Sous vide for a newbie?

[rotuts]

when i first started SV, I did whole skinless-boneless chicken breasts  ( de-tendon'd ) at 140 for 3 hours.

 

for me that was too soft, even though I love rare beef.  so I went to 145 for 3 hours and liked them a lot.    firmer 

 

then I started pounding them and added 'stuffings '   generally mortadella, a cheese that melted ( Tj's swiss or Jack ) and salami.

 

these turned out perfect at 140 for 3 hours.  at these temps the ckbr was not mushy at all, however its odd that the 140 stuffed ckbr did not

 

have a soft mouth feel.   maybe the light pounding after a semi-split affected this

 

I did not measure the thickness.

 

here they are bagged :

 

 

this is an excellent way to add flavor to a meat that's lets say is 'lite' on flavor.

 

these are tied and plump, tied to keep the filling in place while slipping into the bags.

 

on of the best things I make SV

 

superb  'hot' for an evening meal, and excellent sliced while cold for a sandwich.

 

the melted cheese at 140  stays inside the chicken, although a little bit melts and surrounds the whole CkBr.

Edited August 11, 2016 by rotuts (log)

[Porthos]

Everyone,

 

Thanks for the feedback. I think I am still going to stick with the 143.5 F temp as the next try. But what I will do differently is a quick sear on the finished chicken and see if that helps my DW. As I said, I myself am happy with 142 texture.

 

Porthos

 

p.s.  On a few occasions my daughter and I have talked about how my DW seems to have developed a "Princess and the pea" attitude towards food which makes sorting out real things to change versus things imagined a bit more difficult. Since I still love her madly I am trying to figure it out as best I can.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Porthos (log)

[daveb]

Cooking for friends, family and loved ones is why we do this.  I admire your response to one of life's challenges.

[rustwood]

I am not sure if this is the right place for it, but I have a sort of newbie SV question. 

 

Chefsteps has an article about cooking chuck roast and near the beginning they say this:

 

What bags should I use?
You also want to make sure you have the right type of bag for this beast. When you are cooking heavy food, or cooking at temperatures above 158 °F / 70 °C, the seams of ziplock-style bags can fail and expose food to the water. In these cases, opt for heavy-duty sous vide bags. In a pinch, you can double-bag with two ziplock-style bags, but sous vide bags are preferable.

 

The bags they link to are vacuum chamber pouches.  It seems like a big leap to advise people to go from ziplocks to a chamber vacuum sealer so I am wondering (perhaps foolishly) if they are suggesting that you use the pouches without sealing them.  I suspect not, but maybe I am missing something.  I realize a vacuum isn't necessary to cook SV, but is an air-tight seal necessary?  Could you just displace most of the air, roll over the top and clip it to the container?  I own a basic FoodSaver but I usually cook in ziplock freezer bags so it would be nice to be able to use these for longer and/or high heat cooks.

 

I tend not to vacuum seal before I SV because I often cook with some sort of liquid and that makes sealing hard, plus I am usually too lazy to get out the FoodSaver for just one bag.

 

Edited December 9, 2016 by rustwood (log)

[btbyrd]

Yes, they're suggesting that you use the pouches without sealing them. In most of their videos these days, you'll notice that they just clip the top of the bag to the water bath container rather than bothering to seal it. They recommend chamber vac bags because they're a tenth the cost of Foodsaver bags.

[Anna N]

This brings up my question. I normally vacuum seal (Foodsaver) before sous viding  and then chill and store. How do you handle this portion of the process if you don't seal the bags? I can see that it's not impossible to do the chill down but what about the store part? I would imagine an open bag reduces the time you can safely store the product. Am I missing something or is this designed for sv and serve?

Edited December 9, 2016 by Anna N (log)

[btbyrd]

You're not missing anything. The process is geared for cook->serve, not cook->chill. I think their strategy is to emphasize that you don't need special equipment in addition to a circulator to cook sous vide. Which is true, but one of the main benefits of SV is batch cooking and long-term storage.

[rotuts]

Im wondering if the open bag technique is mostly for immediate consumption.

 

so I think your are correct @AnnaN

 

you can of course chill and store in the refig , but the the safe times for that would match any ' open ' cooking and cold storage.

 

this would be fore people w/o a sealing system that still wanted to SV 

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, btbyrd said:

You're not missing anything. The process is geared for cook->serve, not cook->chill. I think their strategy is to emphasize that you don't need special equipment in addition to a circulator to cook sous vide. Which is true, but one of the main benefits of SV is batch cooking and long-term storage.

