Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2012

[ScottyBoy]

I just dropped a chicken ballotine at 160F, having trouble finding a time. How long should it be in?

[Chris Hennes]

What's the diameter?

[ScottyBoy]

8cm

This was just a last minute thing so I just tossed it in the water.

Edited June 22, 2012 by ScottyBoy (log)

[rotuts]

Wow! fantastic SV rig. seems you had a lot of fun makiing it. How many lbs of SV does it hold? I 'routinely' to a 22 lbs boned out turkey when I can. Different packs of white meat ( 'roasts', thai, indian, chinese, etc) for 3 hours at 145 then the dark at 160 for 24.

are there any pumps that are inexpensive that can take the heat to say 170 that can be submersed that you know of?

Edited June 22, 2012 by rotuts (log)

[paulpegg]

Wow! fantastic SV rig. seems you had a lot of fun makiing it. How many lbs of SV does it hold? I 'routinely' to a 22 lbs boned out turkey when I can. Different packs of white meat ( 'roasts', thai, indian, chinese, etc) for 3 hours at 145 then the dark at 160 for 24.

are there any pumps that are inexpensive that can take the heat to say 170 that can be submersed that you know of?

I haven't kept track of the capacity in pounds but a 22 pound turkey would be easy to do. I have done 15 dozen eggs with no problem.

I have not found a submersible pump that will be reliable at 170F. They are designed for use in fish tanks and pools and the plastics deform at high temperatures. I found they fail at temperatures over 150F.

[rotuts]

many thanks for all your help. i love the rig. Ill start out with several 'bubblers' and move on to pumps later.

[MSRadell]

Here's another controller package that looks quite promising: http://www.dorkfood.com/

[m61376]

I want to make some veal short ribs. I've cooked beef ones at 140 for 48 hours and they are AMAZING! I wanted to know what temp. to cook veal, and would I use the same length of time? In general, do you use the same temps for veal and beef or a little higher for veal?

[Justin Uy]

This is looking like a Kickstarter I can get behind.

http://www.kickstart...to-your-kitchen

They actually met their funding goal this morning, so they'll be going into production with them if anyone is interested in picking one up. I'm already in for one.

[jrshaul]

Does anyone know a source for food-safe thermocouple probes?

[nickrey]

This is looking like a Kickstarter I can get behind.

http://www.kickstart...to-your-kitchen

They actually met their funding goal this morning, so they'll be going into production with them if anyone is interested in picking one up. I'm already in for one.

It is a marvellous opportunity for Australians to get a piece of kitchen electrics at a US price (plus $20 postage). Our distributors would normally at least double the price adding the "Australia Tax" which makes our retailers some of the most profitable in the world. I've pledged the amount needed to buy one as well.

[paulpegg]

Does anyone know a source for food-safe thermocouple probes?

Taylor makes this one. http://www.taylorusa.com/restaurant-hospitality/featured-restaurant/temptakerandtrade-haccp-food-safety-system.html

There are many others available for measuring the temperature of the food. You don't need one of these if you are setting up a sous vide system since the food does not come in contact with the water bath.

[jrshaul]

There are many others available for measuring the temperature of the food. You don't need one of these if you are setting up a sous vide system since the food does not come in contact with the water bath.

I'd like to have SV-level precision cooking regular stuff in my crock pot. If I'm gonna buy a temperature probe..

[Shalmanese]

I'm having a hard time envisioning how you could make a temperature probe not food safe. Isn't it all metal?

[slkinsey]

There are many others available for measuring the temperature of the food. You don't need one of these if you are setting up a sous vide system since the food does not come in contact with the water bath.

I'd like to have SV-level precision cooking regular stuff in my crock pot. If I'm gonna buy a temperature probe..

I don't believe this is really possible.

[paulpegg]

There are many others available for measuring the temperature of the food. You don't need one of these if you are setting up a sous vide system since the food does not come in contact with the water bath.

