Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2012

[Syzygies]

Here's a picture to go with the words. The horizontal seal is 4mm, made by the impulse sealer.

One can also seal an ordinary drinking straw into a top corner of the pouch; align the bag so that the impulse sealer just nicks the straw without closing it. This can be made to work, but it's fiddly. A snipped corner and the water displacement method is easier and does a better job of removing all air.

I don't recommend the small impulse sealer shown, which only works with 6" pouches. The nominal width should be strictly greater than the widest pouch you'll ever want to seal; the same nominal width will just miss. This purchase was a mistake, to take up less space in my wife's kitchen; my 12" impulse sealer is much more versatile.

[Baron d'Apcher]

Any recommendations for time and water temperature to pasteurize tuna "confit" (internal temp 145F and/or 160F)?

40mm thick pieces, cooked in grapeseed oil (50% by weight of the fish).

I've had good results in 145F water for 1 hour (40mm thick pieces) but want to ensure good shelf life until I can use it all up.

[nickrey]

Three hours at 140F will pasteurize your fish (figure taken from Douglas Baldwin's practical guide for sous vide for fatty fish; non belly would be a slightly shorter cooking time). I would have thought tuna would be overcooked at 160F.

[Baron d'Apcher]

I had consulted the charts but they do not go past 140F and I am trying to replicate "canned" tuna with cuts closer to the tail so that I can purée it, so something cooked to about 150+.

[mark28209]

Why do you use the quantity of oil you do? I would have thought far less would be needed if you wanted to keep the tuna wrapped in oil in the bag? What is the benefit of this approach?

[Baron d'Apcher]

So that I have enough seasoned oil to emulsify into the tuna sauce and to cover whatever portion i have leftover without resorting to using those awful bags, which I believe are the scourge of culinary humanity. The waste generated by restaurants is shameful and while the guy who signs my paycheck insists on using this trend, i'll try to forego using another bag whenever I have the opportunity to. Whoever is able to develop a reusable vacuum bag will retire on a beach next to the folks who developed Cool-Ranch Doritos flavoring.

[Kerry Beal]

So that I have enough seasoned oil to emulsify into the tuna sauce and to cover whatever portion i have leftover without resorting to using those awful bags, which I believe are the scourge of culinary humanity. The waste generated by restaurants is shameful and while the guy who signs my paycheck insists on using this trend, i'll try to forego using another bag whenever I have the opportunity to. Whoever is able to develop a reusable vacuum bag will retire on a beach next to the folks who developed Cool-Ranch Doritos flavoring.

I was holding out great hope for the silicone bags I purchased - sadly they don't seal worth a shit!

[Syzygies]

sadly they don't seal

These bag clips can seal up to 8.5" in width, and work well:

http://www.sorbentsy...m/bagclips.html

The usual "hardware store" puzzle: No manufacturer has anticipated your problem, but someone has made something for a different purpose (here, protecting oxygen absorbers) that works for you.

[Kerry Beal]

These are the bags in question - rather thick. Don't think they'd work with the bag clip.

[PedroG]

Kerry,

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

[cookalong]

I've had this "issue" for a while now, regarding the colour of the meat. A couple of years ago when I started with sous vide cooking, a great things was the colour of the cooked meat. Beef looked nice and red at 136F/58C, pork tenderloin was nicely pink at 140F/60C and so on, duck breast too. I used a wateroven and a clamp sealer, sometimes ziploc-bags. Looking back at pictures, the meat looks great. The meat looked a lot more "raw" when cooked sous vide, compared to regular roasting/searing, even if the temperature was the same.

Nowadays I'm using a chamber sealer and an immersion circulator. However, I think the meat looks too pale when cooked. I usually cook tender beef cuts at 128F/53C. Pork tenderloin and duck breast at 131F/56C, However, the meat often looks gray/white. It's still juicy and tender, but it looks overcooked, even if I take it out of the bag and leave it for a couple of minutes. I really thought my Christmas duck breast would look gorgeous at 131F, but they were barely pink at all.

I know the lack of air affects the colour, but shouldnt the colour return after a minute or so? Does the cooking time affect the colour too?

[Doodad]

Made baby back ribs in the sous vide machine for the first time last night. Freaking awesome. I should have used the torch rather than the broiler at the end, but the results were spectacular. I did them at 176F for 6 hours due to time constraints. I don't know if a longer time at lower temp would be any better as these were perfect in my opinion.

