PedroG

Most temperature recommendations are too high, maybe for liability reasons. My preferences are 45-48°C for fish, 52°C for tender pork, 55°C for beef and lamb, 60.5°C for chicken, 78°C for bacon and sausages, and that's it. Of course always with post-searing. Cooking times according to thickness (Douglas Baldwin's tables). Pedro P.S. As I have an ISO-calibrated high-precision thermometer accurate to 0.03°C, my SousVideMagics are calibrated to 0.1°C. Without a calibrated thermometer, using 56°C instead of 55°C for long-time-cooking (48h-brisket etc.) might be a safety option.

One thing about cooking at the lower temperatures as well is that the salmon tastes lukewarm, which can be unappealing for many people. For this reason salmon is the one item that I cook at a higher temperature than the end temperature and carefully time the cooking. Try 68C for seven minutes. This will give a reasonable core temperature while leaving the fish itself at a serving temperature people are more comfortable with. One thing more, if you are vacuum packing salmon, make sure that you treat the fish lightly. If it compresses, it will not give as pleasing a texture. I bag salmon with minimal vacuum or just with a Ziploc bag, cook to 45-48°C, lay the bag on a cutting board and cut it open with a sharp knife on all 4 sides, remove the upper plastic layer and slide the salmon directly from the plastic into a skillet with almost smoking hot grape seed oil or rice bran oil and sear on both sides, this will automatically give a more comfortable serving temperature.

Exactly! See http://sousvide.wikia.com/wiki/Give_Sous-vide_a_try_without_buying_expensive_equipment For water temp. 55°C I had to set the oven temp. to about 70°C, for water temp. 77°C you need oven temp. above 100°C; as in traditional braises, water evaporation will prevent the water bath to go significantly above 80°C even with higher oven temperatures. My suspicion is that these numbers might vary somewhat, depending on your oven and pan. A fan oven is going to give more evaporation, but also greater heat transfer. Then there's the whole black versus white/shiny pan thing, which will depend on the amount of radiant heating, particularly from exposed electric elements or gas flames ... Anyway, any sort of thermometer (meat roasting or jam-making for example) that is not going to be damaged by being in a low-set oven, is going to give you a pretty fair idea of what temperature your water bath is actually achieving. Just don't rely on its accuracy for food safety - keep away from the edge ... I used a dual-sensor-thermometer "http://www.outdoorchef.com/index.php?nav=4,43,67&prod_id=1" (sorry, you have to copy-paste the link, as the editor would break it at the comma) for the oven - waterpot - method; knowing that it was wrong by 1°C. This showed me the oven temperature and the water temperature. http://www.mastrad.fr/art.php?id=441 worked as well. However, avoid bimetallic coil thermometers, they are not a satisfactory device for measuring food temperatures, see http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Bimet-pic.html .

I did this several times, e.g. bacon in the original plastic bag for 3-4h at 78°C, ditto with sausages. No problem so far. With pork tenderloin you may not want to exceed 52°C, should not make a problem in the original bag. Food is usually packed in PA/PE or PE which have no additives, and no longer in PVC (with phthalates as plasticizers which give the typical "plastic odor").

