PedroG

Perfect poached eggs in a combi-steamer instead of a water bath My old oven had to be replaced, so now I have a combi-steamer, and I tried to make perfect poached eggs in 75°C steam instead of a 75°C water bath, using Dr. Douglas Baldwin's table I put eggs of about 45mm diameter in 75°C steam for 16 minutes, and they came out perfect as I decribed earlier. Temperature stability in the Electrolux EBSL70SP combi steamer was measured using a high precision thermometer: setting the oven to 75°C using the "sous vide" function, measured temperature was 75.54 ± 1.69°C, periodicity of the temperature swings was 2.5 minutes. Putting the eggs straight in the oven is much simpler than putting them in a plastic bag and a water bath, and there is no danger of messing up a sous vide rig by an eventually broken egg. It is reasonable that heating eggs in condensing steam is not inferior to heating them in a water bath, taking into account that the heat transfer coefficient in a water bath is in a range of 100-200 W/m²•K compared to 200-20'000 W/m²•K in condensing steam (see Modernist Cuisine 1•283).

As I understand you prefer an egg similar to poached eggs, not an onsen tamago. This is achieved by delta-t-cooking, not by equilibrium-cooking, I explained this in detail in the egg chapter in the sous vide page of wikiGullet.

I did experience sensor drift once or twice with my SousVideMagic.The actual sensor has been in the water 365 d/y for several years without any drift, but I regularly check it against my Greisinger GMH3710 high precision thermometer.

If you just do short time cooking and don't need to pasteurize, the "just cook" trial and error approach may be OK. For long time cooking your equipment should be calibrated to make sure you are sufficiently above the "danger zone", and for pasteurizing as well calibration is necessary. See Temperature accuracy and stability in the wikiGullet Sous Vide page and Importance of temperature control on pasteurizing times. See also the wikiGullet page Reference Thermometers Interpolating to 55°C from a 0°C and 100°C calibration may be unreliable, see my calibration of a testo kitchen thermometer against a Greisinger GMH3710 high precision thermometer.

Where did you find Bacillus cereus growing up to 55°C? FOOD PATHOGEN CONTROL DATA SUMMARY (page 2) says: 4. Bacillus cereus Temperature range for growth = 39.2°- 122°F (4°- 50°C) (van Netten, et al., 1990; Kramer and Gilbert., 1989) and 9. Clostridium perfringens Temperature range for growth = 59° - 125°F (15° - 51.7°C) (Labbe, 1989; Shoemaker and Pierson, 1976) The recommendation to cook above 130°F/54.4°C takes into account some thermometer inaccuracy; with a NIST or ISO calibrated thermometer 54°C should be safe.

See nickrey's post "Extracting osmazome" and the discussion in part 6 of this topic post #484 to post #490, and some additional info in Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011 .

See FOOD PATHOGEN CONTROL DATA SUMMARY: Clostridium perfringens sets the high temperature growth control standard at 125°F (51.7°C). FOOD SAFETY HAZARDS AND CONTROLS - FOR THE HOME FOOD PREPARER page 15 and 31: See also my wikiGullet article Importance of temperature control on pasteurizing times

WikiGullet WikiGullet has been aroused from hibernation. In the Sous Vide Page the section "Cooking Eggs" has been expanded and a section "The structure and denaturation of Proteins" has been added. The sections "Water baths and PID tuning" and "Cooking vegetables and fruits" need more content -> please help! If you are not very familiar with editing source code, you can play in the "Sous Vide Sandbox". Thanks to all contributors! Pedro

Eggs may crack, placing them in a Ziploc bag is strongly recommended to avoid messing up a circulator or FMM, see the topic "All bout sous vide eggs". Suspend the Ziploc on a skewer (facilitates retrieval without scalding your hands) and fill it with just enough hot water from the SV bath to remove the air.

Defrosting or thawing has been discussed in forums.egullet.org/topic/146389-sous-vide-and-frozen-meat/. The quintessence is: There are 3 separate procedures that need to be distinguished: thaw from frozen, reheat from frozen and cook from frozen. If your goal is to thaw from frozen for later cooking with another method, then you should ideally thaw in a circulating 4C water bath until defrosted. However, if you intend to thaw and then immediately cook or reheat SV, then it is better to combine the thaw and cook into a single step and thaw directly in the bath. My 2 cents: cook directly from frozen in a water bath at target temperature, use cooking time according to Douglas Baldwin's tables with an additional 50%.

I agree with rotuts, my 13-year-old edge sealer is not junk but still going strong and is good enough for all SV cooking, and sealing liquids is possible as well, see the links in my earlier post upthread.

