Steak Sear Battle: GrillGrates vs. 3 Other Methods in a Taste Test

Those perfect diamond grill marks look fantastic on a ribeye. But are they actually giving us a better steak, or just a better picture?

Spend some time around steak competitions and you could easily come away thinking that a crisscross pattern is essential. Yet plenty of great steakhouses take a different approach: a more uniform, deeply browned crust instead of a few dramatic stripes.

I wanted to find out which approach delivers where it matters most: flavor. So I cut four ribeyes, fired up two Big Green Eggs, and compared GrillGrates, stock stainless steel grates, a soapstone cooking surface, and a caveman sear directly on the charcoal.

The prettiest steak did not win. And the winning method did not require a cooking grate at all.

What Are We Really Looking for in a Steak Sear?

A good sear is about more than making the outside dark. We want the savory flavor that comes from browning, without pushing the crust into bitter, burnt territory.

The Maillard reaction helps explain why browned steak tastes so good. The question here is whether concentrating that browning into grill marks tastes better than developing it more broadly across the surface.

I have spent enough time around competition barbecue to know that what impresses judges does not always line up with what friends and family prefer at dinner. GrillGrates’ connection to the Steak Cookoff Association also made me curious about how much emphasis the signature pattern receives compared with its actual eating quality.

That is a question worth testing, not a reason to dismiss the product. On a pellet grill that tops out around 400 to 450°F, for example, an accessory that creates distinct sear marks may offer a useful visual improvement. But that is a different situation from a kamado with plenty of high-temperature capability.

This comparison was about taste on a kamado, not simply which setup could draw the best lines. GrillGrates did not sponsor the test. Big Green Egg supplied product support for the production.

The Four Steak Searing Methods

Here is how I divided up the four ribeyes:

1. Steak 1: Caveman sear. Placed directly onto the hot charcoal.
2. Steak 2: Soapstone sear. Seared on a solid, preheated cooking surface.
3. Steak 3: Stock stainless steel grate. Seared over the fire on the standard cooking grate.
4. Steak 4: GrillGrates. Seared on the raised-rail accessory to develop its characteristic grill marks.

I have used both soapstone and cast iron for solid-surface searing in the past and achieved similar results. For this comparison, I used the soapstone I already owned. Cast iron was not a separate fifth test.

Keeping the setups as consistent as practical

I used two extra-large Big Green Eggs, cleaned out the charcoal baskets, and added roughly equal amounts of fresh charcoal. The idea was to avoid giving one setup an obvious fuel advantage.

The first Egg handled the initial cooking of all four steaks. A soapstone sat on the lower level of the rack, where it also acted as a heat deflector, with the steaks cooking on the upper level. After that initial cook, I could remove the upper rack and use the same grill for both the soapstone and caveman sears.

The second Egg held the stock grate and the curved kamado version of GrillGrates. Both surfaces heated in the same grill so neither would get an extra head start.

This was a practical backyard comparison, not a laboratory experiment. Still, cooking all four steaks together before searing and giving the equipment time to heat up helped keep the focus on the finishing method.

Heat-Soak the Kamado Before Trusting the Temperature

A kamado thermometer can climb quickly while the ceramic body is still relatively cool. During startup, one grill was already reading about 400°F even though the dome had barely warmed. Flame reaching the thermometer can make the grill look more ready than it really is.

That is why I do not treat an early temperature spike as proof that the whole cooker is ready. I let the ceramic and cooking surfaces heat through, then adjusted the vents as both grills headed toward an initial cooking temperature of about 270°F.

At that stage, my regulator cap and bottom draft door were each open roughly a finger’s width. Those were the settings for this cook, not a universal prescription for every kamado and every weather condition.

The important part was giving the grill time to settle rather than chasing the first number on the thermometer.

Preparing the Ribeyes: Dry Brine, Tie, and Season

All four ribeyes came from a larger rib roast. When rib roasts go on sale, cutting your own steaks can be a great way to save a few dollars.

Start with an overnight dry brine

I salted the steaks the night before with Diamond Crystal kosher salt. An overnight dry brine is an extra preparation step, but it makes a noticeable difference to seasoning and the finished eating experience.

Salt choice matters when you measure by volume. A lighter, less densely packed kosher salt does not deliver the same amount of salt per spoonful as a denser product, so do not assume all salts are interchangeable in equal-volume measurements.

Because the initial seasoning was restrained, I could add a little more salt before cooking without overdoing it.

Tie the steaks to help them hold their shape

These boneless ribeyes needed a little help staying together. I tied each with butcher’s twine to keep the sections from spreading apart during handling and searing.

It is a simple step, but useful when a ribeye wants to lose its shape.

Add a light binder and the remaining seasoning

The overnight dry brine left the surface drier, which made it harder for additional seasoning to stick. I used a light coating of truffle hot sauce as a binder, mainly for its truffle character and a little extra savory flavor.

That particular sauce is not essential. It can be expensive, and I would not buy it solely because a steak needs a binder.

Each steak then received the same seasoning:

• A little additional kosher salt
• Freshly cracked black pepper
• Garlic powder

I seasoned both sides, inserted temperature probes, and numbered the steaks so I could keep their eventual searing methods straight.

Why I Reverse-Sear Steak on a Kamado

For this cook, reverse searing was the practical choice: cook gently first, then finish hot.