I wonder where they got their numbers. According to the USDA tables that I have, it takes up to 82 minutes to pasteurize chicken at 58C. They have different tables based on the fat content of the item being pasteurized. If the fat content is low enough and you don't have any fat in the bag, it can take less time -- but I think it is best to be safe. But since most people don't know the fat content of what they are cooking, it is my understanding that it is recommended to use the most conservative table. It may take far longer than 10 minutes for the meat to get up to temperature. It all depends on thickness. It would take a one inch thick chicken breast just under 37 minutes to get to temperature. Nathan posted tables that you can use to determine the time that it takes a particular thickness to get up to temperature. I recommend finding them and downloading them -- or using Doug Baldwin's tables. So, to pasteurize, a 1 inch thick chicken breast takes about 119 minutes (two hours). Btw, I don't believe that natural or organic poultry is significantly less likely to have salmonella. A lot has to do with the butchering and whether they manage to get the entrails out without them becoming pierced at all. A very large percentage of poultry tested in markets has salmonella. (An awful lot of what people call 'stomach flu' is salmonella poisoning, btw). The link to the pasteurization time charts is broken, here is one that works: http://www.cookingissues.com/primers/sous-vide/purdy-pictures-the-charts/#more-3911 or http://www.cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/bacteria_time_temperature2.jpg or http://www.cookingissues.com/uploads/Low_Temp_Charts.pdf (note: the editor will include a dot directly following an URL, so always type a blank after an URL). Douglas Baldwin's tables ( http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html ) differ in two respects from the USDA pasteurization times (see http://www.hi-tm.com/homeprep/Home-2006-2col-forpdf.pdf page 15): USDA pasteurization times are holding times after core temperature has been reached, Douglas Baldwin took into account that pasteurization starts at lower temperatures than the final core temperature, so with higher core temperatures pasteurization may be done before the final core temperature is reached. USDA pasteurization times are for a 6.5D (7D in poultry) reduction of Salmonella spp. (D[60°C] = 1.73 minutes) whereas Douglas calculated his tables for a 6D reduction of Listeria monocytogenes (D[60°C] = 2.85 minutes). (See http://www.hi-tm.com/RFA/food-path-summ.pdf ). Conclusion: it is safer to use Douglas' tables (3.5 / 4.7 / 5.8), and it is simpler as you do not need to add heating time and holding time. But beware, with slabs thicker than 25mm and temperatures higher than 60°C, pasteurization times may be shorter than the time to reach your desired doneness, so always consult table 2.3 as well. BTW you find the links to Nathan's charts here:

Exactly! See http://sousvide.wikia.com/wiki/Give_Sous-vide_a_try_without_buying_expensive_equipment For water temp. 55°C I had to set the oven temp. to about 70°C, for water temp. 77°C you need oven temp. above 100°C; as in traditional braises, water evaporation will prevent the water bath to go significantly above 80°C even with higher oven temperatures.

Beware microbes in poultry ! Merridith, 57.5°V/45min is way below pasteurization times according to Douglas Baldwin's table 4.7 (see http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html ). With your "all natural, pastured, farm fresh chicken" this may be OK, but poultry in general has a very high chance to be contaminated with Salmonella and Campylobacter et al, and under certain circumstances these may even migrate into intact muscle meat (see http://www.reeis.usda.gov/web/crisprojectpages/196957.html ), so to everybody else I strongly recommend to strictly adhere to pasteurization conditions in cooking poultry. Pedro

The link was broken, here is the correct link: http://seattlefoodgeek.com/2010/02/diy-sous-vide-heating-immersion-circulator-for-about-75/#more-921

Ah, well then, that definitely wouldn't explain the whole pink thing then But it might contribute to the dryness. I find a really good sear renders off quite a bit of fat near the surface and definitely helps make things moist. And tasty Quite so! GuyMovingOn, maybe your expectations on SV are too high. What you can do with SV is: Cook tender meat foolproof as tender and juicy as can be to any desired doneness Cook tough meat fork-tender and pink with the texture of a steak (typically 55°C) Cook tough meat fork-tender and well-done with a falling-apart texture like braised meat (e.g. 77°C for fastest melting of collagen, about the highest temperature before meat becomes shoe-leather) What you can not do with SV is: Cook tough meat tender to a doneness corresponding to less than 54.4°C If you do not sear your meat, you miss the flavor and salivation-provoking effect of the browning products from the Maillard-reaction.

Hi extrapolating your measurement pairs, your bath would have effective 55.36°C with the display indicating 55.0°C. BUT: quis custodiet ipsos custodes? It might as well be that a cheap fever thermometer is calibrated at 37-38°C but may be off at higher temperatures, but how can we know? OK, continue cooking longtime at 55.0°C, you should be on the safe side anyway. Pedro