Thanks.   As I suspected and perhaps should've trusted my instincts but it's nice to get some back up sometimes.  

[IndyRob]

Especially since this topic is specifically labeled as a 'newbie' topic, I was thinking about the worst case scenario and came up with the following possibility which I present for general comment...

 

So you've got your piece o' meat, and a heavy duty bag suitable to to the task, and will not seal it - reasoning that the meat will be below the water level - so no air could get to the meat's surface and it will remain firmly in contact with the plastic for good heat transfer..

 

Fine, but you did slide the meat into the bag and likely left meat juice smeared all over the inside of the bag.  So now the part of the bag that's above water will be left for an extended period in a warm, moist, aerated environment.

 

Is that small residual amount of meat-matter enough to cause a serious problem when you slide the meat back through it?  I don't know.  But I think I'd really like to vac & seal, or at least submerge the whole bag.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

21 minutes ago, IndyRob said:

Especially since this topic is specifically labeled as a 'newbie' topic, I was thinking about the worst case scenario and came up with the following possibility which I present for general comment...

 

So you've got your piece o' meat, and a heavy duty bag suitable to to the task, and will not seal it - reasoning that the meat will be below the water level - so no air could get to the meat's surface and it will remain firmly in contact with the plastic for good heat transfer..

 

Fine, but you did slide the meat into the bag and likely left meat juice smeared all over the inside of the bag.  So now the part of the bag that's above water will be left for an extended period in a warm, moist, aerated environment.

 

Is that small residual amount of meat-matter enough to cause a serious problem when you slide the meat back through it?  I don't know.  But I think I'd really like to vac & seal, or at least submerge the whole bag.

 

Fold the open end of the bag back on itself before putting in the meat.

 

[daveb]

7 hours ago, btbyrd said:

l. I think their strategy is to emphasize that you don't need special equipment in addition to a circulator to cook sous vide. Which is true, but one of the main benefits of SV is batch cooking and long-term storage.

 

Until of course they release a sealing unit....

 

Sorry,  Im a big fan of chefsteps but sometimes the cynical side just sneaks out.

 

 

 

 

[rustwood]

15 hours ago, IndyRob said:

So you've got your piece o' meat, and a heavy duty bag suitable to to the task, and will not seal it - reasoning that the meat will be below the water level - so no air could get to the meat's surface and it will remain firmly in contact with the plastic for good heat transfer..

 

Fine, but you did slide the meat into the bag and likely left meat juice smeared all over the inside of the bag.  So now the part of the bag that's above water will be left for an extended period in a warm, moist, aerated environment.

 

Is that small residual amount of meat-matter enough to cause a serious problem when you slide the meat back through it?  I don't know.  But I think I'd really like to vac & seal, or at least submerge the whole bag.

 

This seems like a valid notion to me.  I suspect it is sometimes no different with a sealed bag.  No matter how carefully I place a piece of meat in the bag, when I pull a vacuum on it some moisture is pulled up towards the seal.  Even when a bag is sealed, I don't necessarily submerge the whole bag.  With that said, there is usually a sear afterwards so that should take care of any contamination that might occur - especially if torching is involved as that may do a better job of covering all of the edges. 

 

On occasion I will open a bag to test the meat for tenderness - pre-sear though.  I am now reconsidering my inclination to pop those samples into my mouth.  On a somewhat related note, I have taken to blanching sealed meat packages in boiling water before long, low temperature meat cooks.  I believe I saw that on Chefsteps as a recommendation to reduce the possibility of developing off-odors in the bag.  Perhaps that would be sufficient cover this issue for sealed bags.  I think what this comes down to is that I need to buy a huge chamber vacuum machine

 

 

[daveb]

13 hours ago, rustwood said:

On a somewhat related note, I have taken to blanching sealed meat packages in boiling water before long, low temperature meat cooks.  I believe I saw that on Chefsteps as a recommendation to reduce the possibility of developing off-odors in the bag.  Perhaps that would be sufficient cover this issue for sealed bags.  I think what this comes down to is that I need to buy a huge chamber vacuum machine

 

You may have seen that recommendation here...this is where Chefsteps got it  

 

The Vacmaster 112 retails in the 500ish range - the cheapest chamber sealer I'm aware of.  And it comes in at 50 lbs, not quite huge, and moveable.  The next step up enters huge land.