then at the end of the cook, not the beginning of the cook…. At the end of the cook, that’s when you put it directly over the coals or the flame over infrared energy to get your crispy chicken skins, to get your great sear on a steak. And we do want a sear on a steak. It’s not because it seals in juices… because it’s flavorful. And you know how many times have we gone to a 4th of July or a Memorial Day picnic, and they serve the chicken, and it’s practically black on the outside and it is really bloody? I mean it’s myoglobin, it’s…. well, it is myoglobin, but it’s really pink inside — way undercooked, stringy, and that’s because the skin has got a lot of fat in and it burns. And people start cooking right over the coals or right over the flame. They start cooking with infrared, and you save that infrared for just finishing the surface of the meat.

Michael: This whole thing of getting grill marks where you basically, in most cases, are burning two areas rather than having an even Maillard browning over the surface, which is really what you want. And the other is a “reverse sear,” where you’re doing a lot of the cooking… you’re drying off the surface, going back to what we’re talking about with all the energy it takes to evaporate water. And so, your the surface of your meat is going to be a lot more “ready,” I guess I’ll say, to brown quickly and easily when you then put it directly over the infrared heat or on the metal surfaces that have that really intense conductive heating.

Meathead: Yeah; “reverse sear” is a really important core concept that, when I first started writing about it, hardly anybody had ever heard of it. But now I think it’s gained a great wide acceptance, and that is: you start… I mean all the cookbooks and a lot of the cooking shows tell you: Okay. You’ve got a lamb loin… a section of loin of lamb, and you’re… or pork. And you brown it first in the frying pan and then you pop it in the oven. Well, what happens when you do that? You’re pounding the surface with energy. You’re embedding energy into the surface, and that surface holds that energy and transmits it deep into the meat. The surface becomes like a battery, and it’s got all that energy in it. And it’s moving slowly towards the center. And then, what you get when you slice open is you get a beautiful dark, brown crust, which we all want, but below that dark brown crust is a brown layer; below that is a tan layer; below that is a pink layer; and below that, finally, it’s beautiful, rosy medium rare, if you’re talking about a pork, I mean a steak, a beef roast or something like that. You get this rainbow effect. But if you start it in the oven at a low temperature or on the indirect side of a grill (and when I say “grill,” I mean either charcoal or gas), started on the indirect side of a grill, it will warm gently and thoroughly because water is a great insulator. So… low temperature (I recommend 225). That’s…. you know: master that. Learn how to get your grill to 225. If you can do that on the indirect side, then you can cook. And, so, you start your chicken on the indirect side at 225, and you gently warm it until it’s close to finished — finished we’ll say 155, 160, okay? So, you’ve got your instant-read thermometer (which you can you don’t have to spend a fortune to get), and you poke it a few times. And don’t worry: it’s not going to go psssssshhhh and deflate. You’re not letting a lot of water out. Maybe a couple of drops or something. I mean, I’m jumping all over the place, but stick with me. An eight-ounce filet mignon is six ounces of water. You can stab that filet mignon with a thermometer several times, and if you lose half a teaspoon, you’ve still got a ton of water. You’ve got five and a half ounces or more of water in there. It’s going to be moist. And remember: it’s collagen, fat, water, saliva… no harm done. Use that thermometer, and use it a lot. So, you got your chicken on the indirect side. You bring it up to, say, 155. And now, it’s close to done (or done if you want it at that temperature). Now, you lift the lid…. Now, you’ve been cooking with the lid down on the indirect side, so it’s all convection air flow and it’s warming gently. You lift the lid and move it over the infrared side. And now you’re going to pound the surface with intense, concentrated infrared energy and you’re going to brown it. And you’re going to brown that chicken skin until it’s beautiful, golden, and crispy. Flip it over, brown the other side, and you’re done.

El Sleezo Tough: “Yeah; but she’s my ‘miss’.”

Kermit: No; no. “Myth… myth.”

Myth: “Yeth?”

Kermit: What the hey.

Michael: We were just talking about marinades, for example, because he’s just using the standard marinade that, you know…. And people have this conception that all this stuff’s going to penetrate into the meat, which nothing does, except for the salt, as you know. And if you have too much acid for too long, it just makes outside mushy. So, I’d love for you to talk about marinates, to start with, and then other myths like that that you think are important that a lot of people have misconceptions about.

