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Reverse searing is the one technique that separates a pellet grill steak from an actual steakhouse cut, and it works because pellet grills are exceptionally good at the half of the job most people get wrong — holding a low, even temperature while smoke builds flavor. If you're still new to running your grill at a steady setpoint, the pellet grill beginner's guide covers the fundamentals; this one assumes you can already hit and hold 225°F. For another low-and-slow application, chuck roast on a pellet grill is judged by temperature and texture rather than a single magic finish temperature.
The method is simple in concept: smoke the steak low and slow until it's close to done, rest it briefly, then blast it with high heat just long enough to build a crust. What trips people up isn't the concept — it's the numbers. Pull too late and the sear pushes you past medium. Pull too early and the center never catches up. Every cut behaves differently, and thickness changes the math more than any recipe website admits.
This guide gives you the pull temperatures, sear windows, and final targets for the six cuts backyard cooks actually reverse sear on a pellet grill: ribeye, New York strip, filet mignon, tomahawk, flank, and London broil. It also tells you honestly which of those cuts reverse sear badly — flank and other thin, lean cuts move through the smoke phase so fast that the technique works against them.
Whether you're running a Traeger, a Pit Boss, a recteq, or a Camp Chef, the core sequence doesn't change. What changes is how each brand gets you to searing temperature, and that's covered separately below.
Quick Reference — Pull Temp, Sear, Final Target by Cut
| Cut | Chamber Temp | Smoke Time (approx.) | Pull Before Sear | Sear | Final Target (Medium-Rare) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ribeye (1.5"+) | 225°F | 45–75 min | 115–120°F | 450–500°F, 60–90 sec/side | 130–135°F |
| New York Strip | 225°F | ~60 min | 105–110°F | 450–500°F, ~4 min/side | 130–135°F |
| Filet Mignon | 225°F | 45–60 min | 115–120°F | 450–500°F, 45–60 sec/side | 130–135°F (aim low) |
| Tomahawk | 225°F | 45 min–2 hr (size-dependent) | 110–120°F | 450–500°F, 90 sec/side | 130–135°F |
| London Broil | 225°F | until internal hits target | 125°F | 450–500°F, brief | 135°F, slice thin against grain |
| Flank Steak | Not recommended — see below | — | — | — | — |
These are chamber and pull temperatures, not doneness targets on their own — carryover during the rest between smoke and sear, and again after the sear, adds more on top of whatever you pulled at: ThermoWorks plans on 3–5°F of carryover for a thinner steak and 10–15°F for a large, thick one like a tomahawk. Build that into your math before you pull.
How Reverse Sear Works on a Pellet Grill
Traditional grilling sears first and finishes with residual heat, which means the center of a thick steak often overcooks by the time the outside is right. Reverse sear flips the order: smoke the steak gently until it's nearly at temperature, then finish with a short, violent blast of heat that builds a crust without pushing the interior further than a few degrees.
Pellet grills are unusually well suited to this because the smoke phase is exactly what they're built for — steady, low-temperature convection heat in the 180–250°F range, with 225°F as the setpoint in Traeger's own reverse-sear guide and 225–250°F in Pit Boss's reverse-sear recipes. The harder part on a pellet grill is the second half: getting the grate hot enough, fast enough, to actually sear. Traeger states that effective searing happens between 350°F and 500°F, and most pellet grills top out between 450°F and 700°F on the controller (Traeger's current lineup at 450–500°F, recteq's barrel grills at 700°F) — well below a steakhouse broiler, which is why grate-level sear accessories matter more here than on a gas or charcoal grill. The exceptions expose the fire itself, like Pit Boss's Flame Broiler or recteq's Bullseye Deluxe (see the brand notes below).
One thing you don't need to worry about: the stall. On a brisket or pork butt, evaporative cooling can stall the internal temperature for hours around 150–170°F (our brisket guide covers it in depth). A steak is pulled at 105–125°F, long before that zone, and the entire smoke phase for even a thick cut runs 45 minutes to two hours. The stall is a non-issue at steak timescales — if your steak's temperature climbs slower than expected, it's almost always chamber temp inconsistency, not the stall.
The General Method
- Dry brine. Salt the steak 2–24 hours ahead, uncovered, on a rack in the fridge. This pulls surface moisture out, which is the single biggest lever for a hard sear later — a wet surface steams instead of crusting.
- Smoke at 225°F. Place the steak directly on the grate with a probe inserted into the thickest part, away from bone or fat seams. Close the lid and don't check it constantly — every lid opening costs you recovery time.
