Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011

[jaymer]

I cooked several TOP INSIDE ROUND pieces, 1 inch thick, and at 12 hours they came out YUCKY mushy. Took one bite, couldn't eat it and spit it out. Tried several times.

Other foods have turned out fine (incl. eggs), so I'm not questioning my temps. or equipment accuracy. Unfortunately, I didn't document this and its been a month or so and I can't remember. But I'm sure it was at 125F or 135F, but I remember the meat looked a lot more cooked than it should.

Is there a reason this cut wouldn't work as well as Sirloin?

thx

jaymer...

[e_monster]

I cooked several TOP INSIDE ROUND pieces, 1 inch thick, and at 12 hours they came out YUCKY mushy. Took one bite, couldn't eat it and spit it out. Tried several times.

Other foods have turned out fine (incl. eggs), so I'm not questioning my temps. or equipment accuracy. Unfortunately, I didn't document this and its been a month or so and I can't remember. But I'm sure it was at 125F or 135F, but I remember the meat looked a lot more cooked than it should.

Is there a reason this cut wouldn't work as well as Sirloin?

thx

jaymer...

Mushy means it was cooked too long. By the way, 125F would not be a safe temperature for that length of time.

If it was too mushy don't cook it so long. I would find 12 hours too long for most sirloins -- but everyone has their own preference. What I consider mushy, someone else might think was tender to perfection.

Best,

E

[Anna N]

Did a half bone-in leg of lamb for just under 24 hours at 55C - WOW! Don't think I will ever cook lamb another way again. I dried it off just before serving and gave it a quick sear. It literally melted in the mouth being being in the least mushy. The leftovers - oh so very few - are equally good this morning.

[slkinsey]

I cooked several TOP INSIDE ROUND pieces, 1 inch thick, and at 12 hours they came out YUCKY mushy. Took one bite, couldn't eat it and spit it out. Tried several times.

Top inside round is a specialty tender cut separated from the round. Think of it as being like tenderloin, only leaner, not quite as flavorful and not quite as tender. Not a very exciting cut of meat, but that's why it's inexpensive! I would think it would be best in a kind of scallopini application, with a sauce or crust or other ingredients providing much of the flavor. Also probably good cooked whole to temperature, then chilled and sliced for roast beef sandwiches.

This is not a cut of meat that you should subject to a long cooking time. You have to treat it like a tender cut, and 12 hours is way too long. For tender cuts you want to cook them only for the length of time it will take to come to temperature. Otherwise they have a tendency to be, well, mushy.

[rotuts]

Im going to have to try again the SV lamb. I did some at 131 but I cant find my notes for that

mine turned out mushy so i must have SV'd it too long.

love rare leg of lamb

[RyanC]

Hello everyone, first post here-

I wanted to share my success story with using a propane weed-burner for searing off sous vide food. The weed-burner is a big 500,000 BTU torch that you can buy at home depot for $50 and hook it up to a regular 20 lb propane tank like those normally used for propane grills. Previously I tried a plumbing torch or pan searing (I have a DCS/Paykill commercial stove) and like most SV searing I wasn't too pleased with the amount of grey area in the food. Especially because I like a really thick crust.

The big torch and some spray oil works wonderfully, so far I've done steaks, short ribs, salmon, chicken breasts and all of them can get some great crust without over cooking the inside, or having to ice-bath the meat and then wonder if you are going to be serving in cold. With this technique you can do thin burgers, skirt steaks, sliders etc all exactly how you want in and out.

If anyone is going to try here is my advice; A) outdoors only, this is a very big flame, B) Use it on a grill that is clean, the torch will through a lot of embers around your yard if you aren't careful, C) Make sure to really move it around a lot so that you get an even sear, D) So far it's working best to sear just with salt or suger and then add any other spices and give it one last quick blast, same thing with cheese on a burger, it comes out like croque-monsior...

Here is me doing some sliders...

[RyanC]

I have,

But I figure why not toss a cold smoke generator in there. The first test wasn't overwhelmingly promising because just like SV or BBQ you want the meat to get out of the danger zone in less than 4 hours. My 1 inch thick ribeyes were only at 105F after 3.5 hours in the Sous-Smoker box (with air temp PID regulated @ 130F).

They were also very smokey. I think it will work better for finishing and still holding the meat, next I'm going to try SV/Smoke-Vide(or whatever)/sear.

My SVM pid held the internal temp of the smoker box right at 130 using a hair-dryer...

