Why Adding Salt Too Early Ruins The Steak You Paid For

Timing is everything, and most people get it backwards.

Salt your steak a few minutes before cooking and you've picked the worst possible window.

Salt pulls moisture to the surface. In those first minutes the meat is wet, so it steams instead of searing and you lose the crust.

Either salt it well ahead, at least forty minutes, so the moisture is reabsorbed and the surface dries, or salt it right as it hits the pan.

Both routes give you a proper brown crust. The middle ground is the only place you don't want to be.