Meathead: Sure! Well; all right… several things to think about. First of all, let’s take a chicken breast, because chicken, as we’ve discussed… if you cook it too far too far it can get quite dry, and people want it moist. And people are always interested in adding flavor to things. So, they make these marinades up. Well; let’s talk about what that chicken breast is. That chicken breast is 75% water maybe 8-10% protein, 4-5% fat…. So, you know, it’s a complex mass, but it’s mostly water. So, they make up the marinade… or a lot of recipes say just go buy a bottle of Italian dressing and use that for marinade. Well, what’s in there? Oil. Oil and water don’t mix. There’s no way the oil is going to penetrate that chicken breast anywhere on this planet or under any sun. It just can’t. Oil and water don’t mix. Not only that, but that chicken breast is already pretty darn saturated with liquid. You can weigh that chicken breast, soak it in a marinade, take it out, and weigh it again. And maybe you get a 2% weight gain. And that’s because it’s all on the surface. Now, the surface is roug: the surface has little pores in it and cracks and crevices. [It] may look smooth to the eye, but if you look at it with a magnifying glass, you can see it’s a very like the surface of the Moon, so the liquid can get into the cracks and crevices and pores but it can’t go any more than a 16th or the eighth of an inch into the meat. And if you don’t believe me, go out and get a chicken breast, pull the skin off so it’s not in the way, and marinate it overnight in whatever your favorite marinade is, then cook it up and cut it in half and taste a core sample out of the center. Be very careful that, when you cut it in half, you aren’t pushing the flavor from the surface to the inside. So you’ve got to have a very clean knife, and you’ve got to wipe the surface. And if you take a core sample, it tastes like chicken. You won’t taste the marinade. Now what you might notice, though, is in the marinade there’s often salt. And salt is different than anything else… any spice you have, any fluid you have. Salt is the magic rock. Salt is just two little atoms: sodium and chloride. And when they get wet, they get electrified, or what they call “ionized,” and they can actually kind-of split up and go deep. It takes a while, but salt can penetrate deep. Nothing else can. Garlic won’t get in there, sugar won’t…. So, you get your big old Thanksgiving turkey and you get a big beer cooler out and you dump a whole bunch of apple juice in there and salt and pepper and garlic and all that other stuff, and you drop your turkey in there, and the only thing that’s getting into the meat is the salt. You’ve wasted a ton of money on apple juice and pepper, and now it will land on the surface, and it will flavor the surface. And that’s good, because when you slice into it and you chew, you mix the surface with the center. But the center doesn’t have it in it. And you run the risk, as you said, Michael… the surface can get mushy, especially if it’s got a lot of acid in there. So, if there’s a lot of vinegar, it can soften the surface, and also it wets the meat… so that if you’re going to grill it now, you’ve got wet meat on the grill. You’ve got to dry the surface off before you can brown it, as you were saying earlier. So, you’re burning up a lot of energy there, and you’re not going to get a good, brown surface. And you run the risk of overcooking. So I don’t do much marinating at all. Now, occasionally I do, and when I do I do something that I call a “brinerade,” because brine is salt water, and salt penetrates as we just discussed. So, I will use a lot of soy sauce, which has got salt in it. Or, I’ll make up a flavorful brine or a flavorful marinade. But I’m going for the salt inside, and I’m going for all the other flavors on the surface. I’m not fooling myself about them getting inside. I’ve got an article about this on amazingribs.com where I’ve dyed the marinades with green dye and then sliced them open, and you can see the green dye just doesn’t penetrate. It just sits there on the surface. You can see the pictures: the evidence, the proof. The other thing [that] is related to this, is surface fat. Now, particularly, barbecue fanatics love brisket, which is a really special cut of meat, and it’s got to be cooked very carefully. It can take 12 hours or more, and it comes with a very thick layer of fat on it. Or a pork roast, which often has a thick layer of fat. What is fat? It’s oil. What is the meat? It’s water that fat cannot penetrate. Now everybody knows [that] fat is flavor, but it’s the marbling. Think of a steak which has all that filigrees of fat running through it that melts; and that improves flavor immensely, but the surface fat around the edges of the steak on the pork roast [or] on top of a brisket cannot penetrate under any circumstances. Now, if you start gashing it and slicing it it’ll get into the gashes and slices, but it’s not going into the muscle fibers under any circumstances. So, a lot of people think, you know: leave the fat cap on. It’s not going to improve. In fact, if you’re doing a brisket and you leave that thick, one-inch fat cap on and you put a rub or a seasoning on top of it, the first thing that happens when you serve it is everybody cuts the fat off and throws it away. And there goes your flavor.