Interesting, I overlaid the two graphs on top of each other: anim2.png The heating curve for the frozen sample is faster initially as predicted but then slows down around the 40C mark. This doesn't seem explainable by the sample being frozen since every part is well above freezing at this point. I wonder if the frozen sample was slightly thicker than the non-frozen sample, leading to naturally longer cooking time that overwhelmed the effect of freezing. These experiments were all conducted with the same bagged pile of wet rags with a 1mm dia temperature probe inserted through foam tape in the following order: 1. ambient to 55°C 2. 55°C to 5°C in the fridge 3. 5°C to 55°C 4. 55°C to -20°C in the freezer 5. -20°C to 55°C I cannot rule out that the foam tape was not perfectly tight and that the bag might have soaked up some water from experiment to experiment, as I did not measure the weight of the bag before and after each experiment. This might explain the slightly slower heating rate in the experiment from frozen.

Still no Android version?

Cooking tough meats sous vide: Here are a few useful links: Douglas Baldwin's Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking, Tough Meat The wikiGullet Sous Vide page, Cooking Tough Proteins The topic "Pot Roast Recipe?" The topic "Technological Cooking" In a nutshell: For medium-rare and fork-tender like tenderloin: 55-57°C/48h (thick tendons may escape enzymatic hydrolyzation) For well-done and falling apart like a traditional braise: 58°C/6-12h and then 78°C/2-4h; or 58°C/6-12h, then sear and continue with traditional braising. (At 58°C the thin collagen sheaths surrounding the muscle fibers will be gelatinized, so they can't shrink and squeeze juices out of the muscle fibers when temperature is subsequently raised above 60°C to thermally hydrolyze thicker collagen parts like tendons and fasciae.)

Covering your SV bath is crucial regarding energy consumption as well as water evaporation. See here and here. Of course evaporation rate is proportional to the temperature difference between bath and ambient.

Egg cookery is not specific to Anova, so it's a bit off-topic here. There are threads on egg cookery, e.g. All about "sous-vide" eggs and Still looking for SV Eggs with whites set If you desire a soft yolk and a gelled but not rubbery white, see Comparing 16'/75°C eggs and 50'/64°C+3'/100°C eggs. And you find the table "In-Shell Egg Heating Times in a 75°C Water Bath Using Circumference or Diameter" here. See also the wikiGullet section on cooking eggs.

The external hose is also of great help in sealing liquids, see upthread.

Evaporation of roughly 100 ml/h looks like a bath without a cover, see "http://forums.egullet.org/topic/144275-sous-vide-recipes-techniques-equipment-part-7/page-13#entry1758780". Maybe you better cut a hole in the lid of your cooler like "http://forums.egullet.org/topic/136295-all-about-sous-vide-eggs/page-5#entry1908629", but fitting the Anova as snugly as possible.

See also "http://wiki.egullet.org/index.php?title=Sous_vide#Cooking_eggs" and "http://forums.egullet.org/topic/140320-still-looking-for-sv-eggs-with-whites-set-my-tests-with-pics/#entry1910741"

I repeat myself: An aquarium bubbler is a good option; use the air-stone as a weight to pull the tube to the bottom of the vessel, but cut a lateral hole in the silicon tube just above the air-stone; the larger bubbles will rise faster (more vigorous circulation) and cause less cooling and less sprinkling on the surface.

Many tough cuts are typically cooked 55°C/48h, e.g. short ribs or brisket. Do the 48h cooking for several bags, one will be prepared subsequently, the others chilled. Reheating may be just sear, cut into cubes or strips and heat in a sauce like my Brisket „Stroganoff“ Sous Vide With Mixed Mushrooms. Another work-friendly one is duck breast, incise the fat in a cross-hatched way, cook 8h/58°C, dab dry, sear in a dry pan, fat side first until there is enough liquid fat to sear the other side; save the liquid duck fat for later cookings, it gives a great taste.

For salmon or other fish fillets there is a short way: ∆-T cooking, using a table Douglas Baldwin sent me last year: Get the bath preheated using a timer, use e.g. 25mm thick fish fillets that are ready in 35 minutes, the time needed to prepare and eat a salad before the fish, or to prepare some side dish(es). Cooking times from 5 °C to 45 °C in a 49°C water bath.pdf

What model of PID controller did you buy? Maybe you can select 1° resolution or 0.1° resolution in a parameter menu? If not, you might change to Fahrenheit so you can set in 0.5°C intervals.

There are two topics on "SV" egg cookery: All about "sous-vide" eggs and Still looking for SV Eggs with whites set. My tests with pics You also find some info "in a nutshell" on wikiGullet. See also Doctor Douglas Baldwin's table In-Shell Egg Heating Times in a 75°C Water Bath Using Circumference or Diameter. For "perfect" poached eggs see e.g. Comparing 16'/75°C eggs and 50'/64°C+3'/100°C eggs.

Hi Rahxephon1, welcome to the sous vide community! See Doctor* Douglas Baldwin's table 2.2 -> 1¼ hr should do; in my experience cuts with bone on may take some additional time to be cooked near the bone, so maybe you plan 2 hrs. For beef, an additional hour or two for logistical reasons won't harm, but longer cooking times may lead to more loss of juice. * As of 9 May 2013 -> Congratulations to Douglas!