I'd like to have SV-level precision cooking regular stuff in my crock pot. If I'm gonna buy a temperature probe..

Let's get some terminology right here. A temperature probe is designed to measure the temperature of whatever it is stuck into. you read the temperature on the dial or digital screen. The one I suggested has removable sanitary covers so it can be used in different foods at any temperature (within it's range).

A thermocouple is not designed to be inserted directly into the food but rather into the cooking medium in which the food is being heated. The thermocouple delivers very precise temperature measurement in the form of variable resistance to the PID controller that is controlling the energy delivered to the medium. in the case of sous vide, this is the water in the water bath. You still have to seal the food in bags in order to cook SV in your crock pot. All thermocouples used in SV are made of stainless steel and will not corrode but a food inspector might not be happy if he found one stuck into a piece of fish.

If you put a thermocouple into a crock pot full of chili and tried to cook it using a PID controller you would be very disappointed in the results since the heat transfer characteristics of the chili are much lower than water and you would have to stir it all the time to get the energy distributed throughout the batch. Don't even think about it!

[mgaretz]

To be completely accurate, a thermocouple creates a varying voltage in response to temperature while a thermistor is what changes resistance in response to temperature.

[DouglasBaldwin]

Hi. Earlier this week, someone emailed me asking me why I talk about collagenase increasing tenderness below 60 °C after about six hours but that Heston in “In Search for Perfection” ages his steak at 50 °C and McGee says that fiber weakening enzymes “denature, become inactive, coagulate” at about 55 °C. I thought some of you might have the same question, so I've pasted my answer below:

There are a lot of different enzymes in meat. We're mainly interested in proteolytic enzymes that split proteins or peptides (which are chains of amino acids) and these enzymes are called proteases. Enzymes are named by adding an -ase onto what they act on; so any enzyme that breaks up collagen is called a collagenase. The enzymes that are important in aging or conditioning can be divided into calpains and lysosomal enzymes (including cathepsins):

• Calpains need calcium ions to be activated and act on muscle fibers (but not myosin or actin, which make up 65–70% of the myofibrillar proteins).

• Lysosomal enzymes act on muscle fibers (both myosin and actin) and (some) collagen.

See Lawrie's Meat Science for more details.

When meat is aged, typically at 1–3 °C for 1–4 weeks, it's mainly changes to the muscle fibers that increase tenderness. This is surprising because the break down of connective tissue (collagen and elastin) would seem to be the most likely cause of increased tenderness. Nonetheless, a famous experiment (Sharp, 1957) showed that almost no collagen is broken down during aging — even when he aged sterile meat for one year at 37 °C!

Since there is a great number of enzymes, there isn't a single temperature that they stop working at. Recall (from page 17 of my IJGFS article) that the sarcoplasmic proteins (which are mostly enzymes and myoglobin) start to denature around 40 °C and finishes around 60 °C. So, in other words, some enzymes stop working around 40 °C and most have stopped working around 60 °C.

The rapid aging that Heston — well, actually, Chris Young who was working for Heston at the time and told me that he based that recipe on what he'd been reading in Lawrie's Meat Science — is interested in is the break down of muscle fibers that occur in normal aging. Indeed, in another experiment that compared aging at 2 °C with 38, 43, and 49 °C found that the rate of aging was about 7 times faster at 38 °C and about 18 times faster at 49 °C than at 2 °C. This is what Myhrvold et al. (2011) is after when they suggest aging meat for even 4 hours at 45 °C can significantly increase tenderness.