Michael: Do you ever lard meats?

Meathead: No; I don’t. Do you want to explain what larding is?

Michael: Well; there’s “barding,” where you’re putting basically fat on the outside and “larding” where you use these needles and insert fat on the inside.

Meathead: Well, I have “butter-balled” a turkey, and I’ve done that several times. What I will do is: I will melt butter and inject it into the turkey meat, which is nice. But, you can’t do it when the turkey’s cold because the butter will solidify instantly… so, now you got clumps of butter and it jams up the injector and everything. So, I’ll start the turkey, and when it gets up to about 120, 130 and the meat is now warm, you can get a hypodermic that’s designed for injecting, and I’ll inject it with butter or something. People inject with all kinds of crazy stuff. I think… Dr. Pepper. I get these questions all the time, you know: “How do I inject Dr Pepper in my turkey?” All right; we’re bordering on one of my favorite myths of all, and that’s beer can chicken. You know; I mean… okay. So, you’ve got this chicken and you’re gonna take a metal object and stick it up its butt, and there’s beer in there. Now, beer is 90% water or so, so it won’t boil until it hits 212. Now, your chicken is done at 155, 160 so, it’s never… I mean, now you’ve made a thermal mass of chicken and beer. Now, you take the chicken out of the fridge at 38°. Keep your refrigerator under 40, and you take the chicken out at 38 degrees. And you put a beer can up it, you now have a chicken koozie. You have now insulated that beer with cold chicken, so it’s not going to boil anytime, anywhere, anyhow, under any circumstances. The beer can’t boil. And even if it did, where’s it going to go? It’s going to go to the top of the can and come out which is up near the shoulder of the bird, right? And there the chicken meat is fully saturated. There’s no Super Highway that leads all the way down to the thighs and the legs. And what happens is fascinating; we’ve done this. I’ve got a whole big article: we showed, with thermometers everywhere, when you take the beer can out and weigh it, it actually weighs more than when you put it in. And you know why?

Michael: Right; well, ‘cuz all the juices are [dripping in].

Meathead: And the fat will sit on top of the beer, and the beer couldn’t evaporate even if it wanted to. So, it weighs more when you take it out. Besides, beer is bitter. Do you really want your chicken tasting like beer? Now; all right; all right. People are out there they’re getting… they’re switching off. Before you switch off, let me let me tell you, beer can chickens tastes marvelous. I absolutely adore it, but you know why? The beer can has nothing to do with it.

Michael: It’s roast chicken!

Meathead: It’s roast chicken! And roast chicken is marvelous. No matter how you do it, it’s hard to screw it up — even if you stick a beer can up its butt, it’s roast chicken. And everybody loves roast chicken. And it does look cool… you got this little Buddha sitting there on your grill.

Michael: I could see how… I mean, they make stands, basically, for roasting chickens upright, and I could see an advantage to that where we have the dark meat closer [to the heat], so it’s getting hotter, and so forth. I would still… you know, it’s hard to brown it evenly and it’s like stuffing your bird with stuffing, where you just have all that thermal mass. And as I’m sure you know, water has a huge… a very high thermal mass. It’s like twice the thermal mass of oil, so it holds a lot of heat and it takes a long time to heat up the….

Meathead: Oil will get hot faster than the water.

Michael: Yeah; twice as fast. —Which is also why…. You know, when you deep fry, you have to be really careful how much [food] you put in [at once] because…. You know, if you boil water — and this is part of the reason we [use] a large pot of water: to keep as much [heat in the] thermal mass [of water], if we want to have that cooking temperature stay there, because it’s going to drop down when we put the food in. [If] you put the food into hot oil, it’s going to drop a lot faster, so you really need to work in smaller batches and allow the restoration of the heat.

Meathead: All right. You want to hear something wacko?

Michael: Yes!

