sous vide help!

Associate
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I have used my water bath to do beef forerib in the past.

Normally I put 1.2-1.5kg in for about 6 hours.

Today I have put in a 1.5kg topside @ 55C.

about 2 hours in I have checked online to see how long I should be putting it in for... and am shocked to see as much as 72 hours. The missus wants dinner today, not later in the week.

What result should I expect? or should I just abandon and roast it until ready?#

thanks

Tony
 
Soldato
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Type of meat, size and cooking temp will all affect the time needed

2-3 inch of beef at 55c will take around 6hrs to pasteurise , but depending on the cut ,ie a tough cut, will change how it comes out, it will be cooked but could but tougher than hoped for


Raising the temp might help
 
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No need to pasturise beef.

topside should be ok by just bringing it to temperature as you are planning to do- it will be perfectly cooked med rare but will still need slicing thinly as you would normally with topside to ensure that it eats well. the 72hr way will give you medium rare meat with a texture of braised meat (i.e falling apart) its an unusual result- i've tried it a few times and im not convinced.
 
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Thanks for the comments guys.

I took it out after 7 hours, seared on a blazing hot pan and after 15m carved. The texture was a little tougher than I had hoped for and I feel unless I have the 30+ hours I won't bother doing it again. It was beautifully medium rare throughout. I would normally want my beef rare but as the rest of the meat was due to be sandwich beef for lunched, I figured I wanted it a little more done.

On a side note, when the meat came out of the water bath, I jacked it up to 90c and did my veg, Carrots at 90 for 30 mins and asparagus for 13. Both came out very well, far better than I had expected. The carrots were as sweet as a carrot can be and the asparagus was wonderful. The beg was the real champion from this meal which is a strange thing coming from a carnivore like me!

I think I will stick to to using the water bath for steak cuts. I get the result I really want.

Though I have seen a beef rib recipe that looks amazing (72h at 54c)

cheers

Tony
 
Soldato
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You don't need to have 30 hours, it's not like you have to baby sit the meat lol

Dinner at 6pm Saturday? Stick it in the bath Friday morning and let it do it's thing :)
 
Soldato
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Ive got one of these coming for xmas, im usually a year round bbq guy so dont really know the ins and outs of slow cooking apart from smoking. Does anyone know any good sites for sous vide recipes or tips where i could get a start from?
 
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Ive got one of these coming for xmas, im usually a year round bbq guy so dont really know the ins and outs of slow cooking apart from smoking. Does anyone know any good sites for sous vide recipes or tips where i could get a start from?

chef steps have some good recipes, I'd also highly recommend a copy of modernist cuisine at home

ETA - If you want to do some really, really awesome BBQ, you can sous-vide before smoking. For example, 48hr ribs finished on the smoker = amazing.
 
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No need to pasturise beef.

topside should be ok by just bringing it to temperature as you are planning to do- it will be perfectly cooked med rare but will still need slicing thinly as you would normally with topside to ensure that it eats well. the 72hr way will give you medium rare meat with a texture of braised meat (i.e falling apart) its an unusual result- i've tried it a few times and im not convinced.

Have you read about holding the meat at 40C for a period of time to tenderise it? Obviously you need to pasteurise the outside of the meat first but it's an interesting idea anyhow.

chef steps have some good recipes, I'd also highly recommend a copy of modernist cuisine at home

ETA - If you want to do some really, really awesome BBQ, you can sous-vide before smoking. For example, 48hr ribs finished on the smoker = amazing.

I've read about this a few times and played with it a bit myself. One thing about sous-vide before smoking is that the smoke ring and smoke flavour penetration is adversely affected. Any thoughts/experiences with that?
 
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Have you read about holding the meat at 40C for a period of time to tenderise it? Obviously you need to pasteurise the outside of the meat first but it's an interesting idea anyhow.



I've read about this a few times and played with it a bit myself. One thing about sous-vide before smoking is that the smoke ring and smoke flavour penetration is adversely affected. Any thoughts/experiences with that?

Didn't have smoke ring issues - I did hear similar things. I'll have to try and dig out some photos, I'm terrible at getting pics at my bbqs because everything goes in seconds!
 
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Have you read about holding the meat at 40C for a period of time to tenderise it? Obviously you need to pasteurise the outside of the meat first but it's an interesting idea anyhow.



I've read about this a few times and played with it a bit myself. One thing about sous-vide before smoking is that the smoke ring and smoke flavour penetration is adversely affected. Any thoughts/experiences with that?

