One medium well steak and one well done, 2 cm thick
A well done steak needs longer than a medium well one of the same thickness, so putting them in together guarantees one of them is wrong. Start the well done one first, add the medium well one 1 min 10 later, and they finish at the same moment.
| Time | What to do |
|---|---|
| 0:00 | The well done steak on 4 min on this side |
| 1:10 | The medium well steak on 3 min 20 on this side |
| 4:00 | Turn the well done steak 3 min 20 on the second side |
| 4:30 | Turn the medium well steak 2 min 50 on the second side |
| 7:20 | Everything off the heat Rest 4 min — somewhere warm, not covered tight |
| 11:20 | Serve Every steak, every doneness, all at once |
Set this up with your own steaks and run the timer →
The numbers
- Medium well (68°C on the plate) — 3 min 20 on the first side, 2 min 50 on the second.
- Well done (74°C on the plate) — 4 min on the first side, 3 min 20 on the second.
- Both off the heat at 7:20, rest 4 min, on the plate at 11:20.
Two temperatures, not one
Those are the temperatures on the plate. A steak keeps cooking once it leaves the pan — the centre climbs 4°C while it rests here — so the schedule takes it off the heat at about 64°C and 70°C on purpose. Probe it as it comes off and a low reading means the plan is working.
Where these times come from
Heat diffuses into meat rather than travelling at a steady rate, so cooking time goes with the square of thickness — double the thickness and you roughly quadruple the time. These times come from solving the heat equation for the centre of a 2 cm steak, not from a lookup table. Turning the steak every 30 seconds instead of once will cook it faster, by up to about 30%, and more evenly.
Cook to temperature, not to the clock
Every pan and every steak is different. The centre temperature is the only thing that is actually true, so if you own a probe thermometer use it — 68°C for medium well, 74°C for well done, measured on the plate. The useful part of a timer like this is knowing when to start each steak, and that doesn't change.