Meathead: I love fried chicken. Everybody out there who’s listening today: if you love fried chicken, raise your hand. Look! Everybody’s hand is up. Everybody’s hand is up! But how often do you cook it? Because if you do it on your stove top, it spatters all over the place. It sets off the smoke alarm. You’ve got stuff to clean up, you know. It just…. I do it on my gas grill. I go outside. I take a large Dutch oven… one gallon capacity… big Dutch oven… put about an inch or two of oil (that’s all; you don’t need much more than that) in the Dutch oven… put it over the burners… turn the burners that are underneath up as high as necessary to get it up to 375 (that’s your magic number: 350 to 375 is your magic number for deep frying — I like 375; some people like 350. There’s not that huge a difference). Get it up to 375, but I leave the other side off. Now you take the chicken and you roll it in the flour and the egg and breadcrumbs or back in the flour… do whatever you want to get the coating on it and into the oil and it cooks in that oil beautifully. And who cares if it smokes? You’re in the backyard. Who cares if it spatters? You’re on a grill. And it’s safe. I mean, you’re not going to knock over a big old cast iron Dutch oven. In fact: I mean, if you do it indoors, you knock over a Dutch oven or a frying pan indoors, you burn down your house. I mean you’re not going to knock it over, but if you do, the worst that’s going to happen outdoors is you burn down a $500 grill, and you’re not going to. It’s just not going to burn down anything. When the chicken is beautiful golden, you take it out and you put it on the indirect side next to the Dutch oven. Check the temp. If it’s done, it’s done. If it’s kind of underdone, [it] doesn’t matter because you’re going to put the next batch of chicken in the oil and close the lid and it’s going to sit there and continue to roast, so you’ve got… I mean, I don’t like… a lot of places do buttermilk treatment, and when you do buttermilk or egg, often the crust turns brown. If you go to a restaurant, order fried chicken and the crust is brown, it’s almost a sure bet they do buttermilk or egg. It burns, and you run the risk of it being a little raw in the center. So, they have to pop it in the oven to finish it. Same thing happens here. Take it out of the oil, put it on the indirect side of the grill, let it finish. Over there, stays hot, stays crispy, fantastic! It’s perfectly safe, and it’s fantastic. And I got to tell you, I’ve played with just about every kind of coating, and my favorite coating is a quick dunk in vinegar and then a quick dunk in flour. And I don’t mess with the eggs and the breadcrumbs and all. It’s a light coating; it’s got a nice crunch. It’s not the big, thick Kentucky Fried coating. It’s just marvelous; it’s just simple.

Michael: Have you done a coating with corn starch?

Meathead: Yeah; well, I mix… actually to be honest, I do a mixture of all-purpose flour and corn starch.

Michael: Okay

Meathead: And I’ve got that recipe on the website. It’s a blend, and I know people who use potato starch. Potato starch… I haven’t played with it, but I hear it’s really good.

Michael: Yeah; now, I love that technique because, well A) as you mentioned, you’re outside, and I love fried chicken too. I don’t eat it mostly… often, well… A) because of the mess and stinking up the house, and my wife won’t let me, and the acrylamides, you know, and wasting all that oil, ‘cuz you can’t use oil too many times. It breaks down and creates free radicals and so forth, but part of the difficulty, especially if you’re not really experienced, is having the outside gets either perfect or too cooked and the inside is still not cooked all the way through. And it’s hard for people to do that. So cooking it just to the exact temperature. And then you… another one of my favorite things that I do make sometimes is a chicken roulade, which I’m not sure but I think Heston Blumenthal was the person who came up with this, but I’m not really sure who invented of this idea… but basically, you sous vide… you take two chicken breasts you de-skin them, and…. The way that I originally saw this is: you cut off this the skin in one piece from the chicken, you take the breasts out, you use transglutaminase, which is an enzyme that bonds… it bonds two amino acids together with covalent bonds. Anyway; so, it bonds the protein together. And then you wrap it in the chicken skin and you create a roulade, so it’s perfectly wrapped in the skin. You sous vide it at, like ,149 degrees for an hour to an hour and a half, and then you take it out. It’s pretty hot, so it will dry pretty quickly, and then you deep fry it for a couple minutes just…. And then you slice it, and it makes these really beautiful, perfect little rounds. The white meat is perfectly cooked: super tender; juicy.

