Reverse Sear Calculator

Cook time scales with thickness raised to the 1.5 power rather than linearly, because heat has to conduct further into a thicker cut and conduction through meat slows as the heat front moves inward. This means going from a 1-inch to a 2-inch steak more than doubles the low-temp cook time, not just doubles it.

The pull temperature is set 10°F below your final target to account for carryover cooking — both the residual heat already inside the steak and the brief high-heat sear that follows continue raising the internal temperature after you remove it from the low-temp phase. Pulling exactly at your target temperature would let carryover push the steak past your intended doneness.

The sear is meant only to build a browned, flavorful crust on meat that's already nearly at target internal temperature, not to cook the steak through — a brief 3-4 minutes total over screaming-high heat browns the surface via the Maillard reaction without pushing the interior significantly past where the low-temp phase left it. This is the core advantage of reverse searing over a traditional sear-first approach: precise doneness control from the slow phase, with crust added on top rather than baked in from the start.

No — sear time depends only on steak thickness, not on your target doneness, since it's a fixed crust-building step applied after the low-temperature phase has already brought the steak to within about 10 degrees of whatever final temperature you're aiming for. Changing target doneness shifts the low-temp cook time and pull temperature instead.