BradUrani

Some of these jerry-rigged set-ups you all are using sound dangerously inadequate. If you can't afford the right equipment, then don't cook sous-vide. Stop before someone gets botulism.

Baby Back Ribs Results I rubbed the ribs with a paste of garlic, ginger and salt then sprinkled Chinese 5 spice powder on top. Then I vacuum packed them and cooked SV for 24 hours. First surprise was that they lost a huge amount of liquid which worried me. I tasted ate one straight from the bath and was surprised by how nice the texture was. They were soft but not mushy. Perfect texture. The taste was very subtle... actually they were bland and that disappointed me. So I took the juice from the bags, added honey, barley malt syrup, soy sauce, black vinegar and some dried thai chilis and reduced it to a glaze. Then I brushed the glaze on the ribs and cooked it on with a torch. The result was an intensely delicious, sweet, spicy porky bark on perfectly cooked soft pork meat that lacked flavor. The fat didn't render out, but since I used very high quality meat there were no bothersome stripes of fat. They were good, but not nearly as good as smoked ribs. I'm going to try it again but next time I'm going to marinate them for several days to see if I can up the flavor quotient.

Baby Back Pork Ribs Has anyone tried them? I have some in the bath now at 135 with some 5 spice, garlic and ginger. I was planning on 24 hours, but I could go 48. I was thinking I'd take the juice from the bag, add honey, reduce to a glaze, brush it on the ribs and blow torch them to make a bark. What has been your experiences with this cut of meat?

Someone posted a while back with the 3 basic approaches to sous-vide safety and I can't find the post anywhere. It was something along the lines off: Less than 130F: from refrigerator to mouth in less than 4 hours 130-145F: enough time to pasteurize depending on temp and thickness or sear first. Above 145: heat all the way through Can anyone point me towards that post?

Jackal, I want to try this recipe. Did you use a lean cut, like the loin, or a tough cut, like the shank? Did the meat stay pink? I want to make sure that the food not only tastes great, but looks great too. I'm really tempted to try this with shoulder for 48 hours at 51c / 131f. It seems like a lamb shoulder, like a beef brisket, would have the right combination of relatively lean, but not too tender for long cooking at a low temperature. A shank, on the other hand, seems like it might benefit from a higher temperature because it has more collagen. I'm I correct in this thinking?

Hi! I haven't seen anyone answer this one yet: I want to do lamb shoulder sous-vide. Should I do the shoulder whole, or have my butcher cut into into 1-1/2" cubes? In a normal braise, I know leaving the meat whole reduces liquid loss, but that doesn't seem to be an issue in sous-vide since I'll be vacuum sealing the meat with a braising liquid. In fact, if I jaccard the lamb cubes, isn't there a possibility that it will end up more juicy than if I left the shoulder whole? Given that lamb cut into cubes will come to temperature faster, allowing more collagen breakdown and less time in the danger zone, is there any reason not to cube the meat? How would brining change these considerations? Thanks in advance! Brad St. Louis, MO