e_monster

If you think a setup is dangerous, please be specific -- no one wants people to cook with an unsafe setup -- so if a setup is suggested on the list is unsafe in your opinion -- bring it up as a point of evaluation so that the safety or lack thereof can be determined. Your comment is kind of vague with no way to know what it applies to -- there may be things that you consider jerry-rigged that are actually perfectly safe -- or you may be entirely correct. I say this because when the Auber PID's first came out, there were quite a few people making claims such as you have made but in fact they have turned out to be safe and reliable.

A couple of things: the time to get something up to temp is radically different (longer) in air than in water. The danger is that using air is that food will take much longer to get to temp than you want (which might be unhealthy if the food spends too much time in the danger zone. Doug and Nathan's great tables for how long it takes to get the food up to temperature won't apply to cooking in air. Unless the store cryvaced in bags meant for cooking, I would avoid them and use bags meant for cooking due to chemicals in the bag material that can leach into the food.

So far potatoes (bagged with some salt and stock in the bag) and carrots have been the only real winners for me. The potatoes have been popular -- firm but not crispy. A really nice texture -- but make sure that they cook long enough -- undercooked they are a bit crispy. Carrots are very nice. Sweet but not too soft. I have tried quite a few others. Leeks and squash were particularly underwhelming.

joesan, even with a PID, I don't believe that aquarium heaters are a good fit. They are not designed to recover from large temperature drops and aren't designed to run at temps much beyond 90 degrees fahrenheit. If Christina already has them on hand and doesn't mind burning them out, it might be worth a try. If she were going to be buying an aquarium and heaters and PID that would be more expensive than getting a PID and something like a Deep Fryer or Table Top Roaster (which is the most cost-effective unit that I have found for heating 18 litres of water--they are less than $40) or a Presto multicooker ($25) like I keep mentioning. And not only would it be more expensive, I am not even sure that it would work -- none of the aquarium heaters that I looked at had defeatable thermostats and they are likely to burn out fairly soon (compared to something designed to to heat water beyond 90 degrees fahrenheit). The expense is the PID (roughly $100) -- the equipment for providing the heat is only $40 or less.

I don't think that aquarium heaters will work well for sous-vide -- when I was trying to figure out how to do it on a budget I looked into it and couldn't find a way to make it work. Maybe I missed something -- like a particular brand of heater that would work for this application -- but I did a fair amount of research and came away with the sense that there wasn't workable solution with aquarium heaters. I would be happy to be corrected with someone that had better luck. Below is what I found when I looked into it. Most aquarium heaters have thermostats with a fairly narrow range--none of the ones that I looked at could handle temps in the range sous-vide requires. They aren't designed to run for long periods of time outside of the temperature range they were designed for. Cheap aquarium heaters tend to burn out somewhat quickly when used outside of their intended temperature range. They take a long-time to bring water from room temperature up to temp -- or to recover from the temperature loss when you put in cold food. Also, the thermostats suffer from the same problem that cheap thermostats all suffer from -- i.e. not as stable as you would like for sous-vide. If the water is already to temperature, they seem stable in normal use because they only need to make up for the heat lost due to radiation. However, if they have to make up for a sudden drop in temperature they don't work so well. If you want to try sous-vide on the cheap without investing much, I would recommend starting with things that only take an hour or two and using a large pot of water on a really low flame (once the water is at temp) with a good thermometer. Before I invested in my PID, we did that a few times to cook steak and chicken breasts and got results good enough that investing $125 for a PID and table top roaster seemed like a worthwhile expense.

6 liters is pretty tiny and for a lot less than $200 you can get something that will work every bit as well when plugged into a temperature controller. I often use a 6 quart Presto Multicooker that runs about $35. I have had it for 20 years and it works great for cooking small amounts of food sous vide. With a 6 liter water bath, you can cook a steak or a couple of chicken breasts or a couple of short ribs. You will need something with a much larger capacity to cook things like brisket, roasts and the like. The multicooker is very responsive when used with a PID temperature controller. When the controller is set correctly, I get no overshoot.

