Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment (Part 6)

[Edward Dekker]

I use tables 2.3 and 2.4 from Douglas Baldwin's "A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking"to determine how much extra water bath time is needed. Table 2.3 gives cooking times for 41 F food and Table 2.4 gives cooking times for 0 F meat. The difference between the two tables is an estimate of heating time from 0 to 41 F.

I think it is conservative. I measured thicknesses of various meats after the defrost time and the center was always well above 41 F.

[sygyzy]

Thank you both for your advice!

[PedroG]

Douglas Baldwin's cooking time tables are calculated for "slabs"; for cylindrical roasts, cooking times are significantly shorter, and for spherical roasts even shorter.

Thickness refers to twice the shortest distance to the least accessible part of the food, "slab" refers to something between an infinite slab and 2 x 3 x 5 block, "cylinder" refers to something between an infinite cylinder and a 1 x 1 x 5 block, and "sphere" refers to something between a cube and a sphere.

[DouglasBaldwin]

Pedro,

I'm afraid you are quoting the caption to a table which I emailed you (and a couple others), but have never posted on here or on my web site. So, to keep everyone in the loop, I uploaded it to: http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/HeatingTimeGeoFactor.pdf. Note that the times are for the heating of thawed foods and not pasteurization. For pasteurization times -- which is what you will need when cooking poultry, meat, or fish -- please see the appropriate tables in my guide.* The linked table is only meant to give a reasonable time range for heating foods in a water bath and to show how sensitive cooking time is on the shape of the food.

Very Best Wishes,

Douglas

* Note that all the pasteurization times in my guide assume the worst case scenario: the minimum reported thermal diffusivity for that food, a lower surface heat transfer coefficient, and that the shape is an infinite slab.

[nathanm]

This is a reply to the various confit posts above, mentioning the NYT article....

We tried many experiments on whether there was anything unique about confit. We tried both sous vide and low temperature steaming, and we tried both traditional (i.e. open container) confit and sous vide confit.

The bottom line is that none of us (including a kitchen full of professional chefs) could tell better than random which meat was cooked "confit" and which was cooked in other ways. We could differences between time and temperature, but not which ones were cooked immersed in oil. Of course the times and temperatures we kept the same.

Of course we could see, feel and taste oil on the surface, so the non-confit cooked samples had oil put on the first. We did this both for duck fat and for neutral oils. You can tell duck fat from a neutral oil, of course. But we couldn't tell confit cooked in duck fat versus steamed/sous vide without oil and then annointed with duck fat. Similar results for confit cooked in neutral oil.

This all makes perfect sense. The fat molecules are too big to penetrate the meat, so cooking in fat couldn't be doing all that much. We thought that maybe cooking without oxygen (when submerged in oil) might matter, but it doesn't. We couldn't tell low-temperature steamed (combi-oven)from sous vide.

It is very amusing to me how shocked and in some cases upset people get when this is revealed. Most chefs believe strongly that there is something special that occurs during confit cooking process. There isn't.

Edited December 10, 2009 by nathanm (log)

[nathanm]

It sounds exciting but at 1500 pages of self published technical data sounds like it could be expensive.

The book project is coming along very well.

Yes, it is going to be expensive. Current plan is ~1500 pages, bound into 3 volumes in a boxed set. We looked at a physical prototype of the book yesterday (with blank pages)- it weighs about 30 lbs. One thing I found interesting is that they say that there will be between 1 and 2 lbs of ink!

We have not set pricing yet, but it will likely be in the $300 range. Heston's Big Fat Duck coobook came out at $250, and the el bulli books are $350. We have about 3X the number of pages as el bulli books, and almost that multiple for Heston's book. So if we had the same price per page it would $1000+. The Joan Roca sous vide book is $200 for a much smaller number of pages - indeed our sous vide chapter is longer than his book.

We hope to eventually produce a cost reduced version. Heston has done that with a much cheaper $75 verison of his book, but it did not come out until long after the main version.

I know there will be people who will be upset about the price. I'm interested in getting feedback on this. I think that a lot of the issue is that cookbooks are typically priced very cheaply. It is a bit odd that to eat Thomas Keller's food you pay $250 per person at Per Se or French Laundry - the book is about the same as the tip on one meal.

