Robert Jueneman

I tried 50 minutes at 60C. The kernels were a little on the mushy side, which hasn't been my experience when simply boiling it for 5 minutes. Next time I'll try 30 minutes, which is probably enough to cook the kernels, even from the frozen state, without cooking the cob. Bob

I agree with Nick. I SV'ed a 60mm ribeye last night (enough for the two of us for two nights) at 50C, then seared it using a well-seasoned DRY cast iron pan that was preheated for about 10 minutes. I left the steak in the pan until smoke filled the room, but at least there was no significant grease spatter (I should have used a grease screen as well). Then I flipped it over, and did the other side, using the fat from the steak to intensify the Maillard reaction a bit. The combination formed a very nice crust without overcooking the meat, which however looked rather pink, rather than the reddish look I would prefer -- maybe due to the cut of meat? That was with a flat cast iron pan. Next time I'll try my ridged pan, to put some grill marks on it. (Normally I would have used my MAP torch at the same time, but since I'm just out of the hospital and am wearing an oxygen cannula, that didn't seem like a good idea! Of course, it was a gas stove, so it isn't clear what difference it would have made. But at least I'm still here.)

Don't go so hot! With fresh sweet corn 140F/60C is great. I typically do 30 min for corn on the cob, less if it is off the cob in a thin layer in a sous vide bag. Thanks, Nathan. Do you have a time/temperature recommendation for frozen corn on the cob, which we are going to have tonight? Bob

There is not that much difference in vaccum settings for most situations. ... Some people, like Dave Arnold, say that they get big differences in results by their vacuum level. I totally respect Dave and his team, and we use many of their discoveries in MC, but I am not sure how to respond to this. In our tests we don't see a difference in the final quality. As the example shows the laws of physics pretty strongly suggest that there can't be much of a difference. My guess (but only that) is that there are some other issues at play here in how the food is handled, but I don't know for sure. ... Thanks, Nathan -- first of all for your stupendous effort with MC -- surely one of the very few cookbooks likely to be referred to by most chefs and foodies by an abbreviation, but one that will surely sit side by side with Escoffier and Larousse for the next century. And second for this post, which I need to think about a lot more, and try to confirm or disprove for myself, experimentally. But your explanation certainly makes sense. Bob

My recommendation would be to sear briefly before hand, if you are going to Jaccard the meat for additional tenderness, as I often do. This kills any bacteria that might be on the surface, before the Jaccard needles drive them below the surface. Otherwise, I like the idea of slicing off some of the fat and other odd shaped bits, browning those in a pan, than adding it back to the bag with the meat. If you are cooking the steak, say, to a temperature that doesn't pasteurize the meat, like a rare 120F, I would briefly immerse the bag in boiling water (not necessarily in the SV apparatus) for say 15 seconds, and then SV at 120F, or 131F if you are serving someone with a potentially compromised immune system. When it is cooked, heat up a dry cast iron pan for about 10 minutes on high, then throw on the steak. While that is searing the bottom, you can also use a MAP or butane torch to simultaneously sear the top briefly, then flip the steak so the top can pick up some of the fat in the pan. Remove and let stand for a few minutes. If you are cooking outside, or have a better range hood than I do, you can use some grape seed oil or rice bran oil with a very high smoke point, but otherwise a dry pan doesn't make such a mess of the kitchen. The rendered fat and meat juices can then be added to the fat in the pan, together with some wine and perhaps some mushrooms and butter, and reduced to make an exquisite sauce.

I've tried corn on the cob SV, but to me, the long cooking time (1 hours at 85C) tends to make the corm taste too "cobby" for my taste. Nathanm, Thomas Keller, and others recommend slicing the kernels off of the cob, and cooking them with butter and other spices as desired -- perhaps my favorite, a little chipotle and lime. Of course the dining experience is quite different, and if you don't have two SV machines, a little awkward in terms of preparation and holding times.