- Pull at the target temperature for your cut (see the reference table above), not at a fixed time. Thickness, starting temperature, ambient weather and your grill's actual grate temperature all move the clock in either direction, which is why even Traeger's own guide gives a 45-to-60-minute window rather than a fixed time.
- Rest 5–10 minutes while you get the grill to searing temperature, or transfer to a preheated cast iron skillet or griddle. Rest it uncovered on a rack rather than wrapped in foil — foil traps steam and softens the surface you're about to crust — and pat it dry again right before it hits the heat.
- Sear hot and fast — 45–90 seconds per side for most cuts, longer when you pulled low (Traeger's strip recipe pulls at 105–110°F and sears about 4 minutes per side on the grate) — until the crust is dark, checking the probe between flips, then pull immediately.
- Rest again, briefly (3–5 minutes) before slicing. This is where carryover finishes the job; expect another 3–5°F rise.
Cook to temperature, not time, at every stage. Every manufacturer recipe cited in this guide ends the smoke phase at an internal temperature, with the time only as an estimate, and that's the difference between a repeatable result and a guess.
Ribeye (Bone-In and Boneless)
Ribeye is the forgiving cut for this technique — enough fat that a slightly imperfect sear window still produces a good result. Smoke at 225°F for 45–75 minutes depending on thickness, pulling at 115–120°F. Sear at 450–500°F for 60–90 seconds per side, then rest 5 minutes before slicing. Final target for medium-rare is 130–135°F.
Bone-in ribeye runs slightly differently — the bone conducts heat unevenly, so a probe reading near the bone will read hotter than the meat actually is. Keep the probe tip in the thickest part of the meat, at least an inch from the bone, and expect the bone-adjacent meat to finish a touch more done than the rest of the steak. That's normal, not a sign you pulled early.
New York Strip
Traeger's own reverse-sear reference recipe for New York strip smokes for about 60 minutes at 225°F to an internal of 105–110°F, then sears at 450–500°F for about 4 minutes per side, finishing at 130–135°F for medium-rare. Strip steak has less fat than ribeye and a tighter grain, so it's slightly less forgiving of an overshoot — if you're going to check the probe compulsively on any cut, make it this one.
Filet Mignon
Filet is the leanest of the classic reverse-sear cuts, which means it has the least margin for error and the least flavor buffer if you overcook it. Smoke at 225°F for 45–60 minutes to 115–120°F internal, then sear 45–60 seconds per side at 450–500°F. Final target for medium-rare is the same 130–135°F as any other steak — doneness temperatures don't change by cut, and Traeger's own filet recipe uses the same window — but aim for the low end, because there's no fat cap to carry a slightly-past-perfect center.
Because filet has so little smoke-friendly fat, it's also the cut where wood choice matters least — a milder pellet (oak, pecan, or a fruit wood) won't fight the delicate flavor the way mesquite or hickory can on a leaner cut (the wood pellet flavor guide has the full pairing chart).
Tomahawk Steak
A tomahawk is essentially a thick bone-in ribeye, and the size is the whole story: smoke time ranges from 45 minutes for a smaller tomahawk to as long as two hours for a full 2+ inch cut with bone. Pull at 110–120°F — lower than a standard ribeye, because a cut this thick keeps climbing longer once it's off the heat; ThermoWorks singles out the tomahawk as a thick steak with more carryover. Sear at 450–500°F for about 90 seconds per side, rest, and target 130–135°F final for medium-rare.
Because of the size, a tomahawk is the cut where a good instant-read thermometer earns its keep — see the best BBQ meat thermometers for pellet grills if you're still checking doneness by feel. For a similarly large-format reverse sear, the approach overlaps heavily with smoked prime rib — same low-and-slow logic, scaled up.
London Broil
London broil reverse sears better than its reputation suggests, provided you treat it as a whole roast rather than a thin steak — the same approach as our smoked tri-tip method. Smoke at 225°F to 125°F internal, sear briefly at 450–500°F, and pull at 135°F. The step that actually matters here is the slice: London broil has a pronounced grain, and it must be cut thin, across the grain, or it eats tough regardless of how well you nailed the temperatures.
