Ask Cheryl: How do you cook the perfect St. Louis-style pork steak?

With Labor Day just around the corner and sublime weather continuing through the holiday weekend, many have already begun daydreaming about their backyard cookout plans. If those include pork steaks, you may be wondering how to make sure that this most St. Louis of dishes receives the proper treatment. 

In terms of style, a St. Louis pork steak must be heavily sauced. Although I’m typically not a saucy barbecue person in other aspects of the form, I insist upon serving pork steaks drenched in Busch fortified barbecue sauce—about three-quarters Maull’s, with about a quarter of something sweet and molasses-y, such as Sweet Baby Ray’s. 

When it comes to the cooking method, however, I’ve brought in the experts to share their tips on how to ensure this often tough cut of meat turns out just right. David Sandusky and Haley Riley are two of the region’s top pitmasters, as well as pork steak aficionados. Follow their advice to ensure your backyard cookout is the ultimate St. Louis-style sendoff to summer.

David Sandusky, BEAST Craft BBQ: “Using pork chops as an example, you want to cook it at a lower temperature, away from the fire, in a cooler area of the grill until it reaches about 100 degrees. Then do a reverse sear by taking it to the hottest spot and charring the shit out of it. Pork steaks are an extreme example of this. If you are going for the type that we make in the restaurant, then you want it to be very tender, so you’re going to put it on that cooler spot or smoke it low and slow until it’s the temperature you want it to be—190 to 195 degrees—and then throw it on the grill at its hottest spot and reverse sear to get that char and caramelization.

However, if you are doing the style that is thinner and you want it to be more chewy—this is the way I prefer it—you do it similar to a pork chop in the sense that you put it right away onto the hottest spot of the grill, because you want as much caramelization as possible. Put it on that hot spot, and let ‘er rip. And never walk away from fat over fire.

What I like to do if I’m just cooking out in my backyard, I go to my Weber because I can get it really hot. A gas grill will never get that hot; it has to rely on its lid to contain the heat, so you end up with an oven, and you’re really roasting in there more than grilling—at least on the cheaper ones. I also use a Vortex in there, which is a cone that is wider on the side that goes down over the coals and smaller on the top toward the grate. You put coals in the cone, and it funnels radiation into a very specific spot in the center so you have a really hot spot on the grill. You can take chicken wings, chops, steaks, and cook them slowly around the Vortex and then put them right over the coals at the end to char it. It’s a game-changer for a Weber grill. You have more ability to control heat zones and will get better life out of your coals.

As for sauce, besides the added caramelization of the sugars, it also offers moisture and protection during the cooking process. I prefer sauces to be thinner because I don’t want my pork steaks to be overly sauced, and I don’t want my sauce to be overly caramelized and burnt. I want it to soak in and become part of the meat.

I always like to thin it out with a little Busch. It’s a St. Louis thing, and building the sauce a little thinner creates this opportunity for the flavoring to really adhere and become part of the meat instead of just being on top of it. If you are just going to goop it out of the bottle, there is so much there that it’s going to burn and you won’t get the texture you’re looking for on the crust of the meat. The beauty of St. Louis-style [barbecue] is that it creates a thinner sauce, so you can baste it on there and get that charred fat without a sauce barrier.

If you’re looking for something really tender, then you’re either going to bake it in sauce first and then take it to the grill and reverse sear, or you’ll grill it first to get the char, take it off, put it in sauce, and then put in the oven. Personally, I like chewy pork steaks that you have to cut with a steak knife, where the fat hasn’t completely rendered off and that still have natural juices inside. To do that, I go straight to the grill and baste, flipping them and then basting them for a few minutes. If you let it ride on one side for too long, it’s going to overcook, so just keep flipping and basting. In five minutes, you’re going to have an amazing pork steak.”

Haley Riley, Salt + Smoke: “There are two ways I do a pork steak; one is fast and hot and the other is much slower, almost like a braise but without pan roasting it. A Weber grill is my go-to; it’s challenging to navigate, but if you are good at it you can get some really great quality food from it. Cooking with fire is always the fun part of cooking outside. Gas grills are like stoves inside; they are great and super efficient, but I like firing up some charcoal or hardwood lump on a Weber.

If I am doing pork steaks low and slow, I am usually using a nice dry rub that can be as simple as salt and pepper or as complex as the rubs we use in our restaurants. I first temper the meat, then season it and mark it on the grill at a higher heat to get cross marks on it, then pull it off, throw it in a pan with beer and barbecue sauce, and let the beer reduce with the sauce. Doing it this way allows the muscle fibers to break down and tenderize the pork steak. This is the super classic way of cooking it. As far as timing, you will probably have it hit the grill about three or four hours before you want to serve it; I’ve done it as quick as an hour-and-a-half, but you will still need a knife if you do it that way. There are ways you can speed things up: If you are using a hotel pan you can add more beer so the moisture simmers down and creates steam. Then you can cover the pan and do a higher heat , and once you are getting ready to serve, you pull the pork steaks out of the sauce, put them on the grill, add more charcoal and caramelize the sauce to get those crispy fat edges and burnt sugar. That is a super traditional way to do them, and I love eating them that way. 

The second way to do them would be to throw them in sauce and tenderize them until they are  where you want them to be; then you can mark them off and crisp them up to get ready to serve. If you are doing this with nicer cuts, you’ll want to do a short brine the night before, then pull them out of the brine, dry them off, and leave them uncovered in the fridge overnight. The day of, you’ll hit them with a light rub and cook them hot and fast over charcoal. Nicer pork should be cooked to about medium; if you go well-done with pork steaks, they will be so tough. If you’re using this method, I like pork from Sullivan Farms or Newman Farms. 

And as far as the beer I used in my sauce, it’s always what I’m drinking, which is either Busch or Montucky. I’m not pouring a $14 IPA in there. I think the lighter beer has more flavor than just adding water, but it’s neutral enough that it doesn’t punch you in the mouth.