PedroG, blackp, and I have been debating this issue extensively off-list over the last several weeks, and together we proposed an experiment along the lines above. Unfortunately, I'm just returning from the hospital and am still recuperating from double pneumonia. The chicken I cooked a week ago is still in the fridge, but I think its value as an experiment is now dubious, so I intend to repeat it. And I will photograph the results at 5X to record any discernible results. Rather than using marbles, I intend to order some stainless steel film clips, of the type used for drying 35mm film back in the old days. I completely respect blackp, Dave Arnold, and nathamn, and I can't account for the differences in their results, although I doubt that it is due to the Coriolis effect and the rotation of the water as it goes down the drain. (Now there's a term I haven't used in nearly 50 years, since getting my degree in physics!) Instead, I accounted for Dave's findings, as well as those reported in MC, by thinking that there might have been some crevices in or around his chicken breast, especially if there there any rib meat (and bones) attached that might make it difficult for the chamber vacuum to completely seal the bag around the meat. As a result, there might still be a significant pressure differential that would continue to boil the meat juices as the food is coming up to temperature. Since a 99.9% vacuum is enough to make an ice water bath boil, there is absolutely no question that it would make the juices in the meat boil, at least on the edges. However, last night I sealed some pork ribs in my MVS-31X, which I believe is the same machine Dave Arnold uses, and it seemed to a very nice job of sealing, even around the big ribs. So I'm beginning to question my assumption. The only way I see to to resolve this issue is through more testing, by more people; including those with chamber vacuums, and those with edge sealers. I would suggest following blackp's protocol, above, although I might extend the time to 2 hours at 64C. Maybe it takes more than a hour for the juices to leach out. Then once we can answer that question, we can go on to explore the vacuum variables involved in long term frozen storage-- hard vacuum vs. 90% vs. 80%; and then the even harder issue of whether to use modified atmospheric packaging (MAP), with either nitrogen or CO2. To that end, I'm probable going to add the gas port adapter to my MVS-31X, and start with a pure CO2 mixture. CO2 plus water yields carbonic acid, which might increase the Ph enough to provide a bacteriostatic benefit, as has been reported with chicken in industrial practice Hopefully there will be a sufficient number of users on this list with the kind of high-end equipment required to do these tests, as it's now apparent that a single user's tests may not be conclusive, due to equipment parameters and god knows what else. Bob

That makes good sense. Long before the 72 hours was up, all of the bacteria should have been killed, but that doesn't necessarily mean that in the first several hours they couldn't have been working, and perhaps producing some lactic acid. The lactic acid, in turn (which presumably WON'T go away), could then be breaking down the meat over that extended amount of time. Biologically, the meat is presumably safe to eat, but it might not be very pleasant. Now, having to have another pot full of water at 80 or 85C is a bit of a nuisance, and if you want to go from taking a package out of the freezer and thawing it in the sous vide bath as I do, it might not get hot enough. In reading some preliminary drafts of Douglas Baldwin's book I see that he is sometimes pre-searing beef before packaging it, and then post-searing -- either with a torch or a hot skillet. I haven't tried that method, but presumably it would accomplish the same thing -- killing any surface bugs. You could try that and see if it helps, but then again, the next piece of meat you buy might not have any bacteria on it, so it might not be conclusive. Isn't science fun?

I had that problem once (or was it twice?) with a flat iron steak, which I think I cooked of 48 hours. I've done short ribs and brisket for 72 hours with minimal seasoning (dry rub only), with no off taste. What kind of beef was it, where did you get it, has it happened more than once, yada, yada, yada.

I'm not trying to make this into a high-precision physics experiment, and I agree that a certain amount of error is probably tolerable. My comment about digital fever thermometers was perhaps not very artfully worded, and reflected my disappointment. I should not have condemned the entire industry, nor specific countries, without testing more products. Nonetheless, when I buy a clinical thermometer for my own health, I expect 0.1F accuracy. Since these thermometers only cost about $20, it would be reasonable to buy two different brands from two different sources. If they agree, they are probably correct. If not, buy a third one, and either average them if they are all reasonably close, or return one of them. What we really want to do is catch any significant drift away from a calibration point, as that would indicate an incipient failure. A completely different issue is the linearity of the probe/controller, and that is something that is not going to be easily measurable by the average user without a laboratory grade reference. An accurate ice-bath calibration isn't all that easy to do, and a boiling point calibration can be terribly inaccurate, depending on the weather, elevation, etc. So an inexpensive ovulation thermometer is about the only option, and excellent starting point. Now, if you have or buy a more general purpose kitchen thermometer, AND it agrees quite closely with your secondary reference at say 100F, then you can use that as a working thermometer, and double-check the linearity of the PID controller. Again, if they match, then presumably all is well, and if not, well, buy another one! As we gain more experience in the characteristics of particular sensors, it ought to be a simple matter to incorporate a firmware correction for any first-order nonlinearity, if any is found.