Flank Steak and Other Thin Cuts — When Reverse Sear Isn't the Answer
Flank steak is thin, lean, and cooks through fast — which is exactly the combination that makes reverse sear a poor fit. A steak under roughly 1.25–1.5 inches thick reaches its pull temperature before there's meaningful time to build flavor, and it has so little mass that there's often no margin left before the sear pushes it past medium — which is why reverse-sear recipes are written for thick steaks (Serious Eats calls for at least 1.5 to 2 inches, and Traeger's and Pit Boss's strip recipes use 1.5-inch steaks). For flank, skirt, and other thin cuts, a hot-and-fast direct sear — no low-temperature smoke phase at all — produces a better result with far less risk.
London broil is the exception among "thin-sounding" cuts because it's a label rather than a cut: the name originally meant grilled flank steak, but modern butchers often put it on a thick slab of top round (or coulotte) that behaves like a small roast. That's why it's listed above as a working reverse-sear candidate rather than grouped with flank here. If a package labeled "London broil" in your case is thin (under an inch), treat it like flank instead: sear it hot and fast.
Brand-Specific Notes — Traeger, Pit Boss, recteq, Camp Chef
Traeger. Ironwood, Timberline, Woodridge Pro and Woodridge Elite models (plus some Costco-exclusive Silverton and Redland grills) include Super Smoke mode, which boosts smoke output between 165°F and 225°F during the smoke phase — useful for the flavor side of this cook, though it doesn't affect sear performance. For searing, Traeger's higher-end grills reach the top of the stated 350–500°F effective sear range natively; on models that struggle to hold 500°F consistently, a cast iron skillet or the accessories worth adding to a Traeger — specifically a sear-grate insert — closes the gap.
Pit Boss. Most Pit Boss grills include a flame broiler slide plate that exposes the cooking grate to direct flame from the firepot, which is the fastest way to get real searing heat on this platform without a separate tool — Pit Boss advertises direct-flame searing up to 1,000°F. Its own reverse-seared NY steak recipe smokes at 250°F to 105–110°F internal, then opens the Flame Broiler and sears about 4 minutes per side. Slide it open only for the sear phase — leaving it open during the smoke phase defeats the point of indirect low-and-slow cooking (our Pit Boss models comparison covers the full lineup).
recteq. recteq's current barrel grills (Backyard Beast, Deck Boss) are rated up to 700°F and the compact Bullseye Deluxe up to 1,000°F with its afterburner firepot — among the hottest pellet grills sold — and a dedicated sear kit is the brand's own add-on for a harder crust. The current kit is recteq's Reversible Cast Iron Griddle Sear Kit, which replaced the older aluminum Sear Kits: recteq pitches the raised side for bold sear marks and the flat side for all-over browning, and for a reverse-seared steak the flat side's full-surface contact gives the more even crust.
Camp Chef. The Sidekick Sear accessory is a propane side burner with its own BBQ grill box that runs independently of the main chamber, which sidesteps the "pellet grills sear slowly" problem entirely by moving the sear off the main grate.
The Tools That Actually Matter
Two tools do most of the work in a reverse sear: an accurate instant-read thermometer, and a way to get real heat at the grate (if you're still choosing a grill, our sear-capable pellet grills guide covers the hottest options).
For the thermometer, the ThermoWorks Thermapen ONE is the benchmark instant-read on the market — a one-second reading matters when you're pulling a steak within a 5°F window before it overshoots. It's a premium price for what is, at its core, a thermocouple in a housing, and most home cooks don't need that speed. The Lavatools Javelin PRO Classic (formerly sold as the Javelin PRO Duo) reads in 2–3 seconds for meaningfully less, which is fast enough for steak-length cooks. The TempPro TempSwift PLUS TP19H (sold as the ThermoPro TP19H until the brand became TempPro in 2026) is the budget option and still accurate enough to hit these pull temps reliably. TempPro now rates it at one-second readings, so the Thermapen's edge is tighter stated accuracy (±0.5°F against ±0.9°F) rather than raw speed.
For the sear itself, a Lodge 12-inch cast iron skillet preheated on the grate (or on a side burner, or even on the stovetop) produces the most even, full-contact crust of any method — no grill-mark gaps, no cold spots. Give it a long preheat, start the sear with a high-smoke-point oil, and add the butter late — Traeger's own strip recipe adds it after the flip — so it bastes the crust instead of scorching; don't crowd the pan either, since that traps steam. A GrillGrate Sear Station is the alternative if you want to keep the steak on open grates: it adds roughly 100°F at the surface and gives you classic grill marks, though full coverage on a pellet grill can trap heat and choke airflow — use it as a partial insert, not wall-to-wall.
