e_monster

It might not be PID control -- it could easily be some other microcontroller logic (PID is just a really easy to implement heat-control method that has been around for along time -- one could implement other algorithms for heat control -- but to the end-user what matters are the specs and not the logic used to achieve them). I would imagine that to the manual writer's it isn't really important what kind of microcontroller logic was used (if they even knew that much).

For 2000 euro (which is about $2800) and with those specs, it almost certainly uses a PID or other microcontroller to control the temperature. That is a lot of money for an initial investment. If this is for home use and $2800 seems like a lot of money -- you can get the equipment you need to get started for less than $200

You can generally find glucose in the baking section of a good grocery store -- it is used for frosting and decorations. I found some at Draeger's in Menlo Park but I bet any high-end/specialty grocery would have it. I wouldn't have known where to look for it -- but the manager knew right away.

I am embarrassed to say that for flat-irons, I have used meat from smart & final and been pleasantly surprised. It is very cheap -- so the cost of experimenting is low.

Whole Foods is usually pretty good -- though I haven't purchased Flat Irons from them. I cook them at 131F for 24 hours. (I followed Doug Baldwin's recipe: jaccard and salt and pepper). The jaccarding may well explain both the juiciness and tenderness differences that you and I had. I sometimes also add a couple of tablespoons of water mixed with a 1/4 cap of liquid smoke. The gray color is not unusual in sous-vide beef cooking -- I think related to the shortage of oxygen. The inside should be a very lovely medium-rare pink, however.

Hi Robert, Are you sure that you are using good quality beef? Flat-iron steaks should be quite flavorful -- and the ones that I have cooked would all have been way too tender at 48 hours (I think by any standards). The quality of the ingredients makes a huge difference. The results that you are getting make me wonder if the problem is the quality of the beef. Just a thought, E

That is not an accurate characterization of the options. It is safe to jaccard without pre-searing if you are going to cook with a temp/time combination that pasteurizes the food (24 hours at 131F for instance would be totally safe to jaccard but 131F for 30 minutes would not). The safe thing to do depends and the time/temperature that you will be using to cook. If you are cooking at a temp/time that does not pasteurize meat, you should sear (or parboil for two minutes) before jaccarding. If you are cooking at a time/temp that pasteurizes the food then jaccard to your heart's desire. (Cooking stew pasteurizes the meat so there is no danger if you jaccard). You can, of course, take whatever risks you would like, but I believe in people making informed decision and the previous discussion may have given someone the impression that if you cut a piece of raw muscle meat with a sterile knife on a clean surface that you can consider the newly exposed surface uncontaminated. If they made a decision thinking that is true then the decision would not be informed. Keep in mind that the likelihood of a bad outcome is multiplied by the number of times that the event is repeated. Let's say the odds were 1 in 100 hundred that

Robert, I think you misunderstand the issues of sterility. Even if you use a sterile knife, if there is contamination on the outside, the knife can spread the contaminants. Once the knife cuts, those previously interior surfaces may now be contaminated. Also, if the meat gets wrapped up, the moisture will help carry contamination from one part of the outside to another. For food safety reasons, it is generally considered an assumption that any uncooked exterior surface is contaminated and that any cut is carrying contamination to the newly exposed surface. The primary issue is spreading the contaminants already on the meat NOT picking up additional contaminants from the air. Of course, you want to be using clean utensils, too. But even if all the utensils are sterile, you will run into trouble if the meat is contaminated. And contamination does not only happen to low-quality meats in cheap supermarkets. Fyi, this is why any time you get a shot at the doctor's office or any time that you are going to be cut open with a scalpel. the area where the puncture or incision will be made is sterilized with alcohol. True that most of the time one will be lucky -- but why take the risk since it is very easy to reduce the risk with simple precautions without giving up great food. If you are only worried about dying from the food, the risk is probably pretty small -- however, a HUGE number of people get pretty sick every year from food-borne contamination. Many people don't even realize that the 'stomach flu' that they got was likely due to eating contaminated food (in the U.S. the estimate is that about 50% of 'stomach flu' is food borne illness such as salmonella or e. coli or listeria). If you have ever had a bad 'stomach flu', consider whether or not it would be worth taking simple pre-cautions to avoid getting it.