I tried two. One (listed in the chart) was off by 0.4F, the other (whose name I don't recall, was worse. I haven't tried dozen of different digital fever thermometers, obviously, either one brand or multiples. I'll leave that up to Cooks magazine, or Consumer Reports. I would NOT levee it up to NSF, as their standards are too loose, IMHO. Now, 0.4F would be acceptable for sous vide, but not for a secondary standard, and not for a fever thermometer, I believe, especially since it cost a dollar or two more than the Geratherm, which was accurate to within 0.00F, i.e., as close as I could read it while interpolating between 0.1F markings. This was checked against my NIST-certified Traceable 4000 reference thermometer.

In preparation for a Sous-Vide class I taught last July, I calibrated 12 of the 1500C Sous Vide Magic controllers at 100°F, 130°F, 160°F, and 190°F, using a NIST-certified thermometer certified accurate to 0.1°F. All twelve were within 1°F at temperatures between 100°F and 160°F (where it really matters). Nine were perfect throughout the range (within the 1°F precision of the 1500C), and three were 1°F high at 190°F. But if you are cooking veggies at 190°F, I doubt that 1 degree makes that much difference! I am presently negotiating with Frank Hsu of Fresh Meals Solutions to be the US distributor of the Sous Vide Magic, mainly to decrease the shipping time from Canada. If that comes to pass, I would be willing to offer one-point and four-point calibration for new 1500D units, prior to shipment. In any case, I am willing to offer such a calibration service for eGullet subscribers for after-market units, including previous versions of the SVM and other PID controllers, as well as for various thermometers. This will include a signed calibration sheet, and a calibration sticker for the unit. To date, we do not have enough long-term experience to say anything definitively about the extent or cause of calibration drift. In some of the beta testing we have done, we have seen some drift that was apparently caused by the sensor, and may have been the result of continuous immersion and/or other problems, but it is at least possible that the reference circuitry in the controller could drift. But in either case, if you are cooking sous vide at temperatures around 55°F/131°F for more than four hours, you really want to be certain that your thermometer/sensor is accurate -- at least within 1°F. Funeral expense cost a lot more than a thermometer calibration! My recommendation, therefore, would be to calibrate any PID controller and associated sensor as a matched set, and not attempt to mix and match units, or calibrate only the sensor. Until we have more data points, I would recommend a yearly recalibration. (Note to anyone who buys the Sous Vide Supreme -- save the box! And I'd be curious to know what the instruction manual says about calibration, and whether the PID parameters can be tuned.) If anyone is interested in this service, contact me by PM with the details of what you need, and I'll try to figure out a reasonable price and turn-around time. Just a couple of other points. I have NOT found the digital fever thermometers to be acceptably accurate, either for use as a secondary thermometer, or even as a fever thermometer. I would recommend the non-mercury analog basal thermometer made by Geratherm in Germany. It used to be offered by Longs Drug Store, but since they were acquired by CVS, I don't know whether they still distribute it. The Germans and the Swiss seem to know how to make accurate thermometers -- the Chinese and the US manufacturers don't seem to have adequate quality control. You get what you pay for, but then only if you are lucky. Here are my current recommendations, but with the caveat that just because one unit worked well for me (or didn't), a different unit might behave differently: Brand & Model Number Error at 131°F Comments Control Company Traceable 4000 ±0.05°C at 60.002°C My primary reference thermometer, traceable to NIST standards. Precision 0.001°, accurate within ±0.05°C from 0°C to 100°C. Recalibration due 7/31/2010. Very Highly Recommended. Geratherm basal thermometer ±0.00°F at 100°F My secondary reference. Liquid, non-mercury. Highly Recommended. Component Design Northwest Q2-450 ±0.0°F Handheld probe with lanyard, ice-bath calibration option. Highly Recommended. Sur La Table TSP572 -0.1°F Dishwasher safe probe, timer, ice-bath calibration capability. made by Component Design Northwest. First probe had to be replaced because of inaccuracy. Recommended after calibration. All-Clad +0.2°F Meat preference alarm, ice-bath calibration capability. Recommended. Taylor Tru-Temp 3518 +0.6°F Digital “ice-pick” pocket probe. Acceptable. Taylor 9840 +0.6°F° Digital “ice-pick” pocket probe. Acceptable. Engle +0.6°F Probe, +1.2°F Ambient, at 75°F Refrigerator thermometer with 10-foot cord. Displays minimum, maximum, current, and ambient temp. Acceptable. CVS KD192 -0.4°F at 99.88°F Digital Fever Thermometer. Not Recommended as a secondary standard. Taylor 1478-21 oven thermometer +1°F Only reads to 1°F. First unit was off by 5°F. Not Recommended. No name “Oil and Candy Thermometer” +2.3F Long clip-on probe, settings for candy and frying. Not Recommended. Bob