We have taken a no-compromise approach to making the book with both thousands of person-hours of effort by a large team. We also have no-compromise in terms of photographs - we have color photos on every page. That is really expensive to produce, and expensive to print. Cookbooks published in the US cut corners everywhere - there are very few photos and the like. Most European cookbooks do too, but to a lesser extent, and books like Big Fat Duck cookbook, or el bulli cookbooks have much higher production values. However these books tend not to have as much in the way of step-by-step directions.

[Ruth]

Very interesting , Nathan. I presume that means we can confit our duck legs sous-vide without adding extra duck fat. I wonder how long we would be able to keep the legs refrigerated in the bags without the extra fat. In the past I have always added 3 or 4 ounces of duck fat to a bag with two legs. I have been able to keep them refrigerated for several months with never a problem . The whole procedure would be much less messy if one did not have to add the fat.

[KennethT]

I assume the shelf life of the Non-Extra-Fat SV confit would be the same as the standard SV confit since the bag is keeping the air-less environment, rather than the fat... I actually just had some confit that I made a year ago - and I'm still here!

I wonder if the NEF SV confit would have the similar "huskiness" that the normal confit gets after aging for a few weeks (more as time goes on)? I'd assume it would, as the confit would be sitting in its own fat that was rendered during cooking, but again - who knows if this fat even contributes to that huskiness?

[jackal10]

$300 is fine for early adopters, libraries and collectors. Many small run professional books are similarly priced and much smaller, for example http://www.chipsbooks.com/bakprob.htm . Please put me down for one.

However I hope there will also be an electronic/online edition. The repro costs of a DVD are much less, and the indexing better

It would also allow for video and active media.

[mkayahara]

I know there will be people who will be upset about the price. I'm interested in getting feedback on this.

If the book delivers on its promise, I think $300 sounds fair. Certainly I'll buy one; I'll just wait until the exchange rate is in my favour!

[RWells]

It sounds exciting but at 1500 pages of self published technical data sounds like it could be expensive.

The book project is coming along very well.

Yes, it is going to be expensive. Current plan is ~1500 pages, bound into 3 volumes in a boxed set. We looked at a physical prototype of the book yesterday (with blank pages)- it weighs about 30 lbs. One thing I found interesting is that they say that there will be between 1 and 2 lbs of ink!

We have not set pricing yet, but it will likely be in the $300 range. Heston's Big Fat Duck coobook came out at $250, and the el bulli books are $350. We have about 3X the number of pages as el bulli books, and almost that multiple for Heston's book. So if we had the same price per page it would $1000+. The Joan Roca sous vide book is $200 for a much smaller number of pages - indeed our sous vide chapter is longer than his book.

We hope to eventually produce a cost reduced version. Heston has done that with a much cheaper $75 verison of his book, but it did not come out until long after the main version.

I know there will be people who will be upset about the price. I'm interested in getting feedback on this. I think that a lot of the issue is that cookbooks are typically priced very cheaply. It is a bit odd that to eat Thomas Keller's food you pay $250 per person at Per Se or French Laundry - the book is about the same as the tip on one meal.

We have taken a no-compromise approach to making the book with both thousands of person-hours of effort by a large team. We also have no-compromise in terms of photographs - we have color photos on every page. That is really expensive to produce, and expensive to print. Cookbooks published in the US cut corners everywhere - there are very few photos and the like. Most European cookbooks do too, but to a lesser extent, and books like Big Fat Duck cookbook, or el bulli cookbooks have much higher production values. However these books tend not to have as much in the way of step-by-step directions.

Coming from the world of academia I have no problem paying $300 for a work of primal scholarship. Trust me, something with that much content would be a bargain at twice the price. Put me down for one.

Bob

[jk1002]

I 2nd the request for an online version. I loved the Natura version that had just pictures and then recipes and instructions on the DVD Rom.

When you look at income level of a professional cook, 300 is undoable - so unless it is picked up as a business expenses I doubt many will get it. It might be too technical for the average food lover. I am still wondering who actually bought the Fat Duck book, I got it in absence of being able to go to dinner there. It was 130$ or so shipped straight from Amazon UK to the US. Early christmas gift to me.

[Ruth]

I too would welcome an online version. $300 would be tough going for professionals and amateurs alike

[Qwerty]

As a low paid line cook/chef, I can tell you that 300 dollars is a lot of money. I have no doubt that the book will be amazing, indeed, I've been following it with interest since you first started talking about it, but $300?

I would love to own a copy of the el Bulli and Big Fat Duck cookbooks, but I don't for the single reason of the price.

