Robert Jueneman

e_monster, that's an excellent point, and one that pretty well diffuses the argument, I think. Even in the case of a expensive prime rib-eye, I follow Douglas Baldwins tables and SV a steak up to 30 mm thick for 2 hours at 131F, although sometimes I cheat a bit and use 128F. (This is for life style convenience after I come home, as much as it is for food safety.) But at that point, it doesn't matter whether I Jaccard the steak or not, because it is within the pasteurization zone, even disregarding the probabilities. The original context was for flat-iron steak, and so far I have concluded that 24 hours is not enough, and I'm currently waiting for 48 hours to elapse. At that point, assuming the tables (calculated for salmonella) have any validity at all in the general case, I am way, way, outside of the risk zone. Nonetheless, we may still have a disagreement. If I understand what you are saying, "contamination" is binary -- it is or it isn't. But I believe that the total number of bacteria is what is more important, and the extent to which they may overwhelm the body's defenses. If you consider the surface area that is exposed to the knife at the outer edge of the presumably contaminated meat, vs. the surface area of the newly cut edge, I submit that is almost proportion is almost miniscule, and then further reduced in the case of the Jaccard. Frankly, I would bet that the assumption that the interior of a muscle is sterile and uninfected is less likely to be true than the probability of carrying contamination into the meat via this path. Respectfully, Bob

e_monster, we are close to beating this subject to death, but I agree that food safety is important, and so the issue needed to be aired. I'll grant that even if I cut into a previously-sterile muscle with a clean or even sterile knife, there is the possibility that some surface contaminant was carried to the new surface, and that by Jaccarding that surface, there is a further risk that the contamination would be carried into the inside of the meat, where it would not be killed by post-SV searing. The real question, for which we do not have sufficient data, is the probability of each occurrence. Let's say that the probability of a "significant" (whatever that means) level of contamination on the surface of the Cryovaced primal cut was 10%. Let's also assume that the probability that each successive cut into previously sterile meat carried some contamination with it is also 10%. Finally, we might assume the chance of some resulting contamination actually causing an adverse reaction is also 10%. Then we have 10% (primal) * 10% (butcher) * 10% (my slice) * 10% (Jaccard) *10% (reaction), or 10^-5. If I were to cook and eat a flat-iron steak in this fashion TEN times a day for the next 30 years, that suggests that I might get sick ONCE! One could certainly quibble with each of these probabilities. I tend to think that 10% is probably way too high, just thinking about the ratio of the surface area, but you might be more pessimistic. If any microbiologist would like to actually measure these probabilities, I'd certainly be curious as to the results. So what is the bottom line here? Is the answer to always pre-sear the meat, and/or never Jaccard it? Personally, I've decided I'm not going to worry about it. Likewise, I'm not going to sear or boil my scrap or stew meat before grinding it for hamburger or chili. Your mileage may vary. I do stand corrected on clostridium botulinum, however. The presence of oxygen kills these cells. And although it is unlikely that home-type vacuum devices such as a FoodSaver completely eliminates all the air in a bag, it is not impossible that a small pocket might exist that is relatively oxygen-free. Refrigeration below 38F appears adequate to prevent the growth of the organism, as do temperatures above 122F. See http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09305.html. Bob

For what it's worth, I cut the large flat-iron muscle across the grain, and did not worry about the connective tissue that runs down the middle of the steak. I could have cut that out, but the steaks were already relatively small, and cutting them in half would have made them worse. Had I realized that the Jaccard was going to flatten them so much, I would have cut them much thicker -- perhaps 2" or so. Next time. The first attempt at 12 hours was definitely "blah" in both taste and texture. Tonight, I served another batch cooked for 24 hours. These were better, but still not a home run. They were still a little dry, and any fat on the edges was relatively tough -- almost surprisingly so. Maybe I need to use the blow torch, rather than the hot skillet to sear the meat. Another package is in the rice cooker tonight, still at 131F/55C, in order to try 48 hours -- the way I have done brisket very successfully. Since the brisket is from a close neighbor of the flat-iron, I hope it will work as well. One question that I have concerns the au jus that is poured off of the steak. It is rather red, presumably indicating some blood. I've tried adding a little wine, with or without some flour, to make a quick gravy, but the results are an unappetizing gray, and not particularly flavorful. Any suggestions from anyone? MikeTMD, I will put the Stampfer book on my list, after the Joan Roca book arrives, and after I order the Fat Duck cookbook. How good is the translation? Although I can read and perhaps speak German from 50 years ago, I'm certainly not fluent.

