PedroG

My theory was that because it was frozen, and the water temp was low (132F) that it may have stayed in the danger zone for too long and spoiled. I bought the product fresh and froze it myself and i dont recall it smelling bad before freezing it. Time in the "danger zone" when SVing from frozen is not much longer than from 5°C, see my Wikia article Core temperature development in frozen versus refrigerated meat which says: To simulate a cut of meat, I vacuum-sealed a 30mm thick pile of wet rags with a temperature probe inserted through foam-tape into the center of the pile. The tissue could hold 62% of water, which is similar to meat: Lamb chop is 52% water and beef tenderloin is 75% water. Heating from 5 to 55°C took 67 minutes, Douglas Baldwin's table 2.3 predicts 69 minutes. The curve is comparable to Douglas Baldwin's figure A.2 using a slab of Mahi-Mahi. The time in the "danger zone" (5°C to 54.4°C) is 40 minutes. Heating from -10°C to 55°C took 98 minutes (or 75 minutes to 54.9°C), Douglas Baldwin's table 2.4 predicts 84 minutes. Please note the stall at 0°C. The time in the "danger zone" (5°C to 54.4°C) is 52 minutes. This is only 12 minutes more than in the experiment starting at 5°C despite the 31 minutes longer total heating time.

See http://egullet.org/p1838487 and http://egullet.org/p1744874 Edit: sometimes it's faster to search Google e.g. "eGullet, PedroG, skewer" than to use eGullet's search function. I did mention yesterday: http://egullet.org/p1907400 (post #175) The second link in that post was dead for me. DOH! A dot at the end mutilated the URL. Now it works.

I did mention yesterday: http://egullet.org/p1907400 (post #175)

The myth of passive circulation during steady state has been debunked, see http://egullet.org/p1823461 ! Natural convection occurs only during ramping up at full power, in steady state with a power consumption of some 30-100W, there is no noticeable convection current. And without circulation, surface heat transfer coefficient is significantly lower, see http://egullet.org/p1799312 . Regarding bag position, see my article "Impact Of Bag Position On Temperature Uniformity".

See http://egullet.org/p1838487 and http://egullet.org/p1744874. Edit: sometimes it's faster to search Google e.g. "eGullet, PedroG, skewer" than to use eGullet's search function.

The bags must be kept separated to allow water circulation between them. I suspend them on a skewer, see pictures somewhere upthread (maybe in the old SV topic).

He's amazing. There's tons on Youtube, and I've spent many hours watching him. The man is pure class Yeah, I'm down to about 15 mins, but my problem is that I'm still saving up for a good knife. A really sharp knife will help a lot. I think I'll use your tip of breaking the bone before I start scraping, makes sense. A "really sharp knife" is one with a 15° V-edge you created yourself on a Japanese waterstone with subsequent stropping, and you'd rather not use that on bones!

I can see one issue suggesting that your order is backwards: The brisket best absorbs smoke colder than 132F. In BBQ competitions people put very cold meat into a cold cooker to maximize smoke absorption and the telltale red smoke ring from the effects of the smoke. (Judges who are too bombed out from other contestants' smoke to taste anything look for this red ring as a proxy.) See blackp's blind test: SV then smoke was best.

FYI, the Cooking Issues website, and the blog entry in question, appears to be back up. Was wondering if it we'd ever see CI again... OK, but there might be a problem, my antivirus program says it contains Trojan.Script.Agent.AO, and the page does not display as it did originally.

They shipped the old heavy FMM in a polycarbonate container, and if memory serves me, international shipping costs almost doubled the price of the FMM. The new FMM goes into a box the size of a SVM, and shipping costs are more reasonable. Even better, write it all into an Excel sheet, makes searching easier.

See the wikiGullet page Reference thermometer: Thermapen is calibrated, accuracy ±0.4°C. Greisinger GTH 175/Pt - K is similiar price (today 68.20€ excl. German VAT, ~ 91USD), accuracy ±0.25°C.

In fact, heat loss with my 28L Campingaz beverage cooler was less with ping pong balls on the water surface plus lid than with the lid only.

Thanks Martin, very smart! I found it on amazon.com and on amazon.de as well.

Did you really mean two minutes and five seconds? Or rather two hours and five minutes? 63°C results in an Onsen egg, meaning the yolk is served and the white is discarded or otherwise disposed of. According to Vega, César and Mercadé-Prieto, Ruben. 2011. Culinary Biophysics: on the Nature of the 6X°C Egg. Food Biophysics. 12. January 2011, vol.6, p.152-159, www.springerlink.com/content/68q3377u5050031h/fulltext.pdf, 63°C / 2 hours will result in a yolk consistency between cookie icing and Marmite®.