[Paul Bacino]

Wow...sounds interesting...i uzea weber chimmney charcoal stater...alot

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

[Neil Smith]

I wanted to share my success story with using a propane weed-burner for searing off sous vide food. The weed-burner is a big 500,000 BTU torch that you can buy at home depot for $50 and hook it up to a regular 20 lb propane tank like those normally used for propane grills.

Welcome!

I have no sensible comments to make, other than to say that it must be so much fun to watch you doing that!

[&roid]

Hello everyone, first post here-

I wanted to share my success story with using a propane weed-burner for searing off sous vide food. The weed-burner is a big 500,000 BTU torch that you can buy at home depot for $50 and hook it up to a regular 20 lb propane tank like those normally used for propane grills. Previously I tried a plumbing torch or pan searing (I have a DCS/Paykill commercial stove) and like most SV searing I wasn't too pleased with the amount of grey area in the food. Especially because I like a really thick crust.

The big torch and some spray oil works wonderfully, so far I've done steaks, short ribs, salmon, chicken breasts and all of them can get some great crust without over cooking the inside, or having to ice-bath the meat and then wonder if you are going to be serving in cold. With this technique you can do thin burgers, skirt steaks, sliders etc all exactly how you want in and out.

If anyone is going to try here is my advice; A) outdoors only, this is a very big flame, B) Use it on a grill that is clean, the torch will through a lot of embers around your yard if you aren't careful, C) Make sure to really move it around a lot so that you get an even sear, D) So far it's working best to sear just with salt or suger and then add any other spices and give it one last quick blast, same thing with cheese on a burger, it comes out like croque-monsior...

Here is me doing some sliders...

Wow! Just WOW.

I want one of those so much. Wonder if I can get something in the UK like that... Actually, I'm in New Jersey at the moment, maybe I'll try and find a Home Depot, would this fit in a suitcase? How big is it?

[RyanC]

Wow! Just WOW.

I want one of those so much. Wonder if I can get something in the UK like that... Actually, I'm in New Jersey at the moment, maybe I'll try and find a Home Depot, would this fit in a suitcase? How big is it?

It's about 3 feet long, so it would be pretty big for a suitcase but it should fit in a larger one.

Edited October 25, 2011 by heidih
Fix quote tags (log)

[RyanC]

Wow...sounds interesting...i uzea weber chimmney charcoal stater...alot

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

Yeah I used to use the charcoal chimney ala good eat's tuna, it works well except I don't like having to use that much charcoal for a few seconds of searing, and it's a pain to do big cuts. Incidentally this torch is an awesome way to get charcoals up and going, you can get a whole bed of coals red hot in about a minute.

[e_monster]

I have,

But I figure why not toss a cold smoke generator in there. The first test wasn't overwhelmingly promising because just like SV or BBQ you want the meat to get out of the danger zone in less than 4 hours. My 1 inch thick ribeyes were only at 105F after 3.5 hours in the Sous-Smoker box (with air temp PID regulated @ 130F).

They were also very smokey. I think it will work better for finishing and still holding the meat, next I'm going to try SV/Smoke-Vide(or whatever)/sear.

My SVM pid held the internal temp of the smoker box right at 130 using a hair-dryer...

Unless your relative humidity is 100%, your meat won't get to 130F if your oven is at 130F when cooking in air. I tried for a long-time (unsuccessfully) to execute Heston Blumenthal's recipe for perfect roast chicken. His recipe has you cooking the chicken in a 140F oven until the chicken's internal temp gets to 140F. I tried several times with different types of ovens that I was controlling with a PID -- and always noticed a temperature stall about 20F to 30F less than my target temperature. It wasn't until a discussion of the brisket stall phenomenon that I realized that the problem is evaporative cooling. When cooking in air, you have moisture evaporating from the surface of what you are are cooking -- which results in cooling at the surface. This is the famous dry bulb/wet bulb phenomemon.

In short, if you are cooking in air when there is less than 100% R.H., you won't get the temperature rising to the oven temperature unless there is absolutely no moisture on the surface of the food. So, for a particular target temperature, you need to have a higher air temperature than your target. It will take some trial and error to find the right temperature since the precise needed temperature depends on quite a few conditions.

It is quite possible that to reach your desired 130F internal temperature in less than four hours that you might need an oven temp of 150F to 160F.

It might also work to make the smoker humid by having a pan of water on the heating element. I haven't tried that but I did notice that I could get closer to the target temp when I used a PID'ed roaster oven by having some water at the bottom of the roaster.

