022/18 – Charcoal Rubbed Rib Eye Steaks:
On my last Turner and George order I added a pair of big Rib Eye Steaks. I have had these before from T&G, it’s top quality beef, well aged, very tender and super tasty. The plan was just to grill them as usual but I started thinking about the activated charcoal I had bought previously and a number of commercial rubs I had seen with charcoal in. I decided to make my own charcoal based steak rub and cook: Charcoal Rubbed Rib Eye Steaks.
The Meat:
Nice big slabs of rib eye, good bit of marbling through them. Not sure what breed of cow it came from as T&G don’t send the details with the order anymore, however they have said if I ask on the order they will send details so I will do that next time. 2x 350g for £23.
The Rub:
Hardcore Carnivore by Jess Pryles is the charcoal based rub I see being used most on social media but I hadn’t realised how many other charcoal based rubs were available around the world! I had a look at most of them but decided to replicate the ingredients of Hardcore Carnivore so mixed salt, pepper, garlic powder, brown sugar, onion powder and a bit of chilli powder. I used Kadoe Kampot Black Pepper in the mix.
The base rub looked a bit grey. Time to add the charcoal powder – I got this from Amazon for £6.95:
The Prep:
I wanted a lot of heat in the grill to sear the steaks so I fired up a full chimney of Oxford Charcoal Sweet Chestnut. I have used this a fair bit recently, it burns very hot and smells great! Once the charcoal was fully lit I poured it over the base of the Weber kettle and put the grill grates on top but inverted them so the flat part was facing up. The reason I did this was the raised parts add a black sear mark to the steaks but with a charcoal rub applied I wasn’t sure how black lines on a black surface would look so I thought it was better just to sear the steak.
After 10 minutes I checked the temperature of the grill grates – 460c!!! Wow! I have been looking at ceramic grills lately as I am interested in the high heats you can get from them to sear meat but this was impressive! 
With the grill ready I applied the rub to the steaks: 
I left it a few minutes and it soaked in to the meat a bit. 
The Cook:
With the grill so hot the steaks started sizzling as soon as I put them down. 
After a couple of minutes I flipped them over. 
Same again after another couple of minutes. 
After 6 or 7 minutes the meat was probing at 50(ish)c on the Thermapen so I took it off to rest. 
It looked quite odd, like I had seriously burnt it! However, it was very soft to touch and juice was starting to work its way out of the meat.
Time to Eat:
After a 10 minute rest the meat was still wafting steam trails! 
Time to slice the meat open, lovely and pink! The black from the rub is a great contrast to the pink meat. 
Kitchen lighting and taken on my phone so the colours are a bit different but the steak was looking good.
Summary:
Not too sure on this one, the charcoal added a nice colour to the outside of the meat and gives a good contrast to the pink meat on the inside but it didn’t really add anything taste wise and seemed to reduce the amount of crust on the outside of the steak which I normally get from just using salt. The additional ingredients in the rub were quite nice but I think I am just a simple guy and prefer a good amount of just salt on my steak!
Worth a try but I won’t rush to repeat it.
| Cook Difficulty: | 1/5 |
| Cook Duration: | Quick: 1/5 |
| Cook Equipment: | Weber Kettle |
| Cook Method: | Grill Grates |
| Charcoal: | Oxford Charcoal Sweet Chestnut |
| Smoking Wood: | |
| Cook temperature: | 460c |
| Cook time: | 6 minutes plus 10m rest |
| Internal temperature: | 50c |
| Notes: | Charcoal rub or no Charcoal rub? |