I am pretty sure that you are incorrect -- at least as far as clostridium botulinum which only grows in the absence of oxygen (or very low oxygen environments). The presence of oxygen kills the bacteria. Some anaerobic micro-organisms can survive in oxygen-rich environments but many require low oxygen environments to survive.

Mike, I'm not sure I see the relevance of the times you posted to the question of cooking tough cuts of meat -- which is where this all started. You can't compare the cooking time of lamb loin to the cooking time of chuck steak -- they simply aren't comparable pieces of meat with comparable characteristics. No one disputes that tender cuts only need to be cooked to bring the meat up to temp. So, these times are not really germane to the question of long cooking of tough cuts of meat. Vis-a-vis flat-iron steaks. A friend of mine was talking to a butcher and apparently there is a way to butcher them that removes most of the connective tissue during butchering which yields a tender steak. So, if one's source does this, it might be a tender cut of meat. But a lot of the flat-iron steak out there is not butchered that way. So, I guess not all flat-iron steak is tough.

In my opinion, if you Jaccard without pre-searing and only cook to 121-131, I think that you are taking a risk. There are some really nasty strains of e-coli that have developed in the last 20 years. While the likelihood may be somewhat low that you will get a piece of meat that has it -- enough people get sick each year from them that I think it is worth taking appropriate precautions. (Like searing before jaccarding). Contamination is not just restricted to supermarket mystery meat.

I will let Nathan and Doug Baldwin speak about the food safety issues as they have done the research that many of us rely on. As for this 'steak-type cut' business. Not all things that are called steaks are tender. Cuts like filet and rib-eye are tender cuts that need no additional tenderizing (in fact, in my opinion cooking them overlong results in mushy meat). However, not all cuts that have the word "steak" in them are tender. Tri-tip, flat-iron steak and chuck are cuts that are flavorful but not tender. If you cook chuck to medium-rare as you would a ribeye, you will have a tired jaw by the time you finish eating. Despite having the word 'steak' in its name, chuck "steak" is a tough cut that in my opinion benefits from the tenderizing effects of temperature over extended periods of time. The amount of tenderizing depends on how tough the cut it. Flat-iron steak cooked for 24 hours (per Doug Baldwin's suggestion) has to my taste a really nice texture that it doesn't have when it is pan fried as one might cook a more tender cut like filet or ribeye. It doesn't sound like you have ever eaten these cuts cooked for the length of time that we are discussing -- so, it doesn't seem that you are in a good position to judge the resulting taste and texture.

For tender steaks like ribeye, I go with 127F to 129F and cook just long enough to bring it up to temp (but there is no harm in leaving it longer as long as you don't leave it there so long that it is in the danger zone). BUT tritip is not a tender steak. Anything that cooks over 4 hours needs to be cooked above 131F if you want to be safe. So you can't really cook to tenderize and have it be on the rare side of medium-rare. 131F and 133F are still in the medium rare range. (If you are gauging my preferences, when I eat roast beef I like it on the very rare side of medium-rare.) Cooking tri-tip for 12 hrs would be fine. I have done un-jaccarded tri-tip for 12 hours and it came out great. And I think at 131F that there won't be a huge difference between 6 hrs and 12 hrs. for the jaccarded tri-tip. For unjaccarded, I think 12 hrs (meaning anywhere from 10 to 14 or 15 hours) works well, but I personally find 24 hours too long for tri-tip even at 131 or 133F -- just a bit mushy in the mouth -- not bad but for my taste inferior to how it was when cooked for 12 hours (no jaccard). You could do an experiment and torch then jaccard then cook the tri-tip at 125F for a couple of hours and see how it turns out. The jaccard might be enough for it to be tender even though only being cooked long enough to be brought to temp. Anyway that is my opinion. Others may feel differently.

At these temps, I don't think that 4 hours will provide significant tenderizing -- collagen breakdown happens pretty slowly at low temps. I have consistently found that an unjaccarded tri-tip needs about 8 to 12 hours at 133F to become tender. If you jaccard, you can get away with less time BUT you either have to cook at a time/temp combo that will pasteurize OR you need torch it before jaccarding. I find jaccarded tri-tip cooked at 131F for 6 or 7 hours is pretty much perfect.