My results with 138-142mm dia eggs in 80°C for 13'30" were a bit disappointing: The outer part of the white was completely set, the inner part was a soft gel, and the yolk was OK with a concistency like honey. In contrast to 75°C eggs, they did not easily slide out of the shell but had to be spooned out. This could be achieved faster and easier with an automatic egg cooker. I'll return to 75°C eggs, maybe try 76°C or 77°C.

If you are concerned about your wild cats, the best choice might have been a SousVideSupreme, no cables and tubes that can be pulled out by your cats. But as you already have the SVM controller, the FMM might in fact be your best choice for several reasons: An immersion/submersion heater has minimal thermal inertia, making PID tuning very easy, see the last post in the old SV topic; any system that heats the container before the water has more thermal lag with more overshoot, requiring a broader proportional band and leaving you with extensive tuning experiments to find the best Integral and Derivative values (autotuning values are not the best possible values). The new FMM has the sensor cable buried in the silicon hose, leaving less free cable for the cats to pull out; in fact it would be virtually impossible to pull the sensor out of the water bath, and if your cats pull out the sensor's plug from the SVM, the controller stops heating. As a container, I would recommend a tall beverage cooler where you can lock the lid so the cats can't remove the lid and jump into the water (you would be very sad, and you would not appreciate medium rare cat's meat without proper post mortem aging). I run my FMM in a 28L Campingaz beverage cooler with P=0.5 I=0 D=0 with only ±0.045 °C oscillation.

SVP CREATIVE IC $499.95 controls up to 20L container SVP CHEF IC $799.95 controls up to 30L container SWID IC €449 controls up to 50L or baby pool (LOL) Submersion circulator/bubbler $329.50 controls 130L whirl pool (really insane! LOLROF) Whatever the heater, a tall container is recommended to allow vertical positioning of bags even with an entire tenderloin or the like.

Hi FeChef I agree with Nick: why pre-sear? You will post-sear anyway which gives you a crispier crust and some thermal gradient which many like from traditional cooking. I routinely do and I recommend marinating (lowering pH below 4.1 to inhibit bacterial growth and allowing prolonged aging in the fridge); BTW don't be afraid of plasticizers in cling film, it's PE which is soft without plasticizers (in ancient times it used to be PVC with phthalates as plasticizers). If you want to cook from frozen, there are four scenarios: Bring to core temperature according to Douglas Baldwin's table 2.3. LTLT cooking (48h or the like) -> no significant difference when starting from frozen instead of fridge. Pasteurizing: thaw in a pot of ice-cold water in the fridge, then SV to pasteurizing conditions according to Douglas Baldwin's table 3.1 / 4.1 / 5.1 respectively. Turbo-aging: heat in a 39°C water bath for a time according to Douglas Baldwin's table 2.3 (calpains most active), then change setpoint to 49°C (cathepsins most active), two hours later change setpoint to final core temperature for a time according to the tables. Before post-searing, collect any drippings and add to the sauce (eventually after heating to coagulate and remove proteins), and dab dry for faster searing. Fastest searing is with rice bran oil (smoke point about 247°C) with the disadvantage of oil mist wafting all over your kitchen.

6.8 liter is pretty small!

Tubing that came with an aquarium bubbler must have been polyethylene, not silicone, it did not support 180°C when calibrating a high-temp sensor in oil. For 85°C it's OK anyway. Silicone would support above 200°C.

Frank is in fact on a holiday trip. You may place your question at https://getsatisfact...m/sousvidemagic , maybe someone can help you.

Calibrating at 37°C is better than nothing, but you have no idea how the sensor of the Sous Vide Supreme Demi deviates at different temperatures. See my Wikia article: a sensor that is correct at 55°C may well be 0.5°C off at 37°C (or vice versa) as was the case with the old SousVideMagic 1500B. You might calibrate your bath and one or two other thermometers against a Geratherm at 37°C and compare again at 55°C. If they differ, you know you have to get an ISO- or NIST-calibrated reference thermometer; if they do not differ, you might rely on this calibration. Anyway, with an unstirred bath, you better stay on the safe side with your temperatures, and forget about "natural convection", this happens only during ramping up at full power, but not at steady state.

Kerry, next time you go to Frank's restaurant you might get his Anylock Sealing Rods, they might do the job.

If you want to absolutely avoid sensor failure, you might order a “mineral insulated sensor” which has a 30cm long metal mantle tube so the cable-mantle junction is outside the water; these sensors are of course more expensive, but IMHO worth their price (mine is in the water 24h/365d since more than a year, I guess it must be two years now). I don't know if FMS have them on stock or only on special order.

I always use condensed water from the cellar-dehumidifier for my FMM. Condensed water from a tumble dryer will do as welll.