TL;DR. It apparently makes absolutely no difference, which is great news for those of us who learned many moons ago that 30-60 min aren’t nearly enough to bring a steak or roast to “room” temperature from the fridge — more like several hours.
Equipped with this revelation, I will no longer bother.
Whoda tunk, tho?
I always thought this was bogus advice. Probably because I rarely remember to get the meat out ahead of time anyway.
LoL, the recipes that tell you to take a 6 pound roast out for an hour to get it to “room temp”!
OTOH, I do take large steaks (3 pounds avg) out 3 hours in advance. I’ve charted their temps and they go from about 33 to 38 in hour 1, 38 to 45 in hour 2, and 45 to 55-ish in hour 3.
I can def say that when very low temp roasting (about 180F), it matters a fair bit if they hit the oven at 33 vs. 55-ish.
Does it matter? Probably not. But hey, I’m a measurement nerd so what else do I have to do?
For hamburgers I never let patties get to room temp because it’s as easy way to get well done, or shoe leather. For roasts or steaks getting it to desired/right end temp is more important than start temp (within reason, not frozen) Starting temp might matter for searing meat and the maillard effect but not sure how much of a difference, maybe none or little difference.