NY_Amateur and eMonster, I have walked down both sides of this issue, and depending on which way I toss the coin, I come to a different conclusion. Perhaps the issue is how paranoid I feel on any particular day. The steaks were freshly cut from a larger piece of meat, and it was the fresh-cut sides that were Jaccarded, so those sides were presumably sterile until 30 seconds ago. (And it wasn't the blades that compressed the meat, but the bottom of the Jaccard -- I think the spring mechanism used for safety is too strong.) The knife came out of my knife block, so it was clean but not sterile. The Jaccard had come out of the dishwasher with a sanitize cycle, but it had been exposed to the air, and the plastic cutting board had also gone though the dishwasher but been exposed to the air. So the question is, how likely is that steel and hard plastic become contaminated with bacteria or a virus from the air in and around my kitchen? I can imagine that a few germs might land on that surface, but I don't think they are going to grow there. If the bugs are on the Jaccard, as opposed to being on the surface of the meat, then searing the meat won't make any difference. Searing WOULD help if the knife was contaminated, however. I guess if I were doing this professionally, and potentially exposing people to germs to which my wife and I might be immune, but not someone else, I might take more care to wipe down my knife with an alcohol pad or dip it in a disinfecting solution before each use. I certainly wouldn't want my doctor doing surgery with this level of sterilization (or the lack thereof), but in that case the bugs might be entering my body directly. Granted, this might be true of the meat as well. but eventually, the meat is going to go in my STOMACH, which has its own set of well-developed protective mechanisms developed over many millennia. If I thought I had to wear a mask, and sterile gloves, and run all of my kitchen tools through an autoclave before cooking anything sous vide, I would probably revert back to my Cro Magnum heritage and just throw the meat on the grill and hope for the best! I am willing to grind my own hamburger. I might be willing to even sear or briefly boil the meat before grinding it in a freshly sanitized meat grinder, but even that is bordering on a Howard Hughes level of paranoia, I believe. According to http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/Vol5no5/mead.htm, the total of all food born illnesses in the year studied, including bacterial, parasitic, and viral, was estimated to be 38,629,641, with 1,809 deaths. Of all of the illnesses, five pathogens accounted for 72% of the deaths: Salmonella 31%), Listeria(28%), Toxoplasma (21%) Norwalk-like viruses (7%), Campylobacter (5%), and E coli O157:H7 (3%). In all likelihood, some of these illnesses were caused by salmonella or E. coli infected spinach, lettuce, and other products that are not likely to be cooked sous vide at low temperatures, and not by infected knife blades. In particular, I don't think parasites are likely to be transmitted in my knife blade. To put all this in perspective, the number of automobile related deaths in 2008 was 37,313, so you are about 20 times more likely to be killed driving to or from the grocery store than from eating any of the products purchased there!