Ceramic kamados retain heat extremely well. That is a strength until you sear first and then need the grill to cool down for a gentler finishing cook. Bringing a kamado down from searing temperature can take a while.

Going the other direction is much easier. Start low, finish the initial cook, and then open the vents to let the fire build.

I have compared searing first with reverse searing before and have not found an appreciable taste difference that makes one universally superior. Reverse searing simply works well with the heat-retaining tools I am using.

All four steaks cooked together at about 270°F. I monitored them with probes and spot-checked different areas with an instant-read thermometer so they would finish at a comparable medium-rare doneness.

After the initial cook, they rested for about 10 minutes. That gave me time to open the bottom draft doors and top vents fully and build the fires for searing.

The Sear: GrillGrates vs. Stock Grates

I seared two steaks at a time, starting with the GrillGrates and stock stainless steel grate.

Before adding the steaks, I checked the surfaces with an infrared camera. I could not identify a meaningful temperature difference between the GrillGrates at the front and the stock grate at the back in this setup.

That did not mean they behaved identically once the steaks went on.

The clearest GrillGrates advantage was reduced flare-ups. The steak on the stock grate required more attention as dripping fat fed flames beneath it. The GrillGrates side was noticeably easier to manage.

Both steaks developed a visible sear, and the GrillGrates produced the attractive lines you would expect. But the difference in flame exposure would matter once we started tasting.

The Sear: Soapstone vs. Directly on the Coals

Next came the two methods on the other Egg: one steak onto the hot soapstone and one directly onto the charcoal.

The soapstone provided a solid contact surface rather than narrow rails. It was the alternative for developing a broader crust without putting the steak directly into the fire.

The caveman method looked more dramatic, but it was also the simplest. No grate, no griddle, just the steak and the prepared coal bed.

For this method, the condition of the charcoal matters. I waited for a fully established, very hot bed with a coating of white ash, rather than placing the steak onto charcoal that was still coming up to temperature.

In this cook, the coals did not stick to the steak, and I did not need to brush anything off afterward.

The Taste Test: Which Steak Had the Best Sear?

Sarah joined me for the tasting without knowing which method belonged to each numbered steak. I knew the assignments because I had cooked them, so this was not a fully double-blind experiment. She was judging without being told how each steak had been seared.

We also agreed that appearance was not the scorecard. The grill marks could give away clues, but we were there to judge flavor.

One thing became clear immediately: all four were good steaks. We were separating small differences among meals we would happily eat, not trying to rescue a bad ribeye.

First place: Caveman sear

Steak number one was the clear favorite for both of us.

It set a high bar from the first bite, with a delicious sear and the flavor we wanted. Sarah chose it before learning that it had gone directly onto the charcoal.

That result was especially interesting because she does not generally gravitate toward pronounced smoke or wood flavors. Direct contact with the coals did not translate into the harsh, overly smoky experience someone might expect.

Second place: Soapstone

The soapstone steak was close to the caveman steak and comfortably among our top two.

It delivered a satisfying sear and good flavor. The difference was small, but both of us preferred the first steak.

For someone who wants a solid-surface approach rather than direct coal contact, the soapstone performed very well here.

The bottom two: Stock grates and GrillGrates, for different reasons

The stock-grate steak had plenty of searing activity, but some areas had crossed from crust toward a slightly burnt taste. The flare-ups made the result less even.

That does not mean the standard grate cannot make an excellent steak. It was still delicious. In my own cooking, I would raise the grate farther from the fire to reduce flare-ups rather than keep its position fixed for a comparison.

I would also be careful with heavy seasoning in that situation. More black pepper or other seasoning exposed to those flames could make scorching an even bigger issue.

The GrillGrates steak had the opposite problem. It looked the most picturesque, but we found it had the least sear flavor.

One steak had a little too much char in places; the other did not deliver enough overall browned flavor for our preference. That is why a neat, definitive ranking between the bottom two would be less useful than explaining what each was missing.

Are GrillGrates Worth It for Steak?

GrillGrates did something useful in this test: they reduced flare-ups. They also made attractive grill marks.

If those are your priorities, that is real value. And a grill with limited high-temperature performance presents a different use case from these Big Green Eggs.

But on this kamado setup, the GrillGrates did not show a temperature advantage in my infrared check, and their picture-perfect pattern did not produce our favorite flavor.

My practical conclusions are:

• For our favorite flavor: The caveman sear won this comparison.
• For a strong solid-surface option: Soapstone finished a close second.
• For using the equipment you already own: Stock grates were very close, but needed more distance from the fire or more flare-up management.
• For attractive marks and fewer flare-ups: GrillGrates delivered, though we preferred the flavor of the other leading methods.

Sometimes the Simplest Sear Saves Dinner

This was not the first time direct-coal searing had impressed me.

Years ago, at a New Year’s Eve gathering at a cottage, we had beautiful steaks and not enough charcoal. It was the middle of winter, we had shoveled out the grills, and we managed to cook the steaks, but there was not enough fire left to get a conventional searing setup properly hot.

There was still a small bed of hot coals. Putting the steaks directly onto it saved dinner and produced an excellent sear.

That experience, and this comparison, are good reminders not to confuse more accessories with better results. A well-prepared fire and a simple technique can deliver a fantastic steak.

The diamond marks might win the photo contest. At our table, the steak straight off the coals won dinner.