I'm still in the process... have done from 32C-38C so far... the fever thermomete has shown EXACTLY the same temperature as the laboratory water bath. My thinking is that the waterbath is unstirred. I have noticed that the laboratory waterbath has been showing 0.2-0.5C cooler before stirring the water and after. So actually before stirring the water, the water is hotter than it realised. PERHAPS this effect can be amplified whilst there is food in the waterbath too? Also perhaps the reservoir inside is 7 litres, which is perhaps not enough water compared to the volume of meat? These are just my ideas. I'm still going to go up to 43C, but so far I get the impression that the waterbath's thermometer is accurate, but its just limited by poorer convection currents, causing a 0.2-0.5C variance. Sure forced circulation does make a difference, see . My stockpot is 9L nominally, I use 7-8L water and an indoor fountain pump, and I never noticed a problem with meat cuts up to 700g or up to 3 bags, hanging vertical on a skewer (see ). If your bag is not in a vertical position, it might impede convection. As your bath is a bit shallow (post #3304) you might at least bring your bag to an oblique position by placing some weight in the bottom of the bag, see post #3384.

Compare at 38°C may do, it tells you the offset. If you want to check if the slopes of the two thermometers are parallel, checking 32,34,36,38,40,42,42.9 will do and you can use my Excel-sheet for evaluation: http://home.ggaweb.ch/pgruber/thermometer_calibration_basal_working.xls (PID-controller-SET was in °F, because I had the SVM1500A only at that time, no decimals display, that's why I used °F for better resolution; you may enter PID-controller-SET in °C as well). Linearity is another story, you can see an extreme non-linearity in http://sousvide.wikia.com/wiki/Thermometer_calibration (testo kitchen thermometer).

I fully agree, calibrating your sensor / PID-controller at 55°C would be highly recommended. My 55°C/48h-briskets always come out pink. See earlier discussions on thermometer calibration in this thread, e.g. and , as well as http://sousvide.wikia.com/wiki/Thermometer_calibration . On juiciness see , so maybe juiciness in continued chewing might be enhanced by a sauce (try ).

The other way to circulate water is an aquarium bubbler, but use the air-stone only as a weight to keep the tube in place, cut one or two sideward holes in the tube just above the air-stone. The larger bubbles will rise faster and make more turbulence and less cooling by evaporation than the tiny bubbles from the air-stone. I routinely replace the indoor fountain pump by a bubbler for temperatures above 60°C.

Hi Patrik, congratulations for your very nice job! I wonder how long the 3A relay contact of your Auber Universal 1/32 DIN PID Temperature Controller will support the 4A your 900W heater will draw. Anyway, if the relay conks out, you can use the 8VDC SSR output to control an external Auber 25A SSR (15$). What cycle time do you use? Did you already try your pump at 80°C? If it really supports 80°C, will you please let the communitiy know? Other pumps have been reported to go belly up somewhere between 60°C and 90°C (personal communication by Robert Jueneman), so many of us might be interested in a pump supporting 80°C. And a pump is definitely less noisy than an aquarium bubbler. Pedro

I guess meat does not contain air, so vacuum infusing meat with marinade will not have the same effect as vacuum infusing fruits and vegetables (see http://sousvide.wikia.com/wiki/Infusing_cucumbers_melons_etc and http://sousvide.wikia.com/wiki/Instant_rum_pot ). Marinade is said to penetrate 1cm/day. For vacuum-sealing meat with marinade see . If you want to cook with more liquid, just use ziploc-bags.

I think microwave-boiling is not "pseudo-pasteurization", it is pasteurization in the fraction of a second; pasteurization time at 80°C is 0.17 sec, so near the boiling point it is almost nul, only spores may be left, and by rapid cooling you prevent outgrowth of spores. It also coagulates the scum, and you may pass it through a strainer (mandatory for a nice clear sauce). For deglazing I use it without sieving and I did not notice any adverse effect. Of course freezing is safe, but keeping in the 1°C-compartment will do for a few weeks and the gravy is available spontaneously without thawing.

I've done this many times, by microwave or in a bain marie, and the glass never cracked.