Re the flat-iron steak question. I watched the butcher cut the shoulder clod into three pieces, after trimming off the fat, so if there is any contamination it is surely incidental. Yesterday I cut the flat-iron section into steaks myself, so the interior was presumably sterile. I then Jaccarded each steak, and then froze them. Although I had cut the steaks to about 1-1/2", Jaccarding them compressed the meat to about 1" in thickness. I cooked two small frozen flat-iron steaks for 24 hours at 131F, and served them tonight. They were nicely medium rare, but not quite as tender as I would have hoped or expected, and nowhere near the falling apart, almost mushy quality of the Morton's pre-marinated Tri-Tip I cooked the night before for only 12 hours. I poured off about a half a cup of meat juices, added a little wine and some flour to make a quick sauce. For reasons that I don't understand, the sauce was a rather unappetizing gray. another thing to work on. I heated a cast-iron skillet to the point that I couldn't keep my hand four inches above the pan for more than a couple of seconds, and then threw the steaks in, after having blotted any liquid from the surface. (Somewhere I have an infrared thermometer, but I couldn't find it.) Searing the steaks in that hot pan worked nicely -- maybe better than using a blow torch. The resulting flavor was OK, but not outstanding, and the tenderness and mouth feel was nothing to write home about either. The steak tasted rather dry. Maybe I should have let the steak rest for 5 minutes or so before opening the package, in hopes it would absorb some of the juices again. I threw another couple of frozen steaks in the rice cooker tonight, and I am going to cook them at the same temperature for 36 hours to see if that helps. And if that doesn't work, I'll keep going until it falls apart, or I die of gastroenteritis or something. The shoulder clod cost about $3.50 per pound, compared to decent rib-eye steaks at anywhere from around $9/lb (CostCo on sale), to $14.50 (Whole Foods) to around $22 for prime or dry aged beef, or $29 for Wagyu (American Kobe). So the price is right, if I can fix the tenderness and taste issues. So far, the taste is commensurate with the cost, and not what I was hoping for.

Peter, from my perspective as a non-microbiologist, once something is cooked, it ought to be relatively safe. However, if you are running a restaurant, you need to be more careful than you might be at home. Flesh-eating attorneys are a worse danger than bacteria, IMHO! People have casually been throwing leftovers in the "ice-box" for the last 100 years or so, and using an ice bath and then freezing them is much better than that and about the best you can do, at least without a large bottle of liquid nitrogen or an anti-griddle. You are probably more likely to die of a lightening strike, or an airplane falling out of the sky. (Maybe that depends on where you live, however.) I see that Douglas has also responded, but he is talking about a situation where the food is still sealed in the original bag. Assuming that you haven't been coughing, sneezing, etc., all over the cooked food, I think you are quite safe. To the best of my knowledge, botulism and other anaerobic bacteria multiply DESPITE the absence of air, and not BECAUSE of it, and it takes weeks for the spores or toxins to become dangerous, unless you do something really stupid. Someone please correct me if I am wrong. Bob

Nathan, I found the quote on page 35, in the Safety section, where the "danger zone" concept is repeated. Just because it is in print doesn't make it correct, of course. It would be very interesting to see what Per Se's HACCP document states. Does NYC consider such things public documents, and are they accessible on-line? I couldn't find anything with a quick Google search. However, if he really believes and follows those temperatures, it may explain the temperatures listed in the book, which I tend to think are relatively high -- by 10F or more in many cases. Or perhaps the publisher's lawyers also served as editors? I just received "Alinea" by Grant Achatz. His beef sous vide recipes range from 135 to 139F, but for as little as 30 minutes. Then again, most are for Wagyu beef, which hardly needs cooking at all to be exquisite. Bob

Coincidentally, Cooks Illustrated Summer Grilling issue (out of season for you, I realize) had a piece on 10-Minute Barbecued Ribs. It had an illustration and explanation of four different cuts of "short ribs" that was interesting, as I had never seen the type you described: English style -- This common choice contains a single bone about 4 to 5 inches long. Look for ribs that have at least one inch of meat above the bone. Flanken Style -- The meat has been cut across the ribs and contains 2 to 3 oval-shaped cross-sections fo bones. These ribs can be difficult to find in the supermarket. Korean Style -- This authentic choice (sold only in Asian markets) requires no butchering. The same as flanken-style ribs, but cut much thinner, usually about 1/4 inch thick. Boneless -- A good option that is available at some markets. Make sure they are at least 4 inches long and 1 inch thick. From the description, I assume you had flanken-style ribs, but a much longer cut than was described. The recipe used a marinade consisting of a roughly-chopped pear, 6 garlic cloves, 4 tsp fresh ginger, 1/2 cup soy sauce, 2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil, t Tbsp sugar, 1 Tbsp rice vinegar, and three scallions, sliced. AVFOOL's recipe seems remarkably similar. BTW, what is a "fan-force"? A ventilation fan, a convection oven, or what?

