Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment (Part 9)

[EnriqueB]

Pork ribs are on sale for a week, 1.79/lbs. Id like to try a combo SV/BBQ technique.

Ive done these ribs in the past just BBQ for 6 hrs or so, but would like to try something new.

after removing the inner membrane Ill season with some sort of dry rub w/o salt and SV

what temps and times are recommended for this stage? then Ill finish with smoke for an hour or so on the BBQ and add salt then.

many thanks!

rotuts, with pork and chicken, a few hours in a 4% salt water brine does wonders with the sous vide method. Generally people say not to salt meats like beef since the salt draws juices out of it. But people dont normally brine beef, and when you brine pork or chicken its does the opposite and retains the juices. If you worried about being salty, 4% is on the lower side of most brines, but if your concerned, just rinse the ribs off good after you remove them from the brine.

After numerous side-by-side comparisons, I stopped brining and even just salting before bagging, whenever I am cooking below around 60ºC. At such low temperatures meats lose such few liquid during cooking that brining really does not help much, but it changes meat texture. I didn't realize until I did side-by-side tests with the same pieces cut in two. Meat salted after cooking SV retains a "fresh" feeling, with meat threads clearly splitting between your teeth, whereas pre-salted or brined, even in low concentrations, disolves myosin and other salt-soluble proteins that glue meat threads together and produces a kind of sausage/cured meat texture. Only slightly, of course, and you may like it or want that texture at times. For example, it's nice if you are going to eat the meat cold and slice it thin, e.g. for sandwiches. But I don't want that texture for most hot meat meals.

This effect can be perceived even with relatively short cooking times of about 2 hours and consuming inmediately.

I still do brine poultry and pork that is going to be cooked SV above 60ºC or with high temperature methods, as the juices retention predominates in these cases.

[ishkabibble]

We all love pics of these successes. well, I do.

congratulations !

I froze several from 7/4. Here they are reheated and broiled with Hunan Smokehut Grilling Sauce from House Tsang.

[jmasur]

The Seattle Food Geek folks have a new $199 immersion circulator on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/seattlefoodgeek/sansaire-sous-vide-circulator-for-199

On a related note, has anyone cooked a whole turkey SV? The recipes I've seen call for preparatory dismemberment. I have a large enough rig to fit a whole turkey (in fact, it uses the same cooler in which I typically brine my turkey), but the obvious concerns (other than a big enough bag) are air spaces and thickness. Almost seems like using a low sodium broth as the medium might work. Thoughts?

[gfweb]

SV of a whole turkey would be a problem as far as I can see. Dark meat takes one temp, white another.

[jmasur]

I don't think I agree. Dark meat can take a higher temperature than white without drying out, due to its higher fat content, but my understanding is that both are "done" from a food safety perspective at the same temp/time points.

[ChrisTaylor]

True, but dark meat is unpleasant at 60C. It still feels a bit raw to the bite. Cook the breasts at 60C, chill and store. Cook the legs at maybe 65C.

Also, with that thickness I'd worry the breast meat--having to sit in the bath so long--would start to take on an unsettling mushiness. Deconstruct the bird. Bar messing around with meat glue, which I know nothing about, sous vide (and even slow and low roasting) makes perfect presentation (ie a whole animal) and perfect doneness a binary choice.

Edited August 9, 2013 by ChrisTaylor (log)

[jmasur]

Michael Voltaggio's recipe calls for 150F/65C for all parts, although he does put the thighs in for a half hour longer than the breasts and drumsticks.

I think you'd need some rebar to go with the meat glue.

Anyway, this is probably academic, as I'm quite happy smoking my brined turkey in my Weber Performer with Smokenator 1000 (and probably will be even happier once I get my PartyQ installed).

[lesliec]

If Heston can SV a whole pig, a mere turkey sounds like child's play!

But having said that, I agree that legs/breasts perform better if treated differently. My second-best-ever turkey used brined breast and confit legs, but didn't specify sous vide cooking (I don't remember now - it was a couple of Christmases ago - but I suspect I may have used SV anyway, but don't ask me for time/temp). My best-ever was last Christmas, when I used meat glue to creat a turducken using only breasts. Fantastic.

[ChrisTaylor]

Yeah and he abandoned that whole sous vide pig.

[jmasur]

On another topic....

Thoughts about (a) buying a ribeye roast, cooking the whole thing SV, then dividing into steaks and finishing; (b) buying a ribeye roast, dividing into steaks, cooking the steaks SV, then finishing; or © buying individual ribeye steaks, cooking the steaks SV, then finishing?

My thought is that (a) might not have adequate seasoning penetration, but would otherwise be advantageous.

[KennethT]

Depending on how big the roast is, it may be quite dangerous to SV a whole roast as the center may take a very long time to come to temp.

Personally, if I were planning on eventually turning the roast into steaks anyway, I would divide raw and cook them SV as steaks.. I would not season until pre-sear... lately, I've been gettnig much better results cooking meat unseasoned - I like the texture better.

[furzzy]

Not sure this belongs here, but here's my Sous Vide setup:

I put a pot a little off-center on this:

http://www.cooktek.com/product/cooking-front-house/cooktops/apogee%E2%84%A2-single-counter-top-cooktop

which creates the necessary circulation. Note this unit can have the temp set on a 1 - 10 scale or by F degrees .