Hi Phaz, welcome to the sous vide community! Sous vide cooking of tender cuts of meat may give results equal to or at best a trace better than skillful conventional cooking; the advantage is fool-proof achievement of the desired doneness, and that you are flexible when to take your meat out of the water bath after the minimum cooking time (see guru Douglas Baldwin's Practical Guide http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html ) or an hour or two later, but extended cooking times will lead to more liquid loss and at worst dryness and a mushy texture. See And listen to blackp ! For juiciness, see You may enhance continued juiciness by spicing or marinating your meat before bagging, or eventually by larding or injecting oil, see , or by serving it with a spicy sauce. When cooking tough meat (e.g. brisket) sous vide, you can achieve something that is not possible by conventional cooking: an evenly pink and fork-tender roast or steak with the texture of a steak and with perfectly gelatinized collagen giving it an unparalleled succulence. Try Longtime cooking will lead to liquid loss up to 20%, and it is worthwhile using the gravy (which is especially tasty when the meat was dry-rubbed or marinated) immediately for a sauce or preserving it in a screw cap glass by heating in the microwave to pasteurize (with the cap only loosely closed to allow steam to escape), cooling rapidly in ice-water and keeping it refrigerated. Regards Pedro

Ummm. A question. Yes we know that bags floating horizontally is not good. And yes, its good to get as much air out as you can. Though I'm sure that the last small bubbles aren't critical. But isn't it a worthwhile idea (at least for those without such chamber machines) to routinely use solid glass gems/nuggets/pebbles/cubes to add a little weight to the bottom of all bags to prevent any bag ever floating horizontally? These items are food-safe, non-tainting, cheap, re-usable, freezable, easily washable, can be blasted in the oven for as long as you like to sterilise them and then stored in a sealed sterilised jamjar. Since they need to be found and removed before service, maybe unusual colours (like blue) are a good thing! Its probably also worthwhile choosing those with a simple shape and a shiny-smooth surface for better sanitisation. Examples: Clear cubes in the UK http://www.carnmeal.com/details/1990/glass-ice-cubes-1-kilo-approx Blue pebbles in the UK http://www.dotcomgiftshop.com/deep-blue-glass-gems-in-bag400g Blue cubes in the USA http://www.save-on-crafts.com/bluecubes1.html or Blue 'vase gems' http://www.save-on-crafts.com/skybluvasgem.html But if you have a local floristry supplier, they should be cheaper than mailing ballast. Thanks for the excellent idea! I bagged my last series of meats with marbles which I had at hand, works perfectly to keep bags vertical, especially when suspended with a skewer. BTW it is very practical to label the bags with a Brother P-touch, indicating thickness and required minimal cooking time.

Dougal, why didn't I have this good idea before you?? Pedro

Douglas, how did you vacuum-seal your chicken breasts when comparing 55°C/6hrs to 57.5°C/2.5-3hrs? Did you use your chamber machine? How much vacuum? Could the mushy feeling have been caused by high vacuum? See http://www.cookingissues.com/2009/06/17/boring-but-useful-technical-post-vacuum-machines-affect-the-texture-of-your-meat/ With clamp-type vacuum machines too high vacuum does not occur, see also http://sousvide.wikia.com/wiki/Find_out_how_strong_a_vacuum_your_machine_produces Pedro

It is "infinite" along y and z, the relevant thickness is the smallest dimension x. See also How to measure thickness:

There are large plastic bags for storing and compressing e.g. textiles, which have a valve and can be evacuated with a vacuum-cleaner. A small suckling pig should fit. But I am definitely NOT going to cook a Trojan Hog!

Here's the sous vide segment for those living outside of England (the content is blocked on youtube) trojan hog Pretty insane. The best part is when he serves it with the sausage at the end. Hi Therippa, thanks for the link. Really insane! But I wondered if I could heat a bath-tub with the FreshMealsMagic, so I filled it with 130L of hot tap water (as opposed to the 13L in the polycarbonate container that comes with the FMM) and started heating with the FMM and then ran an auto-tuning. And in fact, it works! Heat loss is -0.117°C/min, and with full heating power, temperature rises 0.111°C/min. My FMM is 220V/2000W; with a 110V/1500W FMM heating will be slower, but it should hold the temperature. Temperature uniformity in the bath was within ±0.5°C. So if someone plans to do a suckling pig SV, FMM in bath-tub might do. Pedro