While my recipes at above 55 °C and below 60 °C get some mild rapid aging while it heats up, I don't believe that this significantly increases the tenderness. What I'm after was first reported in Laakkonen et al. (1970), where they found that collagenase was active below about 60 °C and could significantly increase tenderness if held there for about six hours. Now, it seems that this collagenase only acts on some of the collagen and most of the collagen that's broken down at these temperatures (especially on the long, 1–3 day cooks) is a continuous nonenzymic breakdown. In another interesting experiment by Sharp (1964), he again held beef at 37 °C for 97 days but only after first heating to 70 °C for 15 minutes or 100 °C for 45 minutes; after heating to 70 °C, soluble hydroxyproline was 2% and raised to 23% after aging and after heating to 100 °C it raised from 12% to 55% — but certainly the enzymes are no longer active after heating so it'd seem that these changes are nonenzymic changes in the connective tissue. I don't know what exactly this implies, but it's certainly interesting.

[jrshaul]

Let's get some terminology right here. A temperature probe is designed to measure the temperature of whatever it is stuck into. you read the temperature on the dial or digital screen. The one I suggested has removable sanitary covers so it can be used in different foods at any temperature (within it'

I've seen beer probes (at least, they were labelled as such) constructed of a thermocouple in a nonreactive plastic coating with a long waterproof lead. You throw it into the beer, and away you go.

I do have food-safe (nickel-silver jewler's) solder, and some uncoated thermocouples. If I were to close off the length of a thin piece of copper tube with solder and glue the end of the probe near this end with nonconductive thermal epoxy, would I be on the right track?

Edited July 6, 2012 by jrshaul (log)

[thampik]

This is what Myhrvold et al. (2011) is after when they suggest aging meat for even 4 hours at 45 °C can significantly increase tenderness.

DouglasBaldwin : Is that really 45 '°C' - so not aging as people would think, but actually cooking at a low temperature?

[paulpegg]

Let's get some terminology right here. A temperature probe is designed to measure the temperature of whatever it is stuck into. you read the temperature on the dial or digital screen. The one I suggested has removable sanitary covers so it can be used in different foods at any temperature (within it'

I've seen beer probes (at least, they were labelled as such) constructed of a thermocouple in a nonreactive plastic coating with a long waterproof lead. You throw it into the beer, and away you go.

I do have food-safe (nickel-silver jewler's) solder, and some uncoated thermocouples. If I were to close off the length of a thin piece of copper tube with solder and glue the end of the probe near this end with nonconductive thermal epoxy, would I be on the right track?

I am having real trouble trying to figure out why you want to go to such extremes to measure the temperature in your crock pot? What are you trying to accomplish?

[Neil Smith]

Today I made Char Siu Take Two. (Actually it's the 4th time, but take two rhymes with char siu!) This was probably the best batch I have made. It's not traditional in that it's very lean without the fat and gristle common in the char siu made with pork butt or shoulder, but that was the point!

The other day, I served one of these to a friend who grew up in Hong Kong. As you suggested, he said it was nothing like traditional char sui, but it was delicious. Thanks for the recipe!

[mgaretz]

Today I made Char Siu Take Two. (Actually it's the 4th time, but take two rhymes with char siu!) This was probably the best batch I have made. It's not traditional in that it's very lean without the fat and gristle common in the char siu made with pork butt or shoulder, but that was the point!

The other day, I served one of these to a friend who grew up in Hong Kong. As you suggested, he said it was nothing like traditional char sui, but it was delicious. Thanks for the recipe!

You are very welcome.

[DouglasBaldwin]

This is what Myhrvold et al. (2011) is after when they suggest aging meat for even 4 hours at 45 °C can significantly increase tenderness.

DouglasBaldwin : Is that really 45 '°C' - so not aging as people would think, but actually cooking at a low temperature?

Yes, I did mean 45 °C / 113 °F. When I think ‘cooking’ I think about proteins denaturing and foodborne pathogens being reduced to a safe level. In that sense, rapid aging is closer to traditional aging than cooking. Even at 45 °C / 113 °F, many of the enzymes that affect the muscle fibers are active and can significantly increase tenderness — just as they do in traditional aging.

[thampik]

Thanks for the clarification - is it safe to age at 45C for 4 hours and then leave in the fridge to cook next day?