this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
772 points (94.7% liked)

You Should Know

33179 readers
18 users here now

YSK - for all the things that can make your life easier!

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with YSK.

All posts must begin with YSK. If you're a Mastodon user, then include YSK after @youshouldknow. This is a community to share tips and tricks that will help you improve your life.



Rule 2- Your post body text must include the reason "Why" YSK:

**In your post's text body, you must include the reason "Why" YSK: It’s helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. **



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-YSK posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-YSK posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

If you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- The majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities:

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

Credits

Our icon(masterpiece) was made by @clen15!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Why YSK: When you cook meat, any water on the surface must first evaporate before much browning can occur. You want to get as much of a Maillard reaction as possible in the limited cooking time you have before the meat reaches the correct internal temperature. Removing the moisture first means that the heat of the cooking surface isn't wasted on evaporation and can instead interact with the meat to form the complex sugars and proteins of the Maillard reaction.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] nednobbins@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Adding some detail. Evaporating water takes way more energy than just heating it up.
When you put energy (heat) into water that's below 100c it gets hotter. When you add 4,184 to a liter of water the temperature goes up by 1c. If the water is already at 100c it takes 2,260,000 to turn that into 100c steam. The energy that goes into turning water into steam isn't going into the steak.
So if you put a wet steak on the grill it will create an insulating layer of steam that keeps the steak at around 100c (even if the pan is above 100c).
That's also why you only salt your steak right before or after heating it. If you let salt sit on the steak it will draw out moisture, reducing the Maillard reaction and drying out the steak.

For a great practical way to grill the steak perfectly, check out videos on "cold searing".

[–] Coffeemonkepants@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can and should actually salt your steak several hours before cooking, leaving them uncovered in the fridge. Water will be drawn out, and then reabsorbed along with the salt. Dry the surface and salt again if desired right before cooking.

[–] dizzy@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Yep, salt the steak heavily the night before and leave on a wire rack in the fridge uncovered. This is called a dry brine and it's miles better than the bland steak you get with a salty crust and watery inside if you only salt just before or after cooking.