Mike, that's fair enough. Tonight we had some Tip-Tip (Morton's Chardonnay marinated) that was cooked for 12 hours. Whereas my previous trials with 1.5 and 2.5 hours at 131F showed that the meat was still tough, 12 hours was perhaps too much -- the meat was almost falling-apart tender (perhaps because of the marinade), although my wife loved it. If in fact 24 hours for flat-iron is too much, I will certainly report that fact. As to the micro-biology aspects, I will wait for your references. Bob

Mike, I do appreciate your suggestions/advice. However, right now, I am torn between someone (eMonster) who has apparently tried this technique, vs. your concerns, which apparently have not been tested, due, perhaps understandably, to your concerns. My personal observations to date are that cuts like chuck (which OUGHT to include flat-iron, since it is part of the same general section of meat), are relatively tough cuts of meat that require extended time to dissolve the collagen. Now, I may be completely wrong in this regard, and if so, I will certainly report that fact. If I ruin a single steak -- oh well, so be it. Now, I can't agree that 61- 63C is medium rare, at least to my taste. It is medium, or worse. I think that 55C is medium rare, and 51C is verging on rare, and delicious. So there is no way that I am going to cook something to 61-63C (except maybe pork, because my wife doesn't like "pink".) Now, as to the question of whether 24 hours at 55C is safe or not, I have seen the sometimes contentious exchanges between you and others on this list. Frankly, with all due respect to Thomas Keller, he is admittedly a great chef, and we certainly owe a lot to him, but it is not a microbiologist, and I doubt that he could compute a D60 reduction if his life depended on it. I hope I'm not insulting him. Nathan Myvold and Douglas Baldwin, on the other hand, have a strong mathematical background, and CAN in fact interpret the existing scientific reports and even the FDA recommendations, and to date, I trust their time-temperature charts and statistics. I am not disputing your credentials as a physician, but I don't know your speciality or your particular expertise in this field. I don't mean to insult you, but you could be a podiatrist, or a orthopedic surgeon, or a psychiatrist or speech pathologist, and in which case you might not know very much more about microbiology than I learned as a physicist and a former EMT. For that reason, it if you can cite specific scientific reports to support your contention, I will be happy to try to independently evaluate them. At the moment, I am not inclined to accept your contention at face value. Now, if I show up dead the day after tomorrow after eating the 24-hour flat-iron steak, my descendants will no doubt apologize to you on my behalf! :-)

I would instinctively tend to agree with you, but in trying to learn this new craft, I'm trying to separate fact from fiction, questioning assumptions, and asking WHY? It is convenient to come home, throw a frozen package of two hamburger patties in the rice cooker for an hour or so while I'm doing other things, and not have to "fuss", so having the burgers pre-seasoned would be very convenient. I can't see anything wrong with adding little BBQ rub and some Worcestershire. Now, if I grind some onion in it before freezing, what will happen? The cells will probably burst when they freeze, but so what? Will the result become too mushy? If so, I suppose the solution would be to use freeze-dried onions (or a little Lipton onion soup mix) instead.

Tonight I picked up a 21 pound shoulder clod, and had the butcher separate it into three sections that I will cut up to suit tomorrow night -- flat-iron steaks, a cross-rib roast, "scrap" (normally used for stew beef and hamburger), and the fat trimmings. My intention at the moment is to cut the flat iron steaks about 1-1/2" thick, add some dry-rub spice (probably mesquite, or Montreal steak), Jaccard them, and seal them in FoodSaver bags. Then, as required, I would cook them for 24 hours at 131F, per eMonster's suggestion, and sear them again, unless someone has some better recommendations. (In this particular case, I watched the butcher remove the clod from the Cryovac, and cut up the primal cut after removing the fat. So I think there is a minimal chance that the exterior was contaminated, and hence I'm not afraid to Jaccard the pieces.) I will probably cut the cross-rib roast into two pieces, somewhere between 3"x3" and 4"x4." Now, how long to cook it? My inclination is to cook it for the same 24 hours, unless something thinks that would render it too mushy. Finally, what to do with the "scrap." I am thinking about cutting some of it 1" cubes, for use in Hungarian goulash, sauerbraten, or beef stew. Has anyone prepared these typically braised dishes sous vide, or have any thoughts? For another portion of the five or six pounds, I might cut it into 1/4" dice, for making chili. Is it worth cooking this sous vide, before adding the traditional chili ingredients? Another possibility would be to cut it into strips, for use for fajita steaks. Again, is there any merit at all in cooking this sous vide, prior to cooking the fajita steaks with the onions, etc.? Finally, my last thought is to grind it for hamburger. I might or might not include some chopped onion, and probably some if not all of the fat trimmings. Is there anything else that could be done with the beef fat, assuming I'm not into making candles? Any other ideas or recommendations? Bob