Voila!

[FeChef]

Weirdest thing happen after overnight after being in the SV all day. I woke up to find one of the bags filled with water. At first i thought it was air, and got imediately thought of bacteria gasses..lol Its weird because I really dont understand how it filled up like a ballon as if it was pumped in there. The ziplock seems to be still sealed aswell. Lucky I double bagged it. Stangely the water inside is still crystal clear so the second bag must be sealed good.

[rotuts]

you must have had a 'Zip-Lok' bag failure at one of the seams.

what sort of system do you use? is the gas burner on the L on? the blue-ish flaime? what's the perforated pan up to? these are just out of interest and nothing to do with the plastic

I imagine Zip-Lok failure do to a bad bag not uncommon.

[FeChef]

you must have had a 'Zip-Lok' bag failure at one of the seams.

what sort of system do you use? is the gas burner on the L on? the blue-ish flaime? what's the perforated pan up to? these are just out of interest and nothing to do with the plastic

I imagine Zip-Lok failure do to a bad bag not uncommon.

LoL no the burner isnt on.Must be some weird glare from the camera flash. The perforated SS pan is to protect any bagged food items from touching the heating element underneath it. The heating element rest about 1 inch above the bottom of the plastic container. Its a rather big setup, which is why it goes across the entire cooktop. I can SV full racks and about 4 8lb pork butts at a time. Thats a 8lb pork butt you see in the picture. The first bag was a gallon size (butt barely fit) the second bag filled with water is a two gallon. (ziplock brand is crap)

[Beusho]

Question about using ping pong balls for a cover: anybody use those expensive polyscience ones? Are they just polypropylene, is there an advantage to this rather than using regular ping pong balls? Are they just 100% polypropylene? Thanks for any help!

[rotuts]

why not just use a cling-wrap for the moisture issues and then on top of that some styrofoam solid insulation cut to fit on top of that?

[Beusho]

Why ping pong balls instead of cling wrap: for ease of use in terms of adding/replacing things during cooking (this would apply for example if cooking different vegetables or vegetables of varying thickness), as well as just being able to pull things out quickly if you're in a fast paced kitchen

[FeChef]

I must have missed something. Why, and who uses ping pong balls as a cover? Does this have something to do with looking cool, and all gastronomical? There is absolutely no way this is going to prevent evaporation.

[rotuts]

this is what is on polyscience site.

Id just cut some foam insulation to closely fit if you dont like the film. easy to lift and place back on.

[Beusho]

It cuts the surface area over which evaporation can occur, a lid does the same thing, with a negligble loss between the water surface and the lid. The area between a cut out and lid is free for evaporation to occur through, ping pong balls might actually be a better seal. I worked in medicine and all our labs used ping pong balls so people could retrieve things from tanks (we actually used polyscience circulators). In reality I think it's only practical: no lid to take off, take up counter space and drip everywhere; I can't imagine the evaporation has that much effect, although I only ordered my first profesionally made sous vide cooker last week.

Polypropylene is temperature rated for up to 180F I think, no ping pong ball is polypropylene unless you order them that way. That being said the polyscience price is way too high, you can probably check on amazon or a plastics manufacturer to get a 100 for $10-15. I actually think the best kind would be a one with a ring or sacer like shape.

[rotuts]

very interesting points.

Balls are Round. they do to not have that much contact except at 4 points per ball.

two things you might want to consider for "personal use" ::

energy at Institutions of all kinds ( Labs Restaurants etc ) are ignored They take a long time to study those costs now.

at home: you would so a lot better with a """ Beer Cooler """ of many sizes, I have 4

just because its a lot less stress on your Kitchen Amps.

I could say: "Waste Not, Want Not" but I will not!

happy cooking!

[Martin Fisher]

It cuts the surface area over which evaporation can occur, a lid does the same thing, with a negligble loss between the water surface and the lid. The area between a cut out and lid is free for evaporation to occur through, ping pong balls might actually be a better seal. I worked in medicine and all our labs used ping pong balls so people could retrieve things from tanks (we actually used polyscience circulators). In reality I think it's only practical: no lid to take off, take up counter space and drip everywhere; I can't imagine the evaporation has that much effect, although I only ordered my first profesionally made sous vide cooker last week.

Polypropylene is temperature rated for up to 180F I think, no ping pong ball is polypropylene unless you order them that way. That being said the polyscience price is way too high, you can probably check on amazon or a plastics manufacturer to get a 100 for $10-15. I actually think the best kind would be a one with a ring or sacer like shape.

As I understand it, the problem with ping pong balls is the fact that they float high and don't provide as good of coverage as balls that sink to mid-point, making them less effective.

If you can find polypropylene balls of the same specs as the Polyscience balls for less money (including shipping) and in the same quantity (I don't need 1000 of them) please share because I haven't been able to find them for less.

[FeChef]

Your better off using vegetable oil to float on the surface to prevent evaporation. Those ping pong balls are just pointless. There is spaces inbetween every ball that let all the water evaporate. What a gimmick.

[Beusho]

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=23942

This is a good source for them

The density of solid polypropylene is around .85 g/cm^3 which is below water so they will submerge much better than ping pong balls

Edited August 21, 2013 by Beusho (log)