Wood choice matters less here than on a long brisket cook simply because contact time is short, but it's not irrelevant. A robust blend like Traeger's Signature Blend — hickory, maple, and cherry — works well across fattier cuts like ribeye and tomahawk (our Traeger pellets review covers the rest of the lineup). For a deeper dive into matching wood to what you're cooking, see best wood pellets for smoking.
Which Cut Should You Reverse Sear?
- New to the technique, want a forgiving first attempt: ribeye. The fat cap covers small timing mistakes.
- Want the leanest, most precise result: filet mignon — but check the probe often; there's no fat buffer.
- Cooking for a crowd or a special occasion: tomahawk, paired with the same low-and-slow logic used for smoked prime rib.
- Working with a thin cut (flank, skirt, thin-cut strip): skip reverse sear entirely and go hot-and-fast direct.
- Working with London broil labeled as a thick roast-cut: reverse sear works; slice thin against the grain regardless of how well the temps land.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Does the stall affect steak the way it affects brisket?
No. The stall is an evaporative-cooling plateau that shows up during hours-long cooks around 150–170°F internal. Steak is pulled well below that range, in well under two hours even for a large tomahawk, so the stall never becomes a factor at steak timescales.
Q: What temperature should I pull steak off for medium-rare?
It depends on the steak's thickness and on how long and how hot you sear, not on a single universal number. For most cuts targeting 130–135°F final, that means pulling from the smoke phase around 105–120°F — the low end when you plan a long sear on the grate, as Traeger's and Pit Boss's strip recipes do — then searing to temperature.
Q: Can I reverse sear on a pellet grill that only reaches 450°F?
Yes — 450°F is within Traeger's own stated effective searing range of 350–500°F. It won't produce quite as dark a crust as a 700°F recteq (see our recteq brand guide) or a cast iron skillet preheated hotter, but it works. A GrillGrate or cast iron insert closes most of the remaining gap.
Q: Should I reverse sear a thin steak like flank or skirt?
Not recommended. Cuts under roughly 1.25–1.5 inches move through the smoke phase too quickly to build meaningful flavor before they're near done, leaving little margin before the sear pushes them past medium. Sear these hot and fast instead, with no smoke phase.
Q: Do I need a cast iron skillet, or can I sear directly on the grates?
Either works. Cast iron gives a more even, full-contact crust with no cold spots; open grates with a sear-grate accessory give classic grill marks and slightly less setup. Neither is objectively required — it comes down to which crust style you prefer.
Q: How long should steak rest before and after searing?
Rest 5–10 minutes between the smoke phase and the sear — long enough to get the grill or skillet to full heat. After searing, rest another 3–5 minutes before slicing; this is when most of the carryover rise happens.
Q: What temperature should I smoke steak at before searing?
225°F is the standard setpoint: it's what Traeger's reverse-sear guide uses, and Pit Boss's own reverse-sear recipes run 225–250°F. Past that, the chamber setting matters less than the probe — the smoke phase ends when the steak hits its pull temperature, not when a timer or the dial says so.
Q: What if I want my steak rare or medium instead of medium-rare?
Keep the method and move both numbers together. ThermoWorks' steak chart puts rare at 120–130°F, medium-rare at 130–135°F, medium at 135–145°F and medium-well at 145–155°F, and those stages are the same for every cut. The pull temperature moves with the target: Serious Eats' reverse-sear recipe, for example, pulls at 105°F for rare, 115°F for medium-rare, 125°F for medium and 135°F for medium-well before a quick skillet sear, so shift the pulls in the chart above by roughly the same step as your target. One food-safety note: USDA's safe minimum for whole beef steaks is 145°F followed by a 3-minute rest, so every target in this guide's chart sits below the official guideline — worth knowing when you cook for guests.
Conclusion
Reverse sear isn't a trick — it's just running the two halves of a great steak cook in the order that actually works: gentle heat to build flavor and get close to temperature, then a short, hot blast to build the crust. The chart at the top of this guide covers the six cuts backyard cooks actually run this method on; the one honest caveat is that thin cuts like flank don't belong on that list, no matter how many recipe sites tell you otherwise.
Get the pull temperature right for your specific cut, rest it properly at both stages, and the brand of grill underneath it matters far less than people assume. If you're still dialing in the basics of holding a steady chamber temperature, start with the pellet grill beginner's guide; if your grill is struggling to hit the temps this method needs in the first place, cleaning it properly is usually the first thing to check before blaming the equipment.