Out of curiosity, how did you calibrate your rig? Out of some fourteen digital thermometers I own, I have seen variations of several degrees, even with those that were "certified" to be within 1/2 degree F. In disgust, I bought a NIST-calibrated reference thermometer that cost more than all the rest of my SV equipment put together, but at least I now have confidence in my temperature read-outs. An analog, non-mercury basal or ovulation thermometer would be my recommendation for an inexpensive calibration tool, although it is best suited for cooking salmon mi cuit, at about armpit temperature.

This is a tricky issue, and to some extent depends on your preferred style of cooking. If you are cooking a thick steak that may take half an hour or more to come up to temperature, a little overshoot won't hurt, and it might actually help bring the meat up to the final temperature more quickly. On the other hand, if you are cooking something delicate, like fish or lobster, or even an egg, you may not want even the slightest overshoot -- even it it takes considerably longer to stabilize. For this reason, there isn't any single "right" answer, and the PID controller can't read your mind. but a little trial and error should allow you to settle in on a preferred set of values fairly quickly.

Just to come back to the issue of pan-searing vs. torch-searing meat. In the past, I used to use grape seed oil or rice bran oil for high temperature pan searing. Then we moved (to south-central Colorado), and in the process I had to have someone come in to clean the apartment. It took several hours to wash the kitchen walls. In the meantime, the movers had packed all of the pots and pans and the stainless steel racks, and it wasn't until I unloaded them that I realized how filthy greasy they all were. I must have done 20 loads in the dishwasher in the first two days! Blame it on an inadequate over-the-stove range hood, I suppose, but the grease from pan-searing spread throughout most of the house. Yuck! Anyway, I don't do that anymore. Instead, I use a Le Creuset ribbed grill pan, and put it on the stove at a medium high heat without any oil or butter (and certainly no Pam). I'm sure a well-seasoned lodge pan would work equally well, but the Le Creuset is easy to clean, and didn't require seasoning. I carefully dry the steak (or chicken, or fish) with a paper towel, then fire up my Iwatami butane torch (Douglas Baldwin's recombination, available at Williams-Sonama). It uses the same kind of butane cylinder that is used for table-top cookers, and it puts out a flame that even my plumber would be impressed by. (Way better than my dinky Creme Brulee torch, which isn't even very good for that. No, I haven't tried oxyacetylene!) Flip it over, and do the other side, and then rotate it 90 degrees to cross-hatch the meat if you are really, really finicky. In comparison to using smoking hot oil, the torch method seems to sear the little bumps on the surface of the meat, more than searing everything, but maybe I don't sear it long enough. The searing is mostly for looks, and a bit for the maillard reaction, but I don't want too much crust, and I don't want to overcook the meat. Once it warms up a bit (in the winter, this area of Colorado drops about 30-40 degrees after sunset), I might try searing on the outdoor gas grill with a very hot fire, or even over charcoal, but that degree of preparation takes away from the simplicity and ease of of cooking a steak SV. Now, if I had a proper salamander and a professional range hood, or even a fireplace, that might be a different matter. Sigh...maybe when we finally build my dream kitchen/house.

Finally, although I started out using an electric griddle and a large pot, I quickly graduated to a commercial rice cooker (12 liter) plus a couple of smaller ones for cooking veggies. The advantage is that the rice cookers are well insulated, and therefore very heat efficient Thanks for your feedback. So if I am to understand you correctly, the disadvantage of an electric hotplate is that it does not maintain as consistent a temperature as a rice cooker (even using a properly calibrated PID)? And the reason for this is solely due to insulation properties of the rice cooker? Any idea if using some kind of insulation material around my pot would fix that problem? Well, it was more of a convenience factor. My electric griddle is about 2 feet by 3 feet, and the big pans were equally inconvenient. And if I'm fixing brisket for 48 hours, I don't want to waste electricity unnecessarily. Once an insulated pot like a rice cooker comes up the temperature and stabilizes, it will hold the same temperature very nicely, and the bigger the pot the better. However, the one disadvantage is that there will be a lag time at start-up, and the temperature can overshoot (or undershoot) if the PID controller is not properly calibrated -- which is an art in itself.