Robert Jueneman wrote: Was this with I and D 0? (Oh, it is also worth mentioning whether you are using the unit in C or F mode since the values of P I and D are related to the mode that the unit is operating in)

With I and D off, I think you can probably lower the P value. As a test, run it in just P mode with the P value you got from Auto-Tune and if that doesn't give satisfactory results double the P. This should also increase the recovery rate. I wonder if the weird behavior after Auto-Tune (stable but several degrees too low) could have anything to do with running the power at less than 100%. Maybe there is a software bug that causes problems for the the auto-tune if the power isn't 100%.

Have you tried running the auto-tune mode? At the risk of seeming like a broken record, I recommend trying it -- you have nothing to lose and it might find settings that work. It may take 6 to 12 hours for the tuning to be completed. The worst that will happen is that you will end up with settings that don't work -- but I think it is worth a try and I think it is likely to work (based on my experience).

This was with a 22 quart Hamilton Beach tabletop roaster -- which is almost a worst case device for these PIDs because of the huge latency in heating due to the double-walled nature. So, I was pretty pleased that it came up with rock solid settings. (There is a small amount of initial overshoot that settles down quickly). Oh, for auto-tune I used room temperature tap water -- in normal use, I start with water that is already about 130F. Even if the numbers looked weird to you -- it would be interesting to know if they worked. In my opinion, it is worth trying the settings because you might be pleasantly surprised. The numbers I got were weird but they worked. They were similar to what you got (different P but the I and D values were the same -- which are the maximum allowed values). I suspect that there are different settings that may also work and look less weird -- but they worked for me so I was a happy camper. The settings it came up with I couldn't re-enter by hand -- so I re auto-tuned and it came up with the same results. This was before I wrote to Auber to find out why I couldn't enter them manually. If I have to re-enter them again, I will take the advice offered by Auber which I provide below because others may also find it helpful. Suyi is responding to a message in which I mentioned that auto-tune came up with settings that worked well but couldn't be entered by hand.

Does autotune on that unit come up with bizarre settings that work or bizarre settings that don't work? The Auber instruments auto-tune has worked perfectly for me --although it can take 6 to 8 hours -- because it can take a long time for the water to cool down between the auto-tune cycles. The results I have gotten have worked great although they may have seemed 'bizarre' in the sense that they aren't what I would have guessed they would be. If the SVM's auto-tune is worthless, that seems like a serious design flaw. For future reference for the group, it would be interesting to know if other people also have problems using the auto-tune with the SVM machine. In any case, it is worth trying. p.s. Thanks Doug and Nathan for the additional info on egg pasteurization.

That is a lot of overshoot. Did the unit come with a guide to adjusting the PID settings? Does the temp stabilize if left long enough? Until I got my roaster setup calibrated, I would get a few degrees F of overshoot when first coming up to temp and it would then stabilize rock solid after an hour. (Until I got the settings right, I would wait until the temp stabilized to add food -- nowadays, I might get 1 degree F of overshoot initially and then it quickly stabilizes). Did you start with hot or cold water? I would wait to get your calibration before doing any experiment you care about -- otherwise you might be disappointed by the results. 3.5C is a huge overshoot. If the SVM machine has auto-tune mode, use it. If the SVM machine is essentially the same as one of the Auber Instruments PIDs that doesn't have auto-tune, you will probably have to tweak the settings a little bit -- differences in insulation can make a big difference in the required settings -- and out-of-the-box it is probably set to something that responds pretty quickly. You should email their support people for help -- the people at Auber were very helpful and hopefully the sous-vide magic people will have good support, too. Suyi at Auber mentioned that it is worth exploring settings that use just PD when one has a setup that overshoots a lot (especially true of setups that use a lot of water or have a lot of 'inertia')