Meathead: You’ve used a term which I’m presume a lot of people understand, but I’m surprised… I do a lot of public speaking and book signings and there’s still a lot of people who don’t know what sous vide is, but let’s talk about that. A lot of what we’ve been talking about dovetails into the topic of sous vide, because we’ve talked about the fact that safety is a measure of time and temperature. Now, sous vide is a technique, and I’ll just do the very quick thumbnail, where you can you have a heating device… a heating element… it looks like an old-fashioned flashlight. It’s a tube, and you sit it in a pot of water, and it warms the water to whatever temperature you said. So, let’s say we’re going to do chicken breasts but we don’t want them dry. We want… we’re not going to cook them to 165, we’re not going to even cook them 160. We’re going to take them to your favorite temperature: 150 to 155, but we know that at that temperature it’s got to be held there for a while to get pasteurized, so we take the chicken breast and we put it in a Ziploc bag, and we lower it into the water until the water pressures all the air out, zip it up, and now the chicken is in contact with the plastic but the plastic is in contact with the water, and you use a plastic that doesn’t have any plasticizers or anything that will hurt the food, and you set the temperature for 155, 160 but you let it go for an hour or two in that range and you can actually let it go longer: 3, 4 hours… it really doesn’t hurt much, and you can let it go. So now you can start those chicken breasts before the company arrives for dinner and you get them in the sous vide bath, and when you pull it out, they’re absolutely perfect temperature and they’re absolutely safe. Problem is, is they have no color. They’re butt ugly. So, you want to get a maillard reaction. You want to sear it. You want to get the browning on the surface and so, if you have peeled this the skin off like you talked about you could wrap it in the skin and throw it on the grill or in a pan of oil to brown it and crisp it and finish it…. I call it “sous vide Q,” and you take it out of the sous vide bath and then throw it on a hot grill right over infrared, right over hot coals or open flame, and get that surface done, and it’s really a good technique. You end up with very moist meat, very tender meat that’s absolutely safe and has a beautiful dark brown crust.

Michael: Yeah; it’s a great technique for cooking meat. It’s very easy. As you mentioned it’s…. The nice thing about it is, for a white meat like that, an hour, an hour and a half is all you need to do. But for working muscles, you could cook them for 12, 16 hours; and at the right temperature, it just will break them down very slowly, and then you brown them like you say. And so, it’s very easy to do. You can also prep a whole bunch of stuff ahead of time. You can even keep them in the [bags]. One thing I don’t think you just mentioned, but “sous vide” means “under vacuum,” so, originally they would [be in] vacuum sealed [bags], but you can just use a Ziploc bag and stick it in water to force the air out and zip it up. That works just fine. But you can take those bags, stick them in your fridge, or even, if it’s for long-term [storage], you can even freeze them and re-thaw them, and then when you’re ready, you just take them out, dry them out, throw them on your barbecue, and you get great results. So, it’s a really nice technique.

Meathead: Listeners: if you’ve ever wondered when you go to a conference and there’s 350 people in the convention hall for dinner and everybody’s ordered filet mignon and they bring it out [and] it’s all perfectly medium rare, how did they do that? This is how they do it. They do it all in sous vide, bring it up to about 130 (or maybe 125 to 130, in that range) and then they pop it in the fridge and then when people… the guests start arriving, it goes back in the water bath to “retherm” it, they call it, just to warm it, pull them out of the bag, and throw them on a big old flat-top griddle or on a grill and get that surface beautiful. And out go 350 medium rare filet mignon all at once and they’ve done it via sous vide.

Michael: Yeah; it’s a fantastic technique

Meathead: Yeah; you know, the sous vide machines now have come down to $100 or so. The top of the line are closer to 200, and they all… the better ones talk to your smartphone. It’s a lot of fun. I do what I call the “afterburner technique.” I will sous vide a steak and then I’ll take it out and I’ll sear it on a grate on top of a charcoal chimney. A charcoal chimney: it looks like a big coffee can, and you use that to start your charcoal for a charcoal grill. And it can fire all the charcoal and you light it from below and it gets the charcoal glowing and hot. And it’s the best way to start charcoal for a grill. But if you put a grate on top, it’s almost 1,000° or more, depending on how much charcoal you have in there. I mean, it’s like the back end of an F-16, and that’s why I call it the “afterburner,” because you can take your steak out of the sous vide bath; it’s absolutely perfectly cooked, but it’s butt ugly. And I throw it on a grate on top of the charcoal chimney [for] one minute per side, flip it one minute back and back: that’s it. Two flips, and it’s beautiful, [with a] dark brown crust, and absolutely perfect tender and juicy in the center.