Pedro, I understand and sympathize with the European aversion to genetically altered products. But it certainly isn't clear that "pure" rape seed oil is any better than canola -- it might be even worse. Now, I fully understand that there are plenty of nut cases out there in the blogosphere, but one article in particular made me decide that I didn't want to use ANY kind of rape seed oil, whether genetically modified or not. Cf. http://www.ithyroid.com/canola_oil.htm. There are plenty of other oils to choose from, as we both know. Bob

That's hard to say without knowing the size of your family, what you like to cook, how much space you have, and especially, the state of your checkbook! If you are a single woman still in grad school or worse yet a dorm room, that's one thing. On the other hand, if you routinely invite 8 to 12 people over for dinner, that's something else! The advantage of a rice cooker is better heat insulation, bottom-heating and the thinner bottom (which helps convection) vs. the thick ceramic sides of a most CrockPots, which tends to cause temperature overshoot. And it also cooks rice! Rice cookers can be had for as little as $19.99 for the smallest, $50 or so for a moderate size capable of cooking vegetables and cuts like a couple of chicken breasts, up to the mid $200's or more for a commercial (12 liter) size, depending on the brand and size. I still use my CrockPot (an All-Clad unit that is too "smart" and not suitable for sous vide), but I also have and use four different sizes of rice cookers of various sizes and sophistication. My suggestion would be to make do with your crackpot (assuming it is dumb, i.e., can be controlled by the external PID controller without getting upset), at least until you become somewhat more familiar with sous vide cooking. You will find that a crackpot is harder to "tune" to give optimum results, so you may want to use the controller in a pure P (proportional) mode, without introducing any I or D values, at least at first. Just fill it with water that is close to the desired temperature, and don't add a lot of food all at once. Hope this helps! Bob

First of all, there is no reason at all to apologize for your proposed setup, as it will give you very great flexibility at a very reasonable cost. Second, I have no personal experience with the Auber unit, but I have tested and precision calibrated 16 of the similar SousVideMagic units from Fresh Meals Solutions, and I can testify to their (SVM's) accuracy and reliability. (I have a few calibrated units left -- contact me via PM if you are interested.) As you may know, building a PID controller is not rocket science -- any competent EE could do it. On the other hand, building and sealing a sensor so that it is certified food safe, waterproof when immersed in hot water 24x7, and reliable enough for harsh kitchen use takes real materials engineering, a solid production line, and tight quality assurance. Unfortunately, those are capabilities that the low-cost manufacturers don't seem to have, which is why most Chinese-made digital thermometers are all over the map in terms of accuracy. Finally, although I started out using an electric griddle and a large pot, I quickly graduated to a commercial rice cooker (12 liter) plus a couple of smaller ones for cooking veggies. The advantage is that the rice cookers are well insulated, and therefore very heat efficient (a serious deficiency of the Sous Vide Supreme IMHO, along with the fact that they measure the temperature of the bottom of the unit instead of the water). And you can also use them to make rice! Most people find that a rice cooker, because it heats from the bottom, tends to do a good job of circulation by convection alone, but if you like to stir water for some reason (such as I do when calibrating thermometers), I would recommend an inexpensive submersible fountain or garden pump. The last one I bought cost about $14, and will pump 60 gallons an hour -- certainly more than enough. The only caution is to not use it above 160F, as they will melt and deform. The same thing is true of the circular air-stones used with aquarium air pumps, which are also rather noisy. I have one, but gave up using it. I would suggest buying a "just right" size rice cooker for your family's daily use. A 6-liter rice cooker would handle a package of chicken breasts, a couple of steaks, or half a brisket with no problem. For the occasional bigger job, you can use a roasting pan on an electric griddle. An electric deep-fat turkey fryer is also a possibility, as long as you drain the water so it doesn't rust. And for the really, really, really big sous vide cooking jobs, you can always use your bathtub or even your Jacuzzi, with a thermometer and a manual control!