[jmolinari]

I've had this "issue" for a while now, regarding the colour of the meat. A couple of years ago when I started with sous vide cooking, a great things was the colour of the cooked meat. Beef looked nice and red at 136F/58C, pork tenderloin was nicely pink at 140F/60C and so on, duck breast too. I used a wateroven and a clamp sealer, sometimes ziploc-bags. Looking back at pictures, the meat looks great. The meat looked a lot more "raw" when cooked sous vide, compared to regular roasting/searing, even if the temperature was the same.

Nowadays I'm using a chamber sealer and an immersion circulator. However, I think the meat looks too pale when cooked. I usually cook tender beef cuts at 128F/53C. Pork tenderloin and duck breast at 131F/56C, However, the meat often looks gray/white. It's still juicy and tender, but it looks overcooked, even if I take it out of the bag and leave it for a couple of minutes. I really thought my Christmas duck breast would look gorgeous at 131F, but they were barely pink at all.

I know the lack of air affects the colour, but shouldnt the colour return after a minute or so? Does the cooking time affect the colour too?

I've foudn that it takes a good 20-30 minutes in open air for the red color to come back to steaks.

[rotuts]

having just stopped at Trader Joe's, they have med sized seasoned and cooked turkeys in vaccum bags.

wonder if anyone knows if they were SV'd?

[mark28209]

Gotta think SV could produce great greens, esp. collard and kale, but can't find any references to either collard or kale in this topic, the eG SV index, nor any luck with more broad searching. I'm guessing 185F as a starting point but have no idea about time, 1 hour maybe. I'm thinking of trimming/chopping/bagging them with a small amount of crumbled bacon, planning to add vinegar (type TBD), etc. ex-bag. Any suggestions or links?

[Syzygies]

Gotta think SV could produce great greens, esp. collard and kale, but can't find any references to either collard or kale in this topic, the eG SV index

Thomas Keller is pretty definite about excluding many green vegetables from sous vide, though his concern is in part preserving color. He prefers "big pot boiling" where one cooks just to the point of tenderness in a gigantic, very salty pot of boiling water, then plunges into ice water to arrest the cooking. This was one of the better home cooking lessons from The French Laundry Cookbook, reprised in Under Pressure.

One can easily overdo the saltiness with the wrong vegetable; I ruined English peas this way once. It's fantastic for many applications. I'd try slicing greens rather thin, and seeing if I could live with the texture this way.

Of course Italian vegetables aren't done till their color resembles army clothing. Go for 185 F sous vide, you aren't serving skycraper food?

[HowardLi]

Gotta think SV could produce great greens, esp. collard and kale, but can't find any references to either collard or kale in this topic, the eG SV index

Thomas Keller is pretty definite about excluding many green vegetables from sous vide, though his concern is in part preserving color. He prefers "big pot boiling" where one cooks just to the point of tenderness in a gigantic, very salty pot of boiling water, then plunges into ice water to arrest the cooking. This was one of the better home cooking lessons from The French Laundry Cookbook, reprised in Under Pressure.

One can easily overdo the saltiness with the wrong vegetable; I ruined English peas this way once. It's fantastic for many applications. I'd try slicing greens rather thin, and seeing if I could live with the texture this way.

Of course Italian vegetables aren't done till their color resembles army clothing. Go for 185 F sous vide, you aren't serving skycraper food?

In for a penny, in for a pound, I should say. Or at least I should start saying that more often, anyway. All salted solutions should be described with weight fractions - anything else is horsepoppy.

[Syzygies]

All salted solutions should be described with weight fractions

I'd agree. I ordered Fuschia Dunlop's new book from the UK to avoid the risk that the US version would be dumbed down, not in grams. Paul Bertolli's Cooking by Hand very nicely teaches one to compute brines by equilibrium salinity, using a guess as to the water percentage of the meat itself.

Keller calls for a cup of kosher salt per gallon. As a practical matter one will run several vegetables in turn through his giant pot, with different cooking times by taste. So if one kept careful notes the ideal salinity would vary by vegetable, based on contact time.

Lucky for me, my wife thinks salt is the new sugar.

[Moderator's note: discussion continues in Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2013]