Sous vide lamb shoulder; moisture loss and component weights

[bhsimon]

Recently cooked whole bone-in lamb shoulder sous vide for 8 hours @ 80°C. The results were like a typical braise. More interestingly, I weighed the different components after cooking for future reference. Here is the breakdown:

 

Before cooking:

2.1 kg lamb shoulder – whole, bone-in, untrimmed

 

After cooking:

621 g liquid

435 g bones and fat

1044 g meat

 

Almost precisely half of the total weight was meat. Hopefully this will be helpful if you are trying to calculate portions.

 

As an aside to this: we've been cooking our tough cuts (sous vide) whole, without any trimming at all, and removing fat and bones after cooking. It is so much easier and faster than trimming everything beforehand. The excess fat comes off in large pieces and connective tissue peels away cleanly. Lamb shanks, for instance, are tedious to trim before cooking but easily cleaned up after they come out of the bag. It's luxurious to have big, clean pieces of shank meat although some may prefer on-the-bone presentation. We have tried this with pork shoulder, too, and the unwanted fat is easily removed after cooking with lovely hunks of tender meat remaining for slicing, dicing or shredding.

Edited February 27, 2017 by bhsimon (log)

[scubadoo97]

Appreciate you sharing your experience and suggestions 

 

Now I'm in the mood for some lamb shanks 

[nickrey]

Thanks for the figures. They will be very useful for calculating yields in catering.