Sounds tasty. I am guessing that if you smoked it for even just 30 minutes and then packed it and put it into the bath that you would get a lot of smoke flavor. I have done a fair amount of hybrid smoking/sous vide and have been surprised at how little time the meat needs to be exposed to the smoke for it to be quite smoky when followed by sous-vide. Something about being packed in the bag seems to enable a little bit of smoke to go a long way. I am wondering how safe 4 hrs under 110F and then into the bath is? That sounds like a long time in the danger zone. Douglas, Nathan any thoughts?

With the right FoodSaver and just a little bit of care, one can vacuum pack bags with liquid in them -- even without freezing. FoodSavers with the Pulse option can deal with liquid as long as you pay attention and stop pulsing once the liquid starts getting sucked in. They have removable drip trays so some liquid getting sucked in is ok. These ones seem to have a better sealer so that the liquid does not prevent sealing. The FoodSavers without the pulse option are a little trickier unless you freezed the liquids. The FoodSaver bags are designated as food safe for cooking -- unlike the ZipLoc vacuum bags. Of course, I can't vouch for their testing. But I would trust those bags ahead of bags not designed for cooking.

I think you are overstating the importance of a circulator. It depends on a number of factors (heat source, bath size, bath size relative to what is being cooked, etc.) It may be critical in some situations but it is not critical in all applications. A PID controlled rice cooker or multicooker or table-top roaster works fine with or without something added for circulation. The natural convection in my multicooker is such that the temperature is pretty constant. The tabletop roaster because it is side-heated doesn't have the same convections patterns and there is a tiny bit more variation -- which a $10 aquarium airpump easily solves. Even in the roaster, the temperature distributes evenly enough that I no longer bother to use the pump.

It is good to know that they make some that are intended for cooking. If people use Ziplocs (or any other bag) they should make sure they are using ones intended for cooking and not the ones just for food storage. I've seen people make comments that they are all the same and that is not the case. Thanks for the info.

Btw, I don't think this has been discussed much on this list, but I don't think it is a good idea to cook in plastic bags that were not meant to have food cooked in them. Ziplock bags and most other such bags were not made to be food safe at cooking temperatures. There are some pretty unhealthy chemicals that can leach out of soft plastics into the food when the bags get hot. Bags designed to be cooked in have (at least in theory) been formulated to minimize the nasty stuff that leaches out. Bags meant only for storage were formulated with storage in mind and are likely to have stuff that will leach out at temperature. I would be cautious about doing much sous-vide cooking in bags not meant to be cooked in especially if you are going to be feeding kids or young adults or women that might be (or become) pregnant. The chemicals used to make plastics pliable are known to be endocrine disruptors and pose other health risks as well. While there is some "controversy" on this topic, there is growing consensus about the health risks of these chemicals in the scientific community (except for that part of the community funded by the industries that rely on these chemicals for their profitability--hence my putting controversy in quotes since most of the disagreement is from the side with a vested interest).

Hi, With a crockpot, the temperature won't be stable enough for long enough to be able to judge what sous vide will be like when done with appropriate equipment. For things like short ribs and brisket that require very long cooking, you really do need to keep the temperature within a few degrees for the entire duration and you can't do that without some sort of accurate temperature controller (this is coming from someone that spent 6 months doing sous vide on the super cheap) . If you want short ribs that are different from braised short ribs, you really need to cook them in the low to middle 130's (fahrenheit) (I like 133 or 135) -- and the temp needs to stay there the whole time. If you cooked them around 160F, the result is braised short ribs and 3 days would be overkill. At 160F, short ribs would be done in less than 12 hours. And no matter what you do, they would be totally unlike short ribs cooked at 135F. At 135 F short ribs will be similar to medium rare roast beef in appearance and texture with a richer flavor. In my opinion, you can get a general idea about what sous vide steak and chicken breast and pork loin are like (all things that cook in a few hours) without an expensive controller IF you have a good thermometer and are willing to baby sit your set-up and can keep things within 3 or 4 degrees Fahrenheit. The results won't be the same as when you have an even more stable controller but you will get an idea. I don't think you can do anything that cooks for a long time at low temp without getting a PID controller (around $100) or lab equipment. The results I eventually got by manually controlling the temperature of short cooks convinced my wife and I that the further investment of $100 in a PID would be worthwhile -- and we haven't regretted it. Crock pots are a bit tricky to keep stable by hand -- I had better luck with a heavy pot on the stove on the lowest flame. Anyway, that is my take.