Michael: And you mentioned crème brûlée, and that’s is what made me think of it. A “salamander” was originally a piece of iron… basically like a round disc with a long handle coming off of it. And they would stick them in a fire, and then they would hold them over their crème brûlée to brûlée them before there were torches. And they sort-of looked like salamanders (sort of, in a way). And there’s a mythology of salamanders coming from fire… I think because people would burn fires and the salamanders who often lived in the wood would —

Meathead: Oh, this is cool! I never knew this.

Michael: Yeah; when [the wood burned], they would run away

Meathead: …all come scurrying out…

Michael: And so, that became the name of this device and then that became the name of the browning [appliance] in commercial kitchens.

Meathead: When I was a boy, I used to go walking through the woods, and you’d find these old logs that were practically dissolved, you know… full of, saturated with water. And they were always full of salamanders, and I loved catching them. And I didn’t know that’s how it got the name.

Michael: Do you prefer charcoal briquettes over the wood….

Meathead: Here’s another opportunity for people to hang up and say, “This guy’s out of his mind.” I much prefer briquettes. Now, everybody says, “Oh; but lump charcoal… that’s more natural.” Well, all right. Let’s define the terms. Lump charcoal is hunks of wood that are put into what’s called a “retort.” It’s a big, metal tank, and they take most of the air out, and they let the wood burn and smolder until it consumes most of the cellulose and lignan. And what is left is called “char,” and it’s pure carbon. And it’s more… it has more potential energy than wood. And so, now you have charcoal, and so this is the way it was always made in the old days: chunks of wood, and you just put it in a barrel, cover the barrel… or dig a hole and cover the hole, and you make charcoal. And charcoal, of course, was used to fire the steel mills and make coal for trains and stuff… and for cooking. And they still do it this way. But the problem with the lump charcoal, which is still made from plain wood, is you get some pieces that are very big, like a softball, and other pieces that are the size of your thumb. And they char unevenly, and often when you light them, they snap, crackle, pop, because in the center there’s still cellulose and lignin that hasn’t been converted properly; and they put out a lot of smoke. And in my world, charcoal is for energy, not for flavor. And in fact, if you’ve ever lit charcoal briquettes or lump you notice that when you light it there’s a lot of smoke that comes out. And then, after a while, as it gets fully engaged… as it gets up to temp, there’s less smoke. And that’s because there’s a lot of impurities that are coming off in the form of smoke. And as it gets fully up the temp, that high heat burns off those impurities, and you can’t see them. We call it “blue smoke,” because it’s almost invisible. And I don’t want smoke from my charcoal, because I don’t know what wood source was used. If I’m using lump, it could have it could be hickory, it could be apple… I don’t know what it is. I use wood for smoke. So, I’ll start my charcoal briquettes in a charcoal chimney. And we talked about the chimney: it’s like this tube and you light it. And the Weber brand charcoal chimney holds exactly 80 briquettes. That’s a known quantity of energy. Want less heat? Fill it halfway: 40 briquettes. 40 briquettes is half the energy. Cooking is all about temperature control… energy control. So, I now have known quantities of energy I can control. With lump charcoal, I have no idea. You pour it into the chimney… big chunks, little chunks, a lot of air in there… Snap, Crackle, Pop. I don’t know how much is lignan, how much is…. I use charcoal briquettes. And you let them come up to the temp where they’re all covered in white ash, and now they’re producing lots of energy. It’s very concentrated. Much more energy than you can get from most gas grills. Now, some gas grills have this salamander-type cooker, which we talked about, which is this… not porcelain… ceramic with lots of little holes in it that looks like this honeycomb. And there’s a brand called Napoleon that makes one that has it off on the side burner. And that’s fantastic. And they’re really hot… great for doing steaks. But the charcoal briquettes get really intense heat, and I can control how much. So, if I want to sear steak, I’m going to fill that chimney up all the way. But if I’m going to slow-roast a chicken, I only fill it halfway. I’ve got temperature control. I don’t have funny flavors coming from the charcoal that I don’t expect, and I know a lot of people say, “Oh; but it’s more natural.” Well; you know, I mean… briquettes are made from sawdust. And they use some binders [starch], and they add some compounds mostly it’s… drawing a blank…. it’s a common kitchen binder…. I’m an old man. My memory just escaped me, but it’s a harmless binder that helps the — they take the sawdust, put it in the big retort, turn it into char, and then they press it together with this binder to hold them. Some briquettes now are not… there’s no binders, ‘cuz they’re very conscience of people who think it somehow is less safe. And so, I’m a briquette guy. Now, I have played with other brands and with lump and such, and I’m sorry. It’s just easier and I buy good, old Kingsford blue bags on sale in May. It goes on sale in May, and you just stock up!

