Sous Vide - Trendy but Damn Good Stuff

J

jocko_nc

Super Member
We inpulse-bought a sous vide immersion heater a couple of weeks back. $50.00 delivered off That Auction Site. Anyone else doing this? Opinions? Thoughts?

Sirloin tip roast with Montreal steak rub. Ziplock bag. Push the air out and cook for eight hours at 131 F. Sear in a pan and slice. Seriously good. Bonless turkey breast. Couple of hours at 145. Wow.

This sous vide thing makes killer meat out of cheap cuts. I am thinking deli slices. Eye of round. Pastrami. With a proper vacuum bagger you could prep unbelievable cold cuts. Put them in the freezer?

Opinions?
 
I found out my slow cooker on the low (keep it warm) setting works fairly well for this cooking technique, of course, you don’t have the temperature control but it a good way to try it out. A steak in a Seal-a-Meal bag with butter is amazing. What I had to keep telling myself leaving the steak in the butter in the slow cooker for an hour or more was not overcooking it. Once grilled for looks wow!!!!! I happen to love bottom round steaks, a rather tough cut of meat but with so much flavor this method of cooking makes a potential piece of shoe leather into a tender wonderful munchable.
 
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There are high end steak houses that use this technique. The keep the steaks in butter that is kept at the proper temperature for rare, medium rare, etc. When an order comes in the steak order is finished in a Salamander, charcoal grill, gas grill.etc.
 
It will make the perfect egg. It's what places use for ribs too. Ribs are done. Pull a rack out of the water, out of the bag and throw on the grill. Put sauce on till it glazes and then off to the table.
 
I am going to do a ribeye tonight for my first sous vide try.
I have a cast iron griddle that I put on the grill to finish it on.
I might try ribs but we par-boil them in water , pineapple juice and brown sugar
then finish them on the grill. they sure come out great that way.

Here we go with the first Sous Vide Ribeye
just put it in the water.
100_6161.JPG
 
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It came out pretty good. I salted it the same way
I always have for grill cooking , it was to much.
I cooked it to long in the water and got it close
to medium well. it was still pretty tender though.
the next one will be better.
 
70's Rockfan said:
It came out pretty good. I salted it the same way
I always have for grill cooking , it was to much.
I cooked it to long in the water and got it close
to medium well. it was still pretty tender though.
the next one will be better.
Click to expand...

What time and temperature did you use for your water bath?

-Dave
 
70's Rockfan said:
140 degrees for 2hrs
Click to expand...

140 is knocking on the door to medium well for sure. I usually do 129 degrees for a sirloin, or a rib eye, never longer than 2.5 hours. Flank steak gets cooked at 133 for as long as 18 hours, although any thing longer than 4 hours comes out real tender.

-Dave

Edit: My time and temps are for a medium rare steak.

Edit 2: As far as the saltiness. I sprinkle a generous pinch of kosher salt on each side of the steak and a couple of grinds of black pepper. I let the steaks sit on the counter for 30 minutes, or so, and then bag just before cooking. You have to be careful of using too much salt, or spice when sous viding. You can corn the beef so to speak.
 
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IPADave said:
140 is knocking on the door to medium well for sure. I usually do 129 degrees for a sirloin, or a rib eye, never longer than 2.5 hours. Flank steak gets cooked at 133 for as long as 18 hours, although any thing longer than 4 hours comes out real tender.

-Dave

Edit: My time and temps are for a medium rare steak.
Click to expand...

being my first time I was afraid the center would still be near raw.
I didn't want to have to cook it on the griddle to long to finish it
and ruin it. I'll get it down to around 130 degrees next time. that's
about as low as I can get that deep fryer to go. it was tender though.
I will probably get a sous vide immersion heater. the deep fryer was
handy because we had it sitting in the box after we found out it was
to shallow for deep frying and splattered oil everywhere.
 
70's Rockfan said:
being my first time I was afraid the center would still be near raw.
I didn't want to have to cook it on the griddle to long to finish it
and ruin it. I'll get it down to around 130 degrees next time. that's
about as low as I can get that deep fryer to go. it was tender though.
I will probably get a sous vide immersion heater. the deep fryer was
handy because we had it sitting in the box after we found out it was
to shallow for deep frying and splattered oil everywhere.
Click to expand...

I've gone too high on the temp a few times, too. As you found out, even a steak a little over cooked is still tender.

Congratulations on your first sous vide cook. :thumbsup:

-Dave
 
IPADave said:
I've gone too high on the temp a few times, too. As you found out, even a steak a little over cooked is still tender.

Congratulations on your first sous vide cook. :thumbsup:

-Dave
Click to expand...
It was a lot better than when I over cook it on the grill....lol
Thanks for your help.
 
I cover meat with very coarse salt for an hour/inch before seasoning & bagging. Various sear technique when done.
The salt thing is putting a layer of very coarse salt on top, for 1.5hrs for a 1.5" filet. Then rinse off salt, season, seal and cook. Makes meat incredibly tender, but not additionally salty at all. Had some tonight, in fact.

Have tried mayo sear, grille, cast-iron, Sears-all w/MAPP, propane weed-burner (best so far). Don't have a charcoal chimney setup, but hear it works well. Industrial heat gun is on the list to try, as well as cast iron on a 36,000 BTU turkey fryer burner. Yikes.
 
Love my sous vide. I've turned $3 Safeway sirloins into amazing juicy tender steaks. It does take some playing around with to find your perfect temp. the time isn’t a huge factor over 2hrs, but tends to start tenderizing the steak even further, so for more non tender steaks lots of the time in the bath is a good thing. I bought the $10 specialized rubbermaid for mine as well.

IMG_4739.jpg
 
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Got a big ol' eye-of-round in the pot tonight. Set for 12 hours at 131. It had been in a brine since Thursday night.

Plan is to sous vide, then put in the fridge in the bag to chill, then onto the smoker to add some magic to the exterior amd warm it up. We are trying to mimic what happens being frozen post-vide in a proper vacuum bag, which we do not have yet. The thinking is that killer deli meats can be made in advance this way, then thawed and smoked as needed. ???????????. At least that is the idea. We will see.
 
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