If the fat doesn't render, it is because you are sous-vid'ing at too low a temp. Have you tried temps over 167F? If you cook them at 170F, the fat will render. If you cooked at high-heat long enough to render out the fat of spare ribs you are also missing out on some of the advantages of sous vide because the proteins have probably been pretty well cooked too. I think you will find that if you smoke the ribs for 15 minutes to 30 minutes at lower temp and then bag them put em in the bath at 170F or so that you will get tender ribs and rendered fat. For spare ribs it might take longer than the 6 hours I use for baby backs. And the liquid in the bag will turn the rub into a marinade. When you take them out of the bag, blasting with a blowtorch or putting 'em under the broiler will give a nice crust and carmelize the sugars from the rub.

I feel that marinading for a long time is not the answer as it (in my opinion) hurts the texture. If you like smoke ribs, there are a few things. Even just 15 minutes in a stovetop smoker will imparts a fair amount of smoky flavor. I would rub 'em with your favorite rub -- rather than fresh garlic and ginger I would use garlic powder and ginger powder. I find that fresh garlic and ginger SV don't work great. If you don't want to hassle with pre-smoking, 1/2 cap of liquid smoke works wonders. I sometimes cook ribs in with some marinade in the bag that is made up of equal parts cider vinegar, soy sauce with a little sugar and olive oil thrown in. I also think that the mouth-feel is better at 170F for 6 hrs versus 24 hours at something like 135. I think the rendered pork fat is an important flavor component in addition to how it feels in the mouth. Anyway, that is my take.

Enter "baby back" in the search topic box towards the bottom of the page and you will find several posts about this. Short version, I smoke them for 15 minutes in a stovetop smoker and cook at 170F for 5 to 6 hours and then brown with a propane blow torch. They are falling off the bone tender. I don't think that I would cook them at a much lower temp since the fat won't do much rendering and (at least for me) a big part of the rib experience is contribute by the melted fat. And at that temp, I wouldn't cook much longer than 6 hours.

I've never cooked meat for 76 hours but have done many a brisket and short rib for 48 hours. I have never had an off flavor -- but I haven't used garlic salt either. Raw garlic can lend an off-taste. I would think that garlic salt would be ok but that could be the culprit. The other possibility is that the meat itself had some off-flavors to start off with. Did you notice anything before you put it in the bag? For future reference, if your dinner plans change like that in the future, take the meat out of the bath after 48 hours and chill in an ice bath and store in the fridge or the freezer (see Doug Baldwin's pages for guidelines about storage) and then put the meat back in the bath an or or two before you will be serving it to bring it up to temp. Decent quality, well-trimmed short ribs cooked at 133 for 48 hours should taste like a nice roast beef with no off-flavors at all.

Make sure to get a decently marbled brisket and trim almost all of the fat cap off (not much of it will render). I honestly don't think you need to do anything other than season it (salt and pepper). I don't think you need to any any fat in the bag. When it is done, I would brown one or both sides in a very hot pan or with a blowtorch and serve with sourcream and horseradish. I have found that the quality of the brisket is important--especially if you are cooking the flat. Some flats have almost no marbling. That being said, while the briskets have come out great since I shifted to 135F, I think that short ribs are a tastier meal.

If anyone is having trouble finding the right settings with a large cooker, it is probably worth trying with I set to 0. Apparently with large devices where there is a slow response time, setting I to 0 will often make things work much better and reduce or eliminate overshoot. He feels that often using PID controllers as either PI or PD is often more effective than using as PID. Suyi also mentioned that when experimenting with your own settings, it is generally a good idea to set I to 1/4 of D if you don't set I to 0. He offered this tip: when experimenting, start with a large D value and set I to 1/4 D. If that doesn't work, reduce D by 50% and set I to 1/4 of that.

