Confused on how to do a steak

[midwest]

To the OP, I am curious what you do different on your gas grill than you do on the Traeger when cooking steaks. While you can get different "flavors" using stick burner v. pellet grill v. gas grill, if you cook the same steak to the same internal temp you shouldn't end up with a "dried up" piece of meat like you described. While I prefer to reverse sear mine, if I am in a hurry I will through my steaks on the Treager anywhere from 400-500 and cook them to around 130-135. Always great.

 

[RayClem]

If you want smoke flavor in your steak, then reverse searing is the way to go.

If you cook a steak on the Traeger at 500 degrees start to finish, you are not going to get much smoke. You will burn up a lot of pellets heating the grill to 500 degrees and going through the shutdown sequence afterward. Thus, unless you are grilling a lot of steaks, a gas grill that heats quicker and cools quicker is a lot more fuel efficient.

There are a few pellet grills that have a gate that allows you to expose the steak to direct heat from the burn pot. The Traeger is designed for indirect heat.

 

[JPSBBQ]

I'm in on reverse searing if the steak is @ 2" thick. Otherwise they get overcooked for my preferences. If doing a thinner steak I'd get right with searing it.

I'm a huge believer in Grill Grates. They will amplify the surface temp of the cooking grids from 500 to at least 600 and often 650. This provides a nice cross hatched sear marking if you'd like or you can turn them over on the flat side and get more surface area for the cast iron pan type sear. The Grill Grates are far better than cast iron in heat amplification and evenness. The only thing cast does better is store the energy longer after the heat source is removed. Since I cook with the heat source active on my grill, this is not a factor for me. As always, internal temp is king. Also, the hotter temp the heat source, the greater carry over temp increase there will be in the steak or whatever, as the energy infused in the cooking process is greater. good luck.