Interesting question, with a couple of ramifications. Normally, I wouldn't recommend a rewarming period that lasts 4 hours, because the total time from initial start (cold) to cooked, to chilled, to rewarmed should be less than 6 hours, for food safety reasons. However, in the case of a brisket, which I assume you cooked for something like 48 hours, the meat has been thoroughly pasteurized -- or at least it was before you cut into it and handled it, prior to chilling. So that (mostly) mitigates the food safety concern. The next question concerns getting it hot enough, presumably without overcooking it. Let me suggest a couple of alternatives. If the brisket is frozen now, set your controller to say 36C/4F, and let the brisket thaw completely. Then slice it across the grain, into slices about 2-3mm thick. Spread those slices out so they are as flat and wide as possible, and put them in the biggest FoodSaver bag you have, Then you can reheat them to say 35F/57C much, much faster, because of the thinness of the slices. Meanwhile, prepare some HOT mushroom gravy or whatever other accompaniment you were considering, and also WARM THE PLATES. If you do that, you almost don't need to rewarm the meat. Finally, at the serious risk of blasphemy on this thread, you could always use a microwave, or a hot skillet. :-) I haven't tried it, but I would think the cooked brisket would make great panini sandwiches. And my friend Dr. Peter (AKA Pedro) Gruber has a recipe for brisket stroganoff that calls for searing the strips in a very hot pan that sounds delicious. See http://sousvide.wikia.com/wiki/Brisket_Stroganoff. (His recipe calls for rice bran oil, which I had suggested after visiting a restaurant which used it. According to articles on the Internet, it apparently has a very high smoke point. However, I've never been able to find any, so I went back to the restaurant to inquire. They brought out the can: Rice BRAND oil! It was ordinary canola!! Anyway, Pedro says that i has a nice nutty flavor that he likes. I'm sure you could substitute grapeseed oil.)

I wouldn't think that you would need to go that high, unless you like your meat medium to medium-well. I think I would cut off a small portion, cook it for 4 to 8 hours at 55.5C, and see how tender it is, and whether you like it medium rare. If it is tough, try another small piece and go up on the time. Reheating works, putting an overdone piece of meat in the fridge doesn't! Goats are certainly more energetic than mature cattle or eventual calves, and might be tougher as a result (and thus need longer times), but on the other hand they are younger, and so more likely to be like lamb. I did lamb chops for about 3.5 hours at 55.5, and I loved them. My wife wished they were a little more done -- de gustibus non disputandum est. But they were tender, and I would expect kid to be similar.

Pretty pricey, at least compared to a Sous Vide Magic plus an equivalent size rice cooker, but a lot better than a laboratory immersion circulator. But if they can sell it for that price in retail stores like Sur Le Table, Williams-Sonoma, or even Target, it may take off, just because of the integration. I wonder what kind of circulation they use, if any, and what kind of accuracy and precision temperature control they can maintain?

Going from about 28 hours or so to 48 hours might be a bit too big a jump -- I suppose 36 hours might be worth trying, but I sometimes get a bit exasperated with testing and just want to EAT something! Regarding personal taste, etc., in this case there was a significant difference between one of the "tips" and the middle of the roast, so it was the meat itself that was changing. But the 24 vs. 48 hrs. vs. some intermediate value is interesting. I guess I've been implicitly assuming, without giving it much thought, that the times required for tenderizing meat by dissolving collagen went up exponentially, which is why I went from 12, to 24, to 48. But is that true? Right now, I can't think of a mechanism or reason why dissolving collagen into gelatin would be anything other than linear. I guess that assumes that all collagen is equally "meltable," and that some portions are not more difficult to melt than others. Douglas, a little mathematical insight, please?

BTW, the marinated tri-tip (bottom roast) was still rather tough in spots after 14 hours, so I put the remaining half in for another 14 hours at 55.5C. That was better tonight, but still not perfect. Next time I might be inclined to go for 48 hours, although it really shouldn't be necessary. This was a "Ranchers Select" from Safeway. Lesson learned, perhaps.

Ouch! I've got a Teriyaki-marinated tri-tip in the cooker as we speak, wrapped in cling wrap from the grocery store in order to avoid the problem of sucking out the marinade with a FoodSaver. Is there any definitive evidence or references, one way or the other, as to the safety of various types of cling wrap, either by brand or by type? What do the manufacturers say?