I would be concerned from a food safety perspective to hold any meat at 40dc for long periods of time. Do you know what method you should use to keep it safe at this temp and also how long would you need to cook at this temp to achieve tender results? from memory on the subject, elastin takes a very long time to break down at low temperatures, i would imaging that it would take a very long time to achieve meaningful results at 40c . I have had a couple of mistakes with endothermic bacterial infections occurring in the product at around 55dc over long durations, particularly with well hung meat so im always a bit cautious now. I now pour boiling water over the sv bag prior to cooking to pasturise surface bacteria.

Regarding smoking and sv, my best experiment to date for short ribs is to smoke at 110c for 3 hrs and then transfer to sv bags and SV for 8-10hrs at 80c. makes fantastic succulent meat and great smoke flavour (finish under a grill/ over hot coals). Not sure about the smoke ring mind. I'm sure this would be transferable to other cuts. Now i have a kamado i tend not to bother with the sv section in the middle due to added faff, but the results are best with SV to my pallete
 
Man of Honour
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I would be concerned from a food safety perspective to hold any meat at 40dc for long periods of time. Do you know what method you should use to keep it safe at this temp and also how long would you need to cook at this temp to achieve tender results? from memory on the subject, elastin takes a very long time to break down at low temperatures, i would imaging that it would take a very long time to achieve meaningful results at 40c . I have had a couple of mistakes with endothermic bacterial infections occurring in the product at around 55dc over long durations, particularly with well hung meat so im always a bit cautious now. I now pour boiling water over the sv bag prior to cooking to pasturise surface bacteria.

Regarding smoking and sv, my best experiment to date for short ribs is to smoke at 110c for 3 hrs and then transfer to sv bags and SV for 8-10hrs at 80c. makes fantastic succulent meat and great smoke flavour (finish under a grill/ over hot coals). Not sure about the smoke ring mind. I'm sure this would be transferable to other cuts. Now i have a kamado i tend not to bother with the sv section in the middle due to added faff, but the results are best with SV to my pallete

Here's some more information/discussion:

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/148...ide-tenderizing-stage-and-enzymatic-activity/

It's not really about breaking down the elastin and is more about replicating the effects of one of the enzymes that operates on the meat proteins during the traditional dry aging of the meat.
 
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It's not really about breaking down the elastin and is more about replicating the effects of one of the enzymes that operates on the meat proteins during the traditional dry aging of the meat.

Well that I can understand. I have had some unusual results with venison particularly where I believe the naturally present enzymes have caused advanced breakdown of the protein at lower sv temps over even moderate duration. The result for me was mushy meat but I guess if you judge it right and the right enzymes are present it would be possible to advance tenderisation to an agreeable level. The way the animal was killed and length of aging are both factors and for amateurs like myself there are too many variables for consistant cookery, which after all is what sv is about.
 
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Well i had a go at the weekend with mixed results, the book that came with it said 4 eggs at 57c for 1 hour, so thats what i done. Cracked them open and they were pretty raw. Then i tried an egg at 60c for 2 hrs, thats was almost there. White was still not cooked tho, yolk was perfect.

Then i thought i would put some in over night at 61c to see what would happen, in the morning after 7hrs the yolk was pretty hard and the white was still runny! So im still trying to see how to cook that perfect egg.

Then i tried a bit of left over fillet steak with my first attempt at the vacuuming. This worked well. I cooked it for 1.5hrs at 54c. I took it out the water bath and put it straight into a pan with butter. Lovely brown coating achieved and removed to serve. We split this tiny steak 3 ways to see the results and we're all pleasantly surprised. Looking forward to trying some tougher cuts!

Finally i cooked a lump of gammon for 8 hours yesterday. Wonderful. I dont think i have ever had gammon so juicy, used a meat slicer to cut some for a sandwich and it really was brilliant.

So far my thoughts are its quite hard to know where to start with times and experimentation is needed, but once you figure it out im sure it will change everything!
 
Man of Honour
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Contrary to the commonly held belief, time of cooking is very important for a lot of sous vide cooking. Eggs are especially sensitive to this.

Personally I quite like 63C for a little over an hour (might be 1.5 - I need to double-check what I did). The firm part of the white is set by this point and the yolk is still very soft though has a consistency more like jam. The soft white part will be set and stuck to the egg shell so you do lose some egg with this but personally I don't care. You could work around this by dumping the eggs in boiling water for 1 minute and then in cold water for a further minute if you wanted to. That's too much hassle for me though and also makes peeling the shells off more of a pita.
 
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