Heart Surgeon, for my friend's birthday potluck last week, when I served the 48-hour brisket, I picked up a bottle of Wild Mushroom Finishing Sauce and a bottle of Bordelaise Sauce at Williams-Sonoma, and just dropped them in the warm water bath. People helped themselves to one or the other. MAYBE I could have done better from scratch, but with a lot more work, and not under the serving circumstances.

e_gullet: Duh! The Jaccard! Why didn't I think of that! Why did I buy it, if not to use it!!! And I should have done it after I thawed and cut the roast, before bagging and refreezing it. Head-banging! But 6 to 7 hours is inconvenient, at least on a work day. It's either 1 to 2 hours, or 12 hours. Maybe somethings are better done in the oven. Unless.... I could fill up the rice cooker with ice, put the meat in, and set a timer to turn on the controller four hours later. Either that, or put up with a roast that may be verging on too tender. Most of the discussion on everything from steaks to brisket and short ribs has focussed on the minimum time for tenderness. But what happens if that time is extended by another 4 hours (Tri-Tip) to 12 or even 24 hours (brisket, etc.)? Also, I had been cooking to 131F, but after reading some of Nathan's posts, I've decided I like 125 better, at least for steak. What is your doneness preference when you say 131, and is that only for a Tri-Tip?

Thanks, Peter, that's exactly what I've been looking for. I'm reading the forum every night, beginning on page 1, but I hadn't gotten that far. However, that kind of a format isn't conducive to being kept up to date, or particular entries challenged. I'm not quite sure what to suggest -- maybe some kind of a moderated Wiki? Maybe even a spreadsheet would work, if there were some way for multiple people to contribute and edit it. For example, I defrosted a Morton's Tri-Tip roast (in the microwave) then cut it into quarters so it wouldn't be too thick to SV. The resulting pieces were perhaps 3-4 cm thick. I included some of the Chardonnay sauce from the package. FoodType Doneness Time Temperature SpecialTechniques Comments Tri-Tip PinkishRed 1:30 125F Incl. sauce from pkg A little tough Tri-Tip MorePink 2:30 128F Torched after Still a little tough. 125F was a better degree of doneness, to my taste, but the next time I'm going to try four hours.

To switch the topic slightly I have been trying to read the entire 90+ pages of this thread, and it is HUGE! But there are at least three sub-threads that are important, and yet are almost impossible to digest or search: 1. Sous vide safety, primarily but not exclusively microbiological safety. The debt we owe to NathanM, and later to Douglas Baldwin in this respect is absolutely enormous. 2. Sous vide equipment and gadgets. What works, and what doesn't. 3. And once the previous topics are absorbed, there is still the issue of WHAT RECIPES WORK! Despite the various books, notably Thomas Keller's, there is a very real need (IMHO) for recipes that are usable for and by ordinary home cooks/users. I can certainly admire and enjoy the over-the-top professional recipes from French Laundry, and I might even go to all of the time and trouble to replicate their efforts for a special occasion, but when I come home on a Tuesday after work, I need something simpler that just works. Right now, there simply isn't a comprehensive compendium of time and temperature results. What works, for brisket, tri-tip, chuck roast, rib-eye, flat iron steak, etc., etc. Then on to pork, chicken, duck, rabbit, alligator, possum, road kill, or whatever. I don't mind all of the extra verbiage and pictures, but just a simplest meat/time/temperature listing for various meats and fish would be absolutely invaluable. Is there some way that all of the contributors to this list could create such a compendium, with an accessible database? Bob

