Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment (Part 2)

[jmolinari]

Ok, another reply to my own question. I've found a definitive answer. The information can be found in the CFR 318.10, which is here:

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/9CF318.html

look at section 10 for pork.

i'm pasting the table for pork safe cooking temperature, as i thin this is very helpful in this thread, for anyone else curious. So now we have the poultry table and the pork table.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Minimum internal temperature

--------------------------------------------------

Degrees Minimum time

Degrees fahrenheit centigrade

------------------------------------------------------------------------

120.................................. 49.0 21 hours.

122.................................. 50.0 9.5 hours.

124.................................. 51.1 4.5 hours.

126.................................. 52.2 2 hours.

128.................................. 53.4 1 hour.

130.................................. 54.5 30 minutes.

132.................................. 55.6 15 minutes.

134.................................. 56.7 6 minutes.

136.................................. 57.8 3 minutes.

138.................................. 58.9 2 minutes.

140.................................. 60.0 1 minute.

142.................................. 61.1 1 minute.

144.................................. 62.2 Instant.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[joesan]

Jason - you no doubt know more about this than I do but as regards trichinea I think I remember reading that freezing the pork to some extent will kill it. I also seem to remember that trichinea was much less common these days than before.

[jmolinari]

Joe, that is correct freezing will kill trichinea.

You can freeze at -5F for 20 days if less than 6" thick, and 30 days if 6-27" thick.

Or at -10F for 10 days for 6" and 20 days for 6-27"

Sometimes i don't have 10 days to freeze my pork chop.

Trichinea is pretty much eradicated, but i'd rather be safe, and not have eggs exploding into parasites in my blood stream:)

Here is the freezing chart from that same CFR 318.

able 1--Required Period of Freezing at Temperature Indicated

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Temperature deg.F. Group 1 (Days) Group 2 (Days)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

5......................... 20............................30

-10 .........................10............................20

-20 ...........................6............................12

------------------------------------------------------------------------

(i) Group 1 comprises product in separate pieces not exceeding 6

inches in thickness, or arranged on separate racks with the layers not

exceeding 6 inches in depth, or stored in crates or boxes not exceeding

6 inches in depth, or stored as solidly frozen blocks not exceeding 6

inches in thickness.

(ii) Group 2 comprises product in pieces, layers, or within

containers, the thickness of which exceeds 6 inches but

[[Page 240]]

not 27 inches, and product in containers including tierces, barrels,

kegs, and cartons having a thickness not exceeding 27 inches.

Edited September 29, 2006 by jmolinari (log)

[chefreit]

Yo...

I have just started selling "take home meals" en sous vide.  I have a market in Manchester Ma.  We will be doing all kinds of things Sousvide to pick up hot.  Why?  Because I am sick of seeing thoes shrivled dry roasted chickens sitting under a heat lamp and thinking about them being eaten by unknowedgable consumers....  I want people to know that that dry flesh is not what chicken should taste like, It does not do a chicken justice. 

We also do ribs, roasts and sides.

Basic Protien Tecnique:

Season and Sear Roast, chicken, (rub) ribs.....

Cool and put into bag with demi, jus, butter, and herbs.

Vaccum Seal in a "cooking bag" using a Koch machine.

Steam for 4 hours at 124deg and start selling hot...

If cool when home......

Instructions are to boil water sumberge package and turn water off.

10 min later open bag and serve.

Tecnique varies for sousvide sid dishes but the winner is mashed potatoes.

Good Eats!!!!

I hope this type of cooking can catch on more for home use.  I am doing everything I can to spread the word to home chefs as well as house wives around the North Shore, Mass.

←

Correct me if I'm wrong (Not as if you have tell an EGS member, cause we will)

most pork in this ountry is "Eradiated!"

Edited September 30, 2006 by chefreit (log)

[jmolinari]

I would like it if it were irradiated..but i don't think it is.

[s_sevilla]

I just got some beef cheeks from niman ranch, has anyone tried them sous-vide or is the connective tissue a little much.....as is I'm going to braise them in a reduction of wine and stock.

[nathanm]

Ok, another reply to my own question. I've found a definitive answer. The information can be found in the CFR 318.10, which is here:

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/9CF318.html

look at section 10 for pork.

Your results are very interesting, and show the great amount of variability in the FDA regulations.

The 2005 FDA Food Code, Chapter 3 has a table that is used for most meats - the lowest temperature is 130F and the time is 112 minutes -

here is the link - look at page 74 (page numbers on bottom of each page, not the PDF page number).

This is clearly contradictory with your table, which goes down as low as 120F, and which calls for 30 minutes at 130F.

