"