ELECTRICAL SAFETY The last few days have decidedly been a "learning experience." On Sunday, I prepared 6 pounds of brisket and served sample size pieces to some 85 people at a co-workers 60th Birthday pot luck dinner. It was cooked for 54 hours at 55.3C, and everyone raved about it. I hauled the big 10 liter rice cooker and my SousVideMagic 1500B controller over there, and because of the weight cooker full of water, I used a delivery cart to take it out to the SUV. In the process, it bounced it down a couple of steps, putting a small dent in the case and causing some hot water to slosh out. Next time, I'll pack the food in a polystyrene cooler, and refill the rice cooker with hot water when I arrive. Monday morning at 6:30 I started a data logging run with a new set of parameters, and went off to work. Around 11, my wife called to say that something was beeping, so I told her to turn off the SVM PID controller. When I got home six hours later, I found that 2/3 of the water was gone, and the rest was still quite hot. The case of the submersible fountain pump had partly melted and was deformed, so obviously the water had been boiling. But why? Turning the SVM back on, I could see that it was periodically cycling and turning itself off, and yes the probe was still in the water. Expletive! Last night, I tried the 1500B with a smaller rice cooker, using a set point of 60C. When it got to 64C, I thought that was a bit too much overshoot, even though the Temp light on the SVM was off. I unplugged the rice cooker, and plugged in an incandescent lamp, and voila -- the light stayed lit 100%, even though the Temp light was flashing on and off. Frank Hsu has confirmed that this sounds like the Solid State Relay has failed, stuck in the on position. This is apparently very uncommon -- he has seen only one other such case. Maybe this was caused by the rice cooker, or maybe the electrical gods were angry that day. So, lessons learned: 1. Always use a Ground Fault Current Interrupter circuit when you are cooking sous vide -- water and electricity don't mix very well. If your kitchen isn't already wired with one, buy a two foot extension cord with the GCFI built in. 2. Don't attempt to move a large rice cooker full of water! If you spill water in or around a rice cooker or similar appliance, stop and drain everything carefully. In my case, I suspect, but can't prove, that some water may have gotten into the heater. Perhaps that caused a higher than average current draw, which in turn overloaded the SSR and caused it to fail, although plugging it into the wall with a 20 amp breaker didn't trip the breaker. Similar symptoms were exhibited Monday night with a different SVM, but on Tuesday, everything was fine with that cooker. Maybe the water had evaporated by then 3. Be careful with the sensor. Fresh Meals Solutions sells a perforated steel disk to keep the sensor and the food from touching the bottom of the cooker, and I now thread the sensor through a couple of holes in the disk to make sure there is no way that the sensor could fall out of the cooker without being noticed. 4. Most rice cookers either shut off, or go into a Warm function when all of the water boils off. That won't help your Sunday dinner, but hopefully your house won't burn down. But test it first. 5. Some probe thermometers have an alarm function that can be set to a couple of degrees above the sous vide set point, just in case there is some kind of a runaway condition. To be safe, be sure that the probe is intended for long term submersion, i.e., it is marked as being dishwasher safe. Most probes will withstand oven temperatures, but may not like being submerged. 6. Even if you are calibrating the PID controller, there is no need to start with cold water and subject the unit to maximum current draw. That's what your water heater is for. 6. Always have a spare of everything you can no longer cook without -- a spare sensor, spare PID controller, and a spare appliance, even if it's just a cheap crock-pot.

The original question was how to keep the food from getting cold, when it is cooked SV to 130 or even 125F. Unlike other oven-cooked or fried foods, SV is relatively cool. (Someone once said that you could cook salmon mi cuit by holding it under your armpit for 20 minutes the next time you have a fever. Sounds like one of the old Saturday Night Live sketches!) So using a warmed pan while you are searing, as well as warmed plates, just seems like common sense. Unless you want to throw it on the anti-griddle for an entirely new flavor sensation. Maillard ice cream, anyone?

