Nothing beats the unique flavors of a summertime grill session.

When the suns out, there's really no other way to eat, and good lord are there a lot of amazing chemical reactions happening over those flames.

Better get a bucket for your drool, you're about to get hit with some grillchem.

(SPLASH INTRO) Before your steak hits the grill, chances are it's a brilliant red.

If it's not, better check the expiration date.

Have you ever wondered what makes red meat red?

Though it may seem like the obvious answer, our meats aren't getting their brilliant hue from blood.

Steaks are made up of slow-twitch cow muscles, which means that they're used for long periods of time and use a lot of energy - so walking for example.

To compensate, a protein called myoglobin helps store oxygen inside the cells of the muscle for a consistent energy supply.

As it turns out, this protein has a very pronounced red pigment.

The more myoglobin in the meat, the darker and deeper the red will be.

You may have noticed that vacuum sealed steaks have a grayish tint to them.

The lack of oxygen inside means a lack of fuel for myoglobin.

Once you open that package and expose it to oxygen, the surface of the meat will get back at least some of that reddish-pinkish tint.

When you throw your steak on the grill, myoglobin starts to transform.

At temperatures above 60 degrees celsius (140F), myoglobin can't hold on to oxygen anymore, and shifts to a tan color.

Once your steak hits 76°C (169F), myoglobin goes through another transformation where it turns a greyish dark brown.

But that's not the only thing that changes your steaks color.

the levels of hemichrome increase, and the Maillard Reaction The Holy Grail of all culenary chemical reactions -- is the key to the mouth watering molecular metamorphosis that kicks in when you throw food on the grill.

The maillard reaction is actually a complex series of simultaneous reactions between amino acids and sugars that produces the rich brown, cooked-food-color alongside hundreds of distinct flavor compounds.

On the topic of flavor compounds, let's go ahead and settle the gas versus charcoal argument.

While gas might be a little more convenient, it's kind of missing the point of grilling.

Charcoal and the smoke from wood chips give off aromatic compounds that rise up and permeate through your food, giving them that real grilled flavor.

For example, lignin is a compound found in wood chips.

It gets broken down by heat and produces another compound called guaiacol.

This stuff has that definitive smoky, rich grillfire flavor that challenges you to push your stomach's capacity to the limits.

Then on top of that, juices from your meat fall down onto the charcoal and other unique compounds rise back up and contribute to the brilliant grilled flavor.

But don't over do it on the flames people.

While you want your meats properly cooked on the outside, there's not need to overdo it and char them up.

Not only do you lose flavor and texture by doing this, you also produce carcinogenic compounds that can otherwise be avoided by lower cooking temperatures and flipping your steaks or burgers more often.

Invest in a meat thermometer, and once you hit that ideal internal temperature, kill the grill.