Honestly that sounds really high. I'm not implying that you haven't "earned" the right to sell it at that price, but you won't be targeting a lot of cooks and chefs with that price point.

I think that you should consider selling the volumes seperately or something so I can at least get the chapters on sous vide.

[Scout_21]

I would be very happy to pay 300 for such a set. Is there a pre-order available?

[onocoffee]

As one who has found the El Bulli books to be pricey - pricey enough that obtaining the entire collection would be a serious commitment to financing, I did go out and buy the Big Fat Duck Cookbook. It was expensive, as was the Alinea book, but the BFDC is still giving returns on that investment.

If your work will surpass that of Roca, Blumenthal, Adria, Achatz and Keller, then I think it will be worth it. And after seeing your presentation at Star Chefs, I only wish it were ready today.

One thing I caution: while the Big Fat Duck Cookbook is cool, it's just so darn big (ditto for Gordon Ramsay's *** Chef), even the Alinea book is on the large, unwieldy side. It wasn't until Heston came out with the "regular" sized Fat Duck Cookbook that I was able to keep it with me and read it at my leisure wherever I happened to be. That made all the difference in the world as far as being able to readily and easily consume the information.

[PeterF]

It sounds exciting but at 1500 pages of self published technical data sounds like it could be expensive.

I know there will be people who will be upset about the price. I'm interested in getting feedback on this. I think that a lot of the issue is that cookbooks are typically priced very cheaply.

I'm an experienced home cook and newbie to Sous Vide cooking. I love it and will keep doing it but find it frustrating that there isn't a collection of basic recipes / techniques for home cooks. I'm now on my 6th "experiment" trying to get a good Korean-style short ribs recipe going, and it's getting a bit tiring. All of the information on this site has given me a great start (and is much appreciated!), albeit hard to search through. I bought Under Pressure but don't find it that helpful for doing the basics. I might not balk at the $300 price if I was confident that there would be a sizeable collection of basic recipes that's appropriate for new or experienced home cooks. I know nothing about the business of book publishing, but wouldn't it make sense to publish an abridged version at the same time specifically focused on growing consumer market? That's something I would definitely buy without hesitation.

[dougal]

The NY Times just wrote an article about Nathan Myrvold's upcoming cook book. ...

Oh ... (Or "Uh-Oh")

The book, still untitled, intends to be the authoritative reference for chefs wishing to employ so-called molecular gastronomy — adapting food industry technologies to restaurant cooking.

...

... it is stated that the focus has shifted from sous-vide.

Of even more import to most readers of this thread is that, rather than concerning the application of restaurant techniques in the home, the stated theme is now the application of industrial (and seemingly laboratory) techniques in the restaurant.

I should make it clear that, personally, I'm not in the market for any $300 book.

And I'm definitely not in the market for a book about "adapting food industry technologies to restaurant cooking" - however cheap it might be.

Put the two things together and its really not for me.

BUT, I certainly would be interested in an authoritative, recipe-tested, book on home (or home-relevant) sous-vide cooking.

I wouldn't have a problem with a £30 sticker and an actual £19.95 on Amazon (say $50 down to $35).

There might be a market for the £100/150 fine art printed versions of the Fat Duck book and Ducasse's Grand Livre de Cuisine.

However, that market isn't principally interested in USING those books!

Its more likely that those art books are going to be sold to restaurant customers as a souvenir, and displayed on a coffee table as a conversational cue to discussion of up-market eating.

I really don't think that those particular buyers are turned on by graphs or want to know about temperature thresholds for different bacteria.

Its a status symbol market! It just wants glossy glamour, not facts.

The main market for Blumenthal's and Ducasse's material has been when it has been republished (same page layouts, same content exactly, but a smaller page size and thinner presumably cheaper paper) and offered at a fraction of the price of the first edition.

Ducasse

£159 down to £98.81 for the original http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grand-Livre-Cuisine-Duccasses-Encyclopedia/dp/2848440007/

and the reprint is £35 down to £26 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/2848440546/

Blumenthal

£125 down to £77.94 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Big-Fat-Duck-Cookbook/dp/0747583692/ for the original

but £35 to just £15.75 today http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0747597375/ for the realistically priced edition.

Thus the Fat Duck book is currently selling at $25 (inc UK delivery) rather than $200.

I was struck by this Amazon UK review of the luxury first edition product

This book should not be called a cookbook, though I love it's title.

It is a piece of art, a joke, a collector's item and a coffee table book at the same time.