Michael: If you’re using wood for smoke… and I know that you’re going to recommend that everyone soak their wood…. But the real question is: for people in different… if they have a Weber barbecue or whatever…  is there a technique that you like that allows the wood to smoke evenly over a period of time okay?

Meathead: Really fun questions with really interesting answers. First of all, do you know why they build boats out of wood? ‘Cuz wood doesn’t absorb water. And I’ve done the test. I’ve taken chunks chips, soak them in water… not just for an hour or two as most of the cookbooks say… overnight. Weigh them…. first soak them overnight, take them out, pat the surface dry — because most of the water is on the surface, because it doesn’t absorb — and you get maybe 3% increase in weight, and that’s because the water doesn’t penetrate. It can’t penetrate. And then I’ve shown… I’ve got pictures on my website where I cut the wood open, and you can see there’s no water inside. So, what happens…? Say you’re burning charcoal. You’ve got wood that you’ve soaked an hour or two or overnight or whatever you’ve done, and you throw it on your hot charcoal. Well, what happens now? The temperature of your charcoal goes down. Well, cooking is all about temperature. Temperature control. I’m a control freak. I want control over every aspect of what I’m doing. I don’t want my temperature… when I’ve got my charcoal up to the temp I want… because I’ve used the right amount of charcoal (and I use more on a cold day, less on a hot day) and I’ve got… and I’ve, you know, I’ve learned this. It takes practice. And I don’t want to throw wet stuff on top of my charcoal. But people say, “But look at all the smoke you get!” It’s not smoke — it’s steam. It’s steam! Remember: water boils at 212. That wood has got water on the surface. Wood doesn’t start to smoke until 5, 600 degrees. So, the first thing that happens… [when] it gets on the charcoal is the water has to evaporate. And what you see is not smoke, it’s steam. Just hold a mirror over it, you’ll see it steams up the mirror. It’s all steam. Then after the water is evaporated, the wood can start to warm up; and when it gets to 5, 600, it can start smoldering and burning. So. Now, this is interesting. A lot of people say, “Well, I throw wood on my charcoal and it burns up in a few minutes.” Great! Because when wood burns with a flame, it actually is burning what we call “clean burning,” and it’s burning off the impurities that make funny flavors. It makes a better flavor when it actually burns, not smolder. When it smolders it makes… it can make…. Smoldering wood is okay. Smoldering wood is fine, it makes a nice flavor, but a better flavor: if you look at these tip-top Pit Masters who cook on these big, old commercial pits the size of a sofa and they have a little box on the side where they do their wood for a fire,… they leave the door open, and lots of oxygen in there, and they will let that wood burn. And you get what we call “blue smoke.” So, … and related to that question is… I always get, “Well, what kind of wood should I use on my turkey?” It just doesn’t matter. Okay; it matters a little. You know…. Okay. I’m going to say, “Let’s use some hickory.” What do you think? When you buy a bag of hickory, do you think it’s Shagbark Hickory or Pignut Hickory? Is it Black Hickory? Has it got bark on it? Has it been air dried or kiln dried? What is the moisture content of that wood, ‘cuz wood has moisture in it. I mean, it it’s just [that] there just so many variables… I tell people: pick one wood and stick with it. If you’ve got a fruit tree on your yard… fruit or nut trees… hardwood…. You don’t want to use soft wood like pine. Use hardwood. So, apple, peach, pear, oak. And just let it burn. Let it burn. And you asked about: how do you control the smoke? It depends. This is another really interesting thing. Have you ever noticed when you get out of the shower how your mirror is all fogged up? It’s the little, tiny droplets of steam in the moisture condense on the mirror, and it’s a process called “thermophoresis.” It says that small particles are attracted to cold surfaces. Well, smoke is small particles. So, if you bring food out of the fridge… and a lot of recipes say: let it sit on the table and come to room temp. Wrong. Take it right from the fridge and go to the grill or the smoker because cold meat will attract more smoke. You’ll get more smoke flavor. It’s a basic scientific fact. Not only that, but if you let meat sit around at room temperature, you’re having a party for the bacteria.

