A Guide to Searing Steak on Your MAK Grill
National Grilling Month is upon us! Summer is clearly the best time for grilling, so it’s no surprise that July is the month that received this notable title. In honor of national grilling month, we want to share with you a few tips and tricks for utilizing the searing grate on your MAK Grill. I mean who doesn’t love a good sear? Not many people we know, we can tell you that! Searing Steak on Your MAK Grill is fun and we can make it easy for you.
Steps For Searing Steak On Your MAK Grill
As most of you know—food cooked on a MAK Grill is flavorful, smoky, and succulent. You eat first with your eyes, which is why we recommend giving your steak a good sear before serving it up. The MAK searing grate adds an extra touch by giving it those deep charcoal colored sear marks.
We’ve included a few steps for how to sear an entire steak dinner. If you follow these instructions, your neighbors’ eyes are sure to widen with hunger and delight at the next backyard BBQ.
Seared Dinner: Steak, Potatoes, And Corn
For this recipe, you’ll need steaks, russet potatoes, and corn on the cob. The amount that you purchase of each simply depends on how many people you’ll be serving. We usually supply one steak, two ears of corn and one baked potato per person—simply use your best judgment and purchase as much food as you think people will eat.
You’ll also want to make sure you marinate your steak the night before. This isn’t a necessity, but we highly recommend it since it adds more flavor.
- Set your grill to setpoint GRILL with the front FlameZone cover off and the searing grate in place.
- Cook steak to IT 135°F.
- Place the half-rack your searing grate replaced in one of the slide-in upper brackets—this is where you will cook your corn.
- With the FlameZone cover still in place over your rear cooking zone, lay your potatoes to cook.
- For the best potato results: Wash, poke several times each with a fork, rub in oil, dust with your favorite rub.
- Cook your corn on the upper grate; finish on the searing grate for beautiful sear marks.
- Once everything is seared to your liking, serve and enjoy!
The Maillard Reaction
The Maillard Reaction, named after the French food scientist Louis-Camille Maillard, is the process of heat causing sugars and proteins to break down and form a delicious brown coating on meats. People often get this process confused with caramelization which is when sugar molecules break down and create a new compound that is brown and rich in flavor. This reaction can occur within any type of food that contains natural sugars such as fruits and vegetables.
Maillardization is when both sugars and amino acids found in protein react to high heat and interact with each other to create both browning and intense flavor molecules. Those deep mahogany slash marks that form when searing a steak on your MAK Grill is a result of this chemical process!
So basically the main difference between the two, is that caramelization is the process of sugar browning while maillardization is the process of sugar and proteins browning together. Whichever process you’re conducting, you always want to make sure that you don’t overdo it and char your food to oblivion! A slight carbon flavor can be nice, but too much can ruin the whole dish.
One of the most beautiful things about pellet grilling is the way it carefully melds the worlds of food and science. The most skilled pellet smokers have devoted endless hours the art of figuring out exactly what coating to use and what temperature to smoke certain types of meats to achieve the perfect Maillard Reaction. We encourage you to play around with both caramelization and maillardization to find the winning combination.
More Info About The MAK Searing Grate
The MAK Searing Grate is made of T6 aircraft aluminum with hard anodized finish (NO Teflon!). Aluminum gets hot about 15 times faster than stainless steel, meaning you won’t have to wait around to sear your steak and imprint it with those glorious sear marks. Also, each searing grate is TIG welded by hand—this product doesn’t just come off a machine!
We made the MAK Searing Grate to answer customer demand. Using aftermarket sear grates on the MAK Grill often results in the smoke being cut off and not allowed to ventilate, so we made a searing grate that fits perfectly into our FlameZone system.
This accessory works great for any foods that need to be cooked quickly and at high heat. It’s not only great for searing steak on your MAK Grill, but it also works great for burgers, veggies, pork chops, and more! Grilling is cooking with direct heat, usually at high temperatures and for short periods of time (hot’n’fast). Smoking/barbecuing is cooking on indirect and lower heat for longer periods of time (low’n’slow).
When cleaning, warm water, and mild dish soap will do the trick. Proper cleaning and care = a longer lifespan for your grill parts = happy pellethead!