Honestly, I was mouthwatering when I saw this book at a friend's place. The silver embossed thick pages, the astonishing photos, and the incredible pieces of culinary art by Heston Blumental.

But I am happy that I got it for my birthday and didn't pay for it myself.

When you are looking for a cookbook, buy something else. But when you are looking for a special foody treat: you will treat yourself to something unique with this book.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R3S0PS1E4ZUKLH/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

And I admire the honesty of the one that said

Well, no it ain't cheap - and neither is popping in for a meal at the Fat Duck...but how could it be? The ultimate in luxury will always come at a price ...

I consider myself very lucky to have been able to eat at The Fat Duck several times and this book recalls these experiences with intense clarity. ...

And there's a variation on that "I've been there" theme

This was a gift for my husband on our anniversary. I didn't realise the book was SO big and to be honest, had no idea of the content but having eaten in the restaurant a couple of years ago, thought it would go down a storm. ...

These buyers are NOT chefs or restauranteurs.

I really don't think that that 'practitioners' are very interested in $300 books.

But fashion-concious status seekers certainly are!

[joesan]

On the subject of Nathan's book - I will buy, probably regardless of the price as I'm pretty sure it's going to be worth it. And all that research has to be paid for. My El Bulli and Fat Duck cook books have given me hours of pleasure. The Alinea book was actually a bargain price and generously done.

I really enjoy a good book and a good book on cooking doubly so. So to me it's a worthwhile investment.

The above notwithstanding I'd strongly advocate the publication of an electronic copy that could be priced much more accessibly. After all it's nearly 2010 I think it's time to leverage the benefits of the electronic format. For example the El Bulli books are works of art but to cook from them the DVD based recipes are easy to cross-reference and to search - the flash based menu system excepted. More and more often I put my most used recipes onto my computer and use them from there. These big books are great to read and to enjoy but they're pretty much no go actually in the kitchen. Those without computers in the kitchen can print the recipes out and use them without fear of ruining their expensive tomes.

So by all means produce an expensive, hard copy version but remember your roots and give us a nice electronic version too. This could be accessible to all income levels, and would undoubtably be more useful in both the amateur and professional kitchen.

[RoyK]

Vacuum Sealers -- somewhere between Foodsaver and Minipack

So, I'm diving into sous vide and one of the attractions is doing leg of lamb, pork butt and other larger cuts. One of the larger stumbling blocks will be the vacuum sealer. I'm guessing the seal will be the problem especially for the 2+ day cooking times for the larger cuts of meat.

I've done a little research and found the Weston Pro 2300 which appears to be much sturdier than the high end Foodsaver. I've looked at the Minipack but the problem I see is that at the low end which is still (US) $2,000, the chamber is too small. To get a large chamber requires much more investment -- like $5,000+.

What vacuum sealers have you used that you actually like, other than foodsaver and ziplock?

Thanks in advance

Roy

[PedroG]

I am happy with my antiquated "MagicVac", a clamp type machine that was at the time manufactured in Italy and is now continued by Solis. For sous vide cooking, high vacuum or anaerobic conditions are not important, we just want to get air cushions out of the bag to have good heat transmission from the water to the meat and to avoid floating. This may also be accomplished with zip-loc-bags. The high vacuum of expensive chamber type machines is not only unnecessary, it may even compromise the texture of meat especially in fish and poultry, see http://www.cookingissues.com/2009/06/17/boring-but-useful-technical-post-vacuum-machines-affect-the-texture-of-your-meat/

With 30cm wide bags (internally 28cm) you can seal roasts up to a diameter of 89mm which should be sufficient even for large cuts. With cuts more than 70mm thick, you may violate the 6-hour rule to rise temperature from 5°C to 55°C (see Douglas Baldwin's table 2.3 http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html ); even when taking into account the shorter heating times for cylindrical roasts (table 2.3 is for slabs), see http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind//HeatingTimeGeoFactor.pdf , there will be a limit at a diameter of 80mm (4-hr-rule) or 100mm (6-hr-rule).

Pedro

[sct4a]

I'm joining the club and diving in as well. I've just purchased the sous vide kit from polyscience (great deal btw - http://www.cuisinetechnology.com/SousVideCookingKit.html ) and am also at the chamber vac shopping phase. I've been looking into the ARY Vacmaster 210 chamber vac (http://www.vp210.com/) which can be found for around $900 which is a huge diff from the 2-3k++ for everything else. Does anybody have any experience with this unit? Can it reach the same levels of compression as say a koch ultravac? From talking to the various reps it seems the reason for such a lower price is the single seal bar so can only do one bag at a time, the 210 uses a dry rocker piston pump instead of oil based, and the 210 takes longer to seal - approx 25-30 seconds instead of 10-20 for the more expensive ones. I think i can wait an extra 10 seconds per bag to save 1-2k though.