[RyanC]

E_monster-

Interesting. I'm glad you figured out what I was talking about, I meant to quote another post but I hit the wrong button.

So 100% R.H. would steam the meat though right? I'm not sure my little plastic box with pid regulated hair dryer would be either safe or have enough power to hit 150-160, and also 3.5 hours for the rib-eyes was really too smokey. I have some baby back ribs in the SV bath now and I'm going to try to smoke them for 2 hours before I sear. Eventually I do want to make an insulated smoker with a cold smoke generator that works independently from the heat source. Right now I'm using the tin can/soldering iron CSG and I was thinking about a well insulated wood box with concrete board on the inside and a commercial heat gun for a heat source.

One thing I'm trying to learn about with smoking is understanding what temperatures allow the most smokey flavor to get into the food. Are there any guidelines for that?

[jaymer]

I cooked several TOP INSIDE ROUND pieces, 1 inch thick, and at 12 hours they came out YUCKY mushy. Took one bite, couldn't eat it and spit it out. Tried several times.

Also probably good cooked whole to temperature, then chilled and sliced for roast beef sandwiches.

I had looked at various SV recipes and did not find Top Round, so I tried it like other cuts. I'll reduce the time. Since we usually have it around, it made sense to try it.

We ALWAYS have raw brisket, but I can't seem to make myself SV it - our smoked brisket is just too awesome. It is on my list to do though, probably smoked/rubbed first then into a bag for SV.

We use top round for exactly what you said - smoke it and slice it for our deli sandwiches.

thx for the reply

jaymer...

[slkinsey]

We ALWAYS have raw brisket, but I can't seem to make myself SV it - our smoked brisket is just too awesome. It is on my list to do though, probably smoked/rubbed first then into a bag for SV.

That's the idea. Cold-smoke it for around 6 hours, then cook it SV for 48 hours.

[e_monster]

We ALWAYS have raw brisket, but I can't seem to make myself SV it - our smoked brisket is just too awesome. It is on my list to do though, probably smoked/rubbed first then into a bag for SV.

That's the idea. Cold-smoke it for around 6 hours, then cook it SV for 48 hours.

Even half an hour may be sufficient for the smoker. With spare ribs and baby backs, 15 to 20 minutes seems to be enough to provide lots of smoke flavor (and I like my meat quite smoky). The amount of smoke that gets to the surface seems to work its way into the meat during the sous-vide portion of the cooking. I don't think that there would be a problem with doing a couple of hours in the smoker, but I think you will also get great results with less time. So, you might light convenience dictate the time in the smoke

[ScottyBoy]

The amount of smoke that gets to the surface seems to work its way into the meat during the sous-vide portion of the cooking.

One thing that I think is a real benefit for cold smoked and then SV. I actually smoke various fat trimmings then render them SV. These can be put into any bag with any veggie or meat.

[infernooo]

Currently have a whole chicken in a 57c water bath - going for 48 hours. Why? Because I had a spare chicken and am curious

[jmolinari]

Did you spatchcock it ? If not is the air in the cavity not an issue?

[infernooo]

It went straight into the bath in its original supermarket packaging (marinated and vacuum packed), so I'm hoping it's OK!

Edited October 27, 2011 by infernooo (log)

[jmolinari]

And it's whole, uncut? Personally I would be concerned.

I've done whole spatchcoked chickens but it was more like 6-8 hrs at 135 or so. Even then they were rather tender. I don't know that they'll be much left after 48!

[sahmd]

While we're on the chicken topic, I'm planning to cook up some whole legs (bell and evans brand from the supermarket) to serve simply with some rice and beans and leftover chimichurri.

I've done breasts a couple of times, but this is my first try at SV dark meat poultry and I'm a bit confused by the wide range of recommended times/temps - from Thomas Keller (64 C for 60 min) to Douglas Baldwin (70 C for 8-12 hrs or 80 C for 4-6 hrs.) and everywhere in between.

How do you like your legs? (cooked that is :-) )

[Paul Kierstead]

SV @ 65 C (bath) for 2 hours

Deep Fry @ 220 C for 4 min.

[jaymer]

I hadn't thought about cold smoking it.

I figured I'd just throw it on the pit during normal operating hours for 1-2 hours @ 225deg.

But since we're closed Sun/Mon, I'd have plenty of time to smoke it at a lower pit temp.

What time/temp do you suggest?

Then I'd bag/chill it in ice bath, and SV it at a future date.

Jaymer...