Before I give my answer, I should point out that Suyi at Auber Instruments is super helpful. He has suggested to me that for a large cooker with a lot of latency (like the tabletop roasters) setting I to 0 (thus turning the controller into a PD rather than PID) is the best way to go. I haven't done that because I have been happy with the settings I found. But I will try it when I have a little spare time. Since my original post, I have also purchased the 3rd generation PID with auto-tune. For the roaster full of water, auto-tune came up with P32 I 998 D 499 Note that a couple of those settings are outside of what you can manually set. So, when setting manually I use the closest settings to that that the PID will allow. Those settings are rock solid once it come up to temp. I start with hot water in the roaster since my hot water heater is a more efficient water heater than the table top roaster. I let the water in the roaster get up to temp before I add the food. It stabilizes quite quickly -- but I do wait until it has stabilized to add the food. These table-top roasters have a LOT of latency due to the double-walled design. Also, make sure to use Fahrenheit settings as that give you better granularity (since 1 degree fahrnenheit is about 1/2 degree C).

Whether you need to pasteurize depends on the meat. Some meat (like intact muscle cuts of beef) are considered safe if the outside is seared and the inside has been in the danger zone for less than 4 hours. I think this is covered on Doug's pages. Chicken on the other hand is not officially (i.e. as far as the FDA is concerned) considered food-safe unless it is pasteurized. Douglas Baldwin's pages have the tables you ask about. They are labeled 2.3 and 2.4. Nathan also posted tables in this thread.

It is probably best to reheat at any safe temp between 130F and what it was originally cooked to. If you cooked to 141 and then reheat at a higher temp, you will lose the texture/mouth-feel. Have him reheat in a water bath. It only needs to be in there long enough to bring up to temp.

It sounds like you had a defective sealer. I have owned several FoodSavers and I've never had a problem (other than pilot error -- i.e. me making a mistake) with getting an air-tight seal. I mention this so that people that are trying to figure out what equipment to buy don't think that they need to be a chamber sealer to get good results. The FoodSaver isn't strong enough to compress/fruits and vegetables but other than that does a great job--especially the models with pulse mode and removable drip trays.

It is a matter of time. Chicken can be safely cooked at 131 or above IF IF IF you make sure to keep it at temperature for the correct amount of time. The time is very different at 131 than at 140. So, please see the tables that Doug Baldwin has on his site. Keep in mind that you need to add up two times to know the safe time: the time required to bring the food up to temperature plus the time at-temperature required to make it food safe. --E

My cross-rib roast was a big success. So, here are the details. Cooked at 133F for 18 or 20 hours. Then given crust in a medium hot pan with some olive oil. I wanted to make sure that the outer fat got crispy -- so the browning was in medium hot rather than smoking hot pan like I usually use to sear post-sous vide. It worked out nicely. This was a boneless roast and I snipped the twine and unrolled it before putting it into the bag since I realized that the deboning might have introduced contaminants. (The roast was 4.5 inches thick rolled up so I decided to err on the side of caution). Anyway, the result was great. This medium-quality fairly inexpensive roast ended up tasting like a much higher-quality roast. It was fork-tender without being mushy. And made for amazing sandwiches the next day. --E

A quick note about eggs, take a look at Doug Baldwin's great site -- he has pictures of eggs at different temps. When I am going to leave them in a long time (mostly just so that I can put them in before I go to bed and have some eggs ready for my wife when she wakes up), I will use 146 or 147F. The drawback to those temps is that the whites some of the whites will be very watery. Interestingly, time at a given temp seems to have a bigger impact on the yolk than the white. At 147F, the yolk will be more set when left overnight than when cooked for 90 minutes. BUT, the whites won't be terribly much different. My general pref these days is a 147 or 148F egg cooked for about 80 minutes The freshness and origin of the eggs seem to make a huge difference in terms of the exact temperature that things set at. I am still trying to figure out the way to get the ideal egg. I like the yolk of a 147F egg as it is after 80 minutes -- but want the whites to be slightly more set. I am thinking that the trick is probably two baths -- a high temp bath just under boiling for a minute and then into the 147F bath. I have explored this a little but haven't had the time to get it right. Anyone else have some egg experiences to share. I'd love to find the secret to the truly perfect egg.