Try 20 seconds in the microwave, just to re-warm everything. Not everything has to be done sous vide, especially not pizza or chocolate cake! How did you sear them with the torch? After warping my plastic cutting board, I now preheat a cast iron pan to the point where I can still touch it, but not for long, and then sear the steak or whatever in the pan. Then I'll transfer it to a warmed cutting board if I need to slice it, e.g., for a brisket. Coincidentally, tonight I'm cooking some bacon-wrapped, rosemary flavored pork chops from Niman Ranch, via CostCo. They come four to a package, two of each in two compartments, in what appears to be a vacuum-packed "blister pack." I'm hoping that the factory packaging is good enough to withstand submersion directly, rather than opening and repackaging them. I guess if the bag dissolves like gelatin, I'll know better next time! Although I've gotten my wife used to 130F beef, she has this silly thing about pork, so I'm going to cook it at 140 for about an hour, and hope for the best. I'm also going to try some buttered asparagus at 160F, based on some much older posts to this thread.

Yesterday (Sunday) was a co-workers 60th Birthday, and his daughter organized a pot-luck supper at their old farmhouse outside of San Jose. No one was counting noses, but somewhere between 85 and 100 people were invited! I thought this would be a great opportunity to introduce people to cooking sous vide, so a week ago I cut a 6 pound brisket into four quarters, seasoned each slice with S+P, some smokey paprika, a little chipotle chili powder, and about a half a capful of Liquid Smoke, and sealed them in FoodSaver bags and froze them. On Friday around noon, I took the still frozen bags and dropped them in my 10 liter rice cooker, controlled by a SousVideMagic 1500B controller from Fresh Meals Solutions. They cooked for about 52 hours, at 55.3C or 131.5F. I finished them with a butane torch in pre-warmed cast iron pan, sliced them across the grain like a London Broil, then cut them in half to two inch pieces, to make it easier to eat with plastic utensils and paper plates. A choice of warmed Wild Mushroom or Bordelaise finishing sauce (bottled, from Williams-Sonoma) enriched the flavor. I could have made reduction of the meat juices instead, but that wouldn't have been practical under the circumstances The brisket was a nice medium-rare, and melt-in-your-mouth tender, but without any tendency to fall apart. Had I been doing it just for myself, I might have cut the temperature by 1 degree F, but for a crowd his seemed like a good compromise. I was amazed that nearly everyone got at least a couple of pieces (a little less than an ounce apiece, but there was plenty of other food being served.) Everyone raved about them. I also served about 1.8 liters of mushroom risotto, made and transported in a rice cooker. Since everything was already up to temperature, I was able to keep everything hot, using the 400 watt 120v outlet in the back of my Toyota FJ. Very successful!

Nathan, I might try the experiment, but I'm at a loss to know how to serve or plate them, or what to serve them with. With a "perfect" chicken egg, the yolk comes out like a squishy yellow ping-pong ball, while the white is more or less coagulated -- I think that depends on the time. My understanding is that the proportion of yolk to white is much greater with an ostrich egg, so the results might be more like a squishy tennis ball. But then what? It's way too much for one person, no matter what kind of side dish goes with it. I guess you could serve classic steak tartare for 6 to 10 people, with the yolk on top, and then divvy it up at the table??! Any other ideas? (This may be a classic case of a solution in search of a problem. -

The absolutely perfect egg -- ostrich egg sous vide? Whole Foods in Los Altos, CA had four or five. Holy cow are those big! Holy cow, are those expensive! Has anyone tried it? At $30 each, they're a bit much to experiment with all that casually, but what an entree it could make for a party, if someone could figure out what to do with them I'm thinking about contacting a local ostrich farm, to see if they would subsidize a series of experiments to develop the ideal time/temperature combination.

