Wicked Easy Smoked Porterhouse Steak Recipe

Porterhouse is one of the easier steaks to smoke – especially if you struggle with finishing Medium-rare.

This recipe uses just salt to dry brine overnight, hickory wood smoke for 1 hour, and then sears with grapeseed and butter for the perfect crust.

Dry Brine the Porterhouse a Day in Advance

Take some Kosher salt and salt both sides of the steak aggressively – then place in your refrigerator for at least 2 hours, ideally overnight.

Dry brining will have two main benefits:

• It will improve the taste as salt is allowed to penetrate the meat.
• It will make the meat more tender.

Probing the Thickest Part of the Steak

Since our cook is temperature sensitive – I’d recommend using a leave-in probe thermometer.

You’d essentially probe like this from the side:

Set Your Smoker to Around 180-225F

Once the smoker is at 180F, put the Porterhouse on the smoker.

I had hickory so that’s what I used to smoke with.

Most t-bone and porterhouse steaks will have a band of back-fat on the NY strip side.

Point this end towards the fire or heat source.

Smoke the Steak Until It’s 20F UNDER Your Target Temperature and Then Get Your Pan Ready to Sear

It took 1 hour for my steak to reach 110F – after which I took it off the smoker to rest.

The steak is going to rest so that the cooking process is slowed down.

Internal temperature will likely go up 2-5F in 5-10 minutes.

Searing the Porterhouse in a Cast Iron or Similar Heavy Flat-bottomed Pan

Set your burner to around medium heat.

Once your skillet is hot, add your cold cooking oil to the hot pan to sear with; I use grapeseed.

Wait for the oil to start shimmering:

Place your steak on-edge first to render down some of the backfat.

Do this for 10-20 seconds and then place the steak on the pan for 30 seconds:

Then flip to a new side of the plan for another 30 seconds.

Repeat this process twice for a total sear time of 1 minute on each side.

Take your pan off the heat and take the steak out of the pan to rest again.

Allow the cast iron skillet to cool for around 2 minutes.

Once cooled, add 2 Tablespoons of unsalted butter; You want the butter to froth, not brown.

Like this:

When the butter is frothing, add the Porterhouse back to the pan and start basting the steak.

Baste for 30 seconds on each side with the frothing butter – 2 times.

For a total of 1 minute on each side.

Here’s my porterhouse after basting:

After searing and basting, the internal temperature of my Porterhouse was 119.2F.

Return Steak Back to the Smoker until 5F Under Your Target Temperature

Since my goal in ~130F, I need to continue to cook the steak until it’s 125F.

We need the convective heat again of the smoker.

Resting the Steak and Carry Over Cooking

Rest until the steak hits your target temperature; This took 7 minutes to go from 125F > 130F.

Since the exterior is hot, this hot exterior will carry over to inside of the meat and finish at medium-rare.

You also don’t need to “tent” with foil – this just ruins the crust you just built.

Then slice the steak and enjoy!

The above is what I’d deem a perfect medium-rare.

The strip side is on the top and the filet side is on the bottom.

Print Pin Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Smoked Porterhouse Steak

Prep Time2 hours hrs 5 minutes mins

Active Time1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Rest time6 minutes mins

Total Time3 hours hrs 26 minutes mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American

Equipment

• Smoker I used my Weber Kettle
• Heavy Pan for Searing I used my cast iron skillet
• Leave-in Probe Thermometer I used my Thermoworks X4
• Tongs
• Large spoon

Ingredients

• ▢ 2.62 lb Porterhouse
• ▢ Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt For dry brining

Ingredients for Searing

• ▢ 2 tbsp Unsalted Butter For butter basting
• ▢ High Smoke Point Oil For initially searing with

Instructions

Dry Brine the Steak

• Start by dry brining the porterhouse with kosher salt. Salt all sides and then place in your refrigerator for at least 2 hours; Ideally overnight.
  Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, 2.62 lb Porterhouse

Smoking the Porterhouse

• The next day, get your smoker to 180-250F – the lower the better. I also used a water pan to help keep my temperatures lower.
• If you're using a probe thermometer, probe the thickest part of the NY strip.
• Once your smoker is at 180F, place the porterhouse in the cool zone with the fat side facing the fire.

  Then add a chunk of hickory to the fire and close the lid.
• My goal is ~130F internal.

  Meaning, I want to smoke to 20F below my target initially. This is because I plan to sear and baste the steak, both of which will cause the internal temperature to climb rapidly.

  It took 1 hour and 6 minutes to reach 110F.
• Once you reach 110F, take the meat off the smoker You then want to get your cast iron skillet or similar heavy duty pan ready.

Searing and Basting Porterhouse

• To sear, I used my cast iron skillet. I set my burner to medium/high heat and waited 6 minutes for it to heat up.

  During this "rest time" the steak went from 110F to 112.5F.
• I then added my grapeseed oil to the pan and waited for it to shimmer in the pan.
  High Smoke Point Oil
• I then took my porterhouse on edge to render some of the fat on the NY strip side for 10-20 seconds.
• I then laid the porterhouse flat on the cast iron skillet to sear. You want to sear for around 30 seconds and then flip the steak over to a new section of the pan.

  Repeat this for a total sear time of 1 minute on each side.
• Then take the pan off the heat and take the porterhouse out of the pan. The goal here is to allow the pan to cool – do this for around 2 minutes.
• Then add unsalted butter to the pan and allow it to froth.
  2 tbsp Unsalted Butter
• Once the butter is frothing, add the porterhouse back to the pan at the top of the skillet.

  You then want to angle the skillet so that the porterhouse is in the air on the pan on one side and the frothing butter on the other.

  Then with your spoon, baste each side of the porterhouse for 30 seconds then flip and baste for another 30 seconds; Repeat this process for a total of 1 minute on each side.
• After searing and basting, take the steak out of the pan.

Finish in the Smoker

• After searing and basting the internal temperature of my porterhouse was 119.2F.

  I then returned the porterhouse to my smoker until the internal temperature was 125F.

Resting and Finishing via Carry Over Cooking

• Once the porterhouse reached 125F, I took it off the heat and allowed it to stand on my cutting board until the internal temperature reached 130F.

  This resting/carry over cooking process took 7 minutes and 13 seconds.

  After resting you can then slice the steak and enjoy!