Here are my thoughts based on my personal experience and my reading of others' experiences. Fish sous-vide is a bit hit and miss -- some people love it, some are lukewarm to it and some downright don't like it (including Tom Colicchio). Personally, I love salmon at 113 F but my wife is lukewarm. She liked it but doesn't ooh and ahh the way she does for some dishes. A nice thick rib-eye cooked sous-vide at 129F for an hour or two (just to bring it up to temp) followed by a quick (30 seconds to a minute per side) sear always gets raves when I serve. The nice thing about this one is that you don't have to wait a day or two. This is mostly something for those that love steak medium rare with a thin well-browned crust. The fat softens nicely in a way that it doesn't seem to when prepared traditionally. Short-ribs (well-trimmed ahead of time) and cooked at 133F to 135F for 48 hrs and then subject to a quick sear consistently get raves (even from people that don't think of themselves as big meat eaters). I serve this with sour cream and horseradish as if it were roast beef. Pork tenderloin cooked for a few hours at 140F (I usually put a marinade of equal parts cider vinegar, soy sauce and sugar in the bag along with a cap of liquid smoke) MOSTLY gets raves -- but there have been one or two outliers that were lukewarm because they like their pork well-done. For a couple of friends, this is their favorite. Flat-iron steak at 131F is another that gets raves. I cook it for 24 hours and jaccard it per Douglas Baldwin's instructions. Another big winner for me has been tri-tip (bottom sirloin) jaccarded and cooked at 133F for 5 to 8 hours with marinade in the bag -- and then flamed under the broiler or with a blow torch to brown the outside. I like a marinade that is 2 parts soy sauce, 1 part vegetable oil, 1 part cider vinegar and 1 part sugar. A capful or half capful of liquid smoke adds nicely. Other meals with a quick pay off are chicken breast at 135F to 140F (be sure to cook long enough to pasteurize) and duck at 131F. If you love chicken, the texture of sous-vide chicken breast is great very very tender -- use the best quality chicken you can find. If you love medium-rare duck breast, there is no better way to prepare it than 131F followed by a quick sear. (Remove the skin before cooking and cook it separately in the oven so that you get lovely duck breast topped by crisp skin -- I have not had great luck getting the skin to crisp if I leave the skin in the bag.

Doug Baldwin's great sous-vide pages mention that eggs can be pasteurized at 135F by cooking for 1 hr 15 min or more. Anyone have any idea what the time to pasteurize would be at 131F and 133F? I tried to find some good data on the web but found that a lot of the pages (even from the food industry) wave their hands around and act like 140F is the minimum temp at which salmonella is killed. I found one paper that confirmed that 131F was sufficient but I wasn't able to determine from the paper the time required to pasteurize against salmonella in eggs at that temp. (Apparently the substrate makes a difference in how long it takes to kill the salmonella). I'd love to be able to pasteurize eggs when I am cooking at 131F and 133F.

As I understand it, 131F is the minimum temp for pasteurizing meat. So, you can't extrapolate from 131F to find a time to pasteurize at 127.5 F as 127.5 below the temp at which you can pasteurize. As I understand it, once you drop below 131F, you are potentially in the danger zone which makes it more dangerous the longer the food is there because some bugs can survive and reproduce below 131F.

I think that you will find that tabletop roasters (Nesco, Hamilton Beach, etc.) are cheaper than rice oookers of equivalent volume. You will definitely need to auto-tune then and use a bubbler, too. They can be had for about $40 and hold a lot of water. The rice cookers do have some advantages, though.

Someone correct me if I am wrong. I think that jaccarding is safe under certain conditions -- I believe that if you are making sure to pasteurize the meat so that the interior gets to pasteurization temps within a safe amount of time and that you hold the meat at temp long enough to pasteurize that you are ok. However, if you jaccard a steak and don't cook to pasteurization then you are inviting trouble. For example, if you were cooking a ribeeye at 125 F or 127 F then you would need to sterilize the outside of the meat before jaccarding (by searing or dunking in boiling water). Or, if you were cooking the ribeye at 133F but not cooking it long enough to pasteurize the interior, then you would been to pre-sear. With your brisket, I think you were ok because you would have been bringing the center of the meat up to a pasteurization temp in a reasonable amount of time and then held it there long enough to kill the pathogens. I did a couple of blind-tastings and found that pre-searing had a minimal impact on the flavor. Post-searing adds both flavor and mouth-feel. I keep some juices and fat from roasted poultry on hand and find that adding a bit in the even with beef gives a nice flavor.