Michael: There’s some fish that, like trout and salmon, that’s pretty easy to cook because there’s a lot of fat in it. But there are a lot of very tender white fishes that are, I think, harder to cook on a grill or a barbecue. So, I’m curious what your advice is. Do you use one of those little baskets that holds them?

Meathead: Yeah; the biggest problem with cooking fish is that it sticks to the grill grates really bad. I mean, it’s almost impossible to evade. A lot of people will oil the fish. I’m a… you should… I’m a fan of oiling the food, not the grates. When you oil the grates, the grates are hot, and it cracks the oil. It’s a chemical reaction, and the oil can smell. It’s smoke, and that smoke is not good-tasting. But if the food is cold out of the fridge, it’s in the 30s, so if you oil the food, it takes a little longer for the oil to break down and to smoke, and that’ll help keep from sticking. But a chef at a local seafood restaurant (there are a couple in the Midwest that are good), he taught me about mayonnaise. Now, mayonnaise is mostly fat. It’s mostly oil. It’s got some egg in it, maybe a little bit of vinegar. Or, uh…

Michael: Lemon juice.

Meathead: Lemon juice or something, but it’s mostly oil. And what happens… and even if… and I know I’ve encountered people out there, much to my surprise, who are absolutely disgusted by mayonnaise they hate mayonnaise. I don’t know why, or they’re associating with something, I don’t know. But mayonnaise on fish really works to keep it from sticking, and most of it melts off. You’ll never taste it. But I do I use the baskets. There’s… if you if you imagine two tennis rackets hinged at the top? Okay; so it’s a cross mesh of wire. And there’s several designs. Weber makes a nice one where that is kind-of spring-loaded, but it holds the fish in place. And when you go to flip it, you flip the basket, so you don’t have to scrape the fish up and lift it up and have it all stick. When they’ll go to open the basket, sometimes it still sticks to the basket, but it’s better than sticking to the grate. Although, there’s a product out there called “GrillGrate” (one word) dot com. It’s trademarked “GrillGrate,” and it’s a special type of grate that people put on their grills. And it’s got raised, like railroad… the rails. But in any case, the it comes with a spatula like fingers, and it goes down and underneath the fish and you can lift up. GrillGrate. it’s really nice little grill grate and they’re really good about distributing the heat on a grill, so your gas grill is more even heat. Go check them out, especially if you use a gas grill. It’s a really great thing, and they’re good for cooking fish.

Michael: Yeah; one thing I found…. One technique I do — and I also, I will oil fish, putting on the grill, but proteins bond really strongly to metal. And I think one mistake that people often make is that they try to take it before it…. It will naturally release after it cooks to a certain point — generally. Right? And they try to move it before it has had a chance to cook enough to release. But if you… and I’m…. assuming you’re working with fish that has a skin like a filet a skin on one side), so if you start with the skin side, which is a lot less susceptible to sticking, the top is going to cook a little bit from the convection heat (and a little bit of the infrared heat), and that will make it less susceptible to sticking once you turn it over. If you put it cold, raw on the grate, then it’s going to have a lot higher chance of bonding to the metal when it cooks. So, that helps a little bit if you don’t have one of those devices to cook it that way.

Meathead: This has been fantastic. I love talking with a chef who really knows what he’s talking about.

Michael: Likewise, Meathead. I really appreciate all of your time. Your website has a ton of great, free content available there. I really encourage anyone to check it out. There’s also a members’ area. It’s, I think, $35 a year. And it’s moderated. You guys answer questions that people have. You get back to people really quickly. It’s really a fantastic resource. So, again, thank you for time, and it’s been it’s been really great.

Meathead: This was fun! It’s so nice to find somebody who speaks the language. This has been a real pleasure. Two hours went by like that [snaps].