So, who to believe? Which is correct?

It is very hard to say, because each is an official guide.

One possible answer is that Section 318.10 is only about tricinosis prevention. It does not say that these temperatures are adequate for other pathogens. Does that mean that this table is safe for general use? It is very unclear.

This sort of contradiction is not new. I previously posted a US FDA poultry table that went down to 136F, yet the 2005 Food Code on page 73 says that Poultry must be cooked to 165F for 15 seconds. Again, there is clear and total contradiction.

The pork table is a detailed technical guide for producers of meat products. So was the chicken table I previously posted. The Food Code is an overall guideline that is less detailed. That might explain some of the difference.

So, the more detailed publications are probably technically correct, but of course the risks you take are up to you.

[nathanm]

I just got some beef cheeks from niman ranch, has anyone tried them sous-vide or is the connective tissue a little much.....as is I'm going to braise them in a reduction of wine and stock.

←

If you use wine in sous vide, it is best to boil it first to drive off the alcohol.

Beef cheeks can be be VERY tough - so you either need very long times, or high temperatures or both.

I like braised beef cheeks. I have tried them sous vide and not found a time / temperature combination I like yet.

[jmolinari]

nathan, as you said the table i posted may refer only to trichinosis, so i'll stick with the longer times, just for safety.

[Pielle]

My guess is that those regulations incorporate a certain security factor which can vary for diffrent administrative instances. However, some of these publications included clear graphs of cell death vs time. Putting a security factor in this kind of data would clearly be posting false results.

The other option that the various studies are for one specific pathogene which all have diffrent death curves.

[s_sevilla]

I just got some beef cheeks from niman ranch, has anyone tried them sous-vide or is the connective tissue a little much.....as is I'm going to braise them in a reduction of wine and stock.

←

If you use wine in sous vide, it is best to boil it first to drive off the alcohol.

Beef cheeks can be be VERY tough - so you either need very long times, or high temperatures or both.

I like braised beef cheeks. I have tried them sous vide and not found a time / temperature combination I like yet.

←

I also just remembered that because of their location on the animal, they can have a lot of contact with animal saliva during the butchering process, so it is recommended to make sure they are cooked properly. Thanks for the advice, I'll be braising them in the end, but for fun I'm going to throw a piece in the water bath at a pretty high temperature and see what happens.

[nathanm]

By the time you get beef cheeks tender enough to chew, you won't need to worry about any animal saliva!

I do not have a time / tempertaure combination that I like, but I would start at 140F / 60C for 48 hours. You may need to go up as high as 180F - I would try that for 12 hours. If I were you I would plan on pulling them out, testing them, and then sealing in a new bag if not tender and putting them back.

[DocDougherty]

Your results are very interesting, and show the great amount of variability in the FDA regulations.

The 2005 FDA Food Code, Chapter 3 has a table that is used for most meats - the lowest temperature is 130F and the time is 112 minutes - 

here is the link - look at page 74 (page numbers on bottom of each page, not the PDF page number).

This is clearly contradictory with your table, which goes down as low as 120F, and which calls for 30 minutes at 130F.  

So, who to believe?  Which is correct?

←

Nathan,

Here is an interesting research paper with real data on thermotolerant E. coli O157:H7. It shows that 62 min at 58.2C is adequate to give five orders of magnitude reduction in E. coli in pepperoni, even for bacteria that were adapted to a low pH environment. There is lots of other material with similar conclusions in the references.

Doc

edited to fix the link

Edited October 3, 2006 by DocDougherty (log)

[nathanm]

Thanks for the paper! The great advantage of original research papers is that they tell you the straight facts. After that one can add some additional safety factor.

I wonder why the FDA does not have a document saying how they came up with their rules citing original research studies like this. But they don't.

I am in the process of collecting a lot of these papers for all of the important pathogens to put the information together for the book i am working on.

[s_sevilla]

By the time you get beef cheeks tender enough to chew, you won't need to worry about any animal saliva!   

I do not have a time / tempertaure combination that I like, but I would start at 140F / 60C for 48 hours.  You may need to go up as high as 180F - I would try that for 12 hours.  If I were you I would plan on pulling them out, testing them, and then sealing in a new bag if not tender and putting them back.

←

This is where it would be neat to design a controller interface for a water bath to create an automatically stepped cooking sequence......unfortuneatly I fail miserably at circuits and took up civil engineering instead, but for long cooking times it's no problem to manually change the temperatures. My friend, on the other hand, did some research on PID controllers this summer, and these happen to be the most commonly used in laboratory baths, so he might be able to lend a hand.