Edited February 7, 2010 by Chris Amirault (log)

[lel4866]

I've had the ary vacmaster 210 for about 6 months - using it pretty exclusively for sous vide at home. I like it very much - it just works, can be adjusted for amount of vacuum, and certainly gets as much vacuum as I want (given that it appears you actually don't want too much vacuum).

The only question I would have now, is whether you actually want a vacuum sealer at all, or whether you just want to hang a plastic bag in the water and let water pressure force the air out.

[jk1002]

>>is whether you actually want a vacuum sealer at all<<

I would ask the same question. Only reason to me is improved handling when fluids are involved or if you want to do other things like compression or flash pickling. I am using the ziplocs with the hand vacuum pump and sofar I have no complaints at all.

Somewhere in the main thread I think it was bounced around if the vacuum would help eliminate certain bacteria but I believe that is incorrect and the reason for the vac is only to optimize heat transfer and prevent trapped air from expanding turning the bags into "floaters".

[Edward Dekker]

...

So, I'm diving into sous vide and one of the attractions is doing leg of lamb, pork butt and other larger cuts. One of the larger stumbling blocks will be the vacuum sealer. I'm guessing the seal will be the problem especially for the 2+ day cooking times for the larger cuts of meat.

I've done a little research and found the Weston Pro 2300 which appears to be much sturdier than the high end Foodsaver. I've looked at the Minipack but the problem I see is that at the low end which is still (US) $2,000, the chamber is too small. To get a large chamber requires much more investment -- like $5,000+.

What vacuum sealers have you used that you actually like, other than foodsaver and ziplock?

I found a Bizerba 350 on Craig's list for $1100 plus shipping. It is huge with an 18 x 18 x6.5 (inches) chamber. This sealer is also sold as the Berkel 350 and the Sipromac 350.

It is a fantastic unit and I was lucky to find it at the price. It takes up a large work table in my kitchen and honestly I rarely use a bag larger than 12 x 16, with most of my Sous Vide in 6 x 8.5 or 8 x 12 bags.

As a single engineer (a geek) it is fantastic to have for vacuum packaging all sorts of things which realistically don't need to be vacuum packed like my old blue jeans I am selling on eBay, or bags of parts kitted for one project or another. It is big enough there would be a problem if I was married.

Remember that for Sous Vide you will cut the larger cuts of meat to be less than 3 inches thick before bagging. (Douglas Baldwin recommends 2 3/4 inches as a maximum thickness.) I have found that several smaller bags are far more convenient than a single large bag,

I considered an Ary VacMaster VP210 (now $900-$1400) or VP-215C (now under $1600). I probably would have purchased one of these if I did not find the 350 at basically the same price. With an 11 x 15 x 5 chamber it is big enough for Sous Vide. The difference between these two machines is the vacuum pump. The VP215 has an oil filled pump and the VP210 has a dry rocker pump. If you are going to experiment with vacuum drying, the rocker pump has an advantage. When evaporating large amounts of water from the chamber the oil will absorb more moisture than it will release and the oil will require periodic changing. This is not a problem for Sous Vide. For Sous Vide the faster pumping, lower noise levels and longer pump life of an oil filled pump are an advantage. In the year I have had mine I have noticed no build up in the oil.

Cabela's and Sam's Club have the VP210 ( http://www.cabelas.com http://samsclub.com). Sam's Club seems to have the low price at the moment, $926 including shipping. Pleasant Hill Grain http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/vacuum_packaging_machine_ary_vacmaster_food_vac_system.aspx has many chamber vacuums under $2000 and 20 models under $5000.

My advice is to watch eBay and Craig's list. Good values in chamber sealers do come up and you are more likely to get a big unit at a good price than a small unit. Fewer people are willing to have a big box like the 350 in their kitchen compared to a far smaller Ary VacMaster.

If you want to buy new the Ary Vacmaster you have a lot of retailers to buy from. If you want a larger chamber there are still options at around $2000 for an 18 x 18 chamber. (See the comparison tables on the Pleasant Hill Grain web page.)