Today I started some 48-hour brisket. But I noticed that the temperature in the rice cooker was again 0.2C less than the set point of 55.5C. So on a hunch, I adjusted the PID parameters from P=100 (Celsius), I=0, D=0 to P=100, I=600, D=0. Six hours later, the display on the SVM 1500B was reading 55.5. Success, I thought! But no, kemo sabe! (No, that's not some obscure Japanese cooking technique, nor an equally obscure translation of the Kama Sutra, but Tonto's Navaho name for the Lone Ranger. I guess I am showing my age.) The Traceable 4000 reference thermometer was still registering 55.278, just as it had been before I made the change! I reset the SVM to I=0, and within a minute, the display was back down to 55.3, with no significant change in the reference reading. I see two possible explanations. The first is that the display is showing the result of the integration, but in that case, why isn't the actual temperature rising to meet the set point? The other possibility is that when I=0, the calibration offset is not being taken into account in the PID optimization, i.e., it's a bug. The third of two explanations is that both possibilities are true. This seems rather strange, although admittedly the effects are minor. I've written to Frank Hsu, but for the moment I am out of ideas, except to compensate by changing the set point slightly. Bob

Joesan, once the SVM stabilizes, it seems to hold steady no matter which unit (1500A, 1500C, or 1500C) you use. I often cook things for 48 hours, and only occasionally do I see the displayed temperature vary by a single digit. (I still don't have the kinks work out in my data logger to automate some of these measurements.) So the primary question is one of resolution, rather than stability. If you want to hold the temperature at 54.4C, rather than say 54.1C, then the 1500B is your only choice. If 1 degree F is close enough, than any of the three ought to be good for you. I would not be particularly surprised to find out that the three units all share precisely the same PID engine, and that the only difference is the display, and the ability to specify fractional degrees. In other words, the 1500C might be just as stable as the 1500B, i.e., within 0.1C or 0.2F, except for the fact that you wouldn't know and wouldn't be able to specify WHICH fraction of a degree it was shooting for. I do see that with P=100, I=0, D=0 on my 1500B, the SVM stabilizes at about 0.2C lower than the set point, for reasons I don't understand. Maybe the power output at that point just isn't enough to keep up with the heat loss, when I am using a circulator pump and have only a sheet of Lexan over the top, rather than closing the lid. (This is so I can continue to measure the temperature with the Traceable 4000 thermometer.) In my still limited experience, 1F or 0.5C seems to make an observable difference in the doneness of beef or lamb, salmon, or the perfect egg, but I'm not sure anything less than that is significant. What has the experience of others been -- is tighter control beneficial, or even noticeable in practice? slkinsey, although I don't yet have my data logger set up to completely automate the data logging, I am using an inexpensive submerged garden fountain pump for circulation, although I have never seen any significant difference or hot spots without it. The SVMs probe is normally sitting on a perforated metal disk about two inches off the bottom of the cooker, and the reference thermometer is suspended through a hole in a Lexan sheet and touching the same metal disk with its tip. Once everything has stabilized, they agree within the limits of resolution and rounding error. When using the I parameter, I sometime see differences between the display and the thermometer, but I haven't fully characterized them. I tend to think that what is being displayed may be the result of the integrated value, rather than the direct readout from the probe, but I don't have any way to confirm that. Bob

Peter, this is all true. Frank is justifiably concerned about the basic accuracy and linearity of the probe, and according to my tests the 1500C is demonstrably better in that regard. However, I bought the 1500A originally, and then I got both the 1500B and 1500C, and I use each one for the purpose for which it is best suited. Even though I'm more used to thinking in Fahrenheit (what a ridiculous, obsolete scale!), the additional accuracy and resolution of the 1500B is well worth it, I think, even for those of us in the backwards, non-metric United States, and especially when cooking meat at relatively low temperatures where the additional resolution/accuracy is more important. Sigh. Unfortunately, my 1500A's sensor became erratic, perhaps because I tried to calibrate it with boiling water -- don't do that! And a young kitten chewed through the 1500C sensor's cable while it was sitting on the floor. So at the moment, I'm checking the mailbox daily, and waiting for some replacement/spare probes to arrive. Re the "down selling." Frank is or was a chef, and his wife still operates a barbeque joint. So he knows the theory as well as the practice. I doubt that he is making millions or even thousands off the SVM, but I admire his intellectual honesty, and I am happy to recommend his products and the company. May his tribe increase.