[jmolinari]

Using a PID isntead of an on/off controller is super easy, and requires NO knowledge of circuits. Just get a PID that has ramping features. It'll let you set temperatures and times.

[Pielle]

I dont know if this was answered before, I have read most of the thread but it is starting to get quite huge! Please forgive me if this is the case.

When cooking a thick steak rare to medium rare in sous-vide (120-130 fahreheit), will the result be much diffrent from cooking it in a pan or on the Grill? Will the steak have a boiled, or washed taste? Will people see the diffrence? Will a sous-vide steak that is passed on the grill for 30 sec on each side on high heat will get some grill type flavors?

I know sous-vide is considered a form of poaching, maily form the meat juices, however, people would not naturaly poach a steak. But the possibility of having perfect-doneness each time (or while cooking for a group of people), is very appealing.

[Ruth]

I dont know if this was answered before, I have read most of the thread but it is starting to get quite huge!  Please forgive me if this is the case.

When cooking a thick steak rare to medium rare in sous-vide (120-130 fahreheit), will the result be much diffrent from cooking it in a pan or on the Grill?  Will the steak have a boiled, or washed taste?  Will people see the diffrence?  Will a sous-vide steak that is passed on the grill for 30 sec on each side on high heat will get some grill type flavors?

←

Last week I took a 3 inch thick piece of beef loin, seasoned it well with s&p, chopped rosemary, sprinkled it with evoo and cooked it sous vide at 135°F until it reached an internal temperature of 120°F (about 1hr). After removing it from the bag I let it cool to room temperature and , just before serving, seared it over a very hot flame for about 30 seconds on each side. It definitely had the flavor of the grilled meat and the texture was phenominal, very different from a regular grill or pan-fry. I do not think I shall ever go back to the old way.

[Pielle]

Thanks Ruth for sharing your experience with steaks sous-vide.

some more questions howerver. What is the purpose of the EVOO? Do you think it prevents the washing/boiling effect on the meat? Some people seem to say that they stay away from EVOO, why is that so? You used a temperature much higher then the desired temerature. How did you monitor it, did you use the foam tape technique described by nathanm? Finaly, you say that you let the staks cool down to room temp. Was 30 sec on the grill really sufficient to rehat them?

Anyways, thanks a lot for the insight.

[nathanm]

I do steaks at 125F for an hour. That is more than enough time to reach internal temperature - you don't need a thermometer as long as the steaks are not too thick. If they are super thick, then use the tables in this thread.

Note that the 130F tables will be approximately correct even at 125F or 120F.

If you are delayed then this can easily sit for up to 4 hours with no harm done. It is very good for having people over where you may need to adapt to the schedule a bit.

I do NOT use a temperture higher than I want the core, because then timing is critical and you need to use a temperature probe with the foam tape etc.

125F is between rare and medium rare, but the texture and color will be more like medium rare. I think this is optimal for beef steaks, but that is personal prefence.

If you want it more rare, then I would do 120F. If you want medium to medium rare then do 130F.

I do not put anything in the bag, but you could but some seasoning. EVOO is only a flavoring mechanism, and frankly if that is what you want it is better to pour some EVOO over the meat after searing, since the searing heat will break down the EVOO.

Upon removing from the bag, sear immediately and serve, either in a very hot pan with a high heat oil (safflower) or on a grill or griddle. Get it very hot (smoking oil) and sear for long enough to make a crust. I usually only sear the top and the sides not the bottom.

Obivously, you could let them cool to room temperature but then you have this porblem of how to heat them up evenly. Remember that 125F, or even 130F is not that hot, so a quick sear will not change the core temperature. That is why I sear and serve very quickly.

It is a wonderful way to make steak....the texture is much better than a fast high heat method.

[BryanZ]

The above post should be considered the gospel for steaks done sous vide.

[Pat Churchill]

I just got some beef cheeks from niman ranch, has anyone tried them sous-vide or is the connective tissue a little much.....as is I'm going to braise them in a reduction of wine and stock.

←

If your beef cheeks aren't already history, I picked up a recipe for cooking them at a recent Slow Food demo here in Melbourne - http://cookingdownunder.com/articles/2006/slowfood.htm

Fergus Henderson's roast suckling pig is on the same page, for anyone who's interested.

[Mussina]

Nathan -- when you say that the steaks can sit for up to 4 hours do you mean in the water bath or at room temp?

[jmolinari]

i'm sure he means water bath. It would be unsafe for 4 hours at room temp.

[nathanm]

Correct, I meant in the water bath.

Actually, FDA rules do allow something to be out at room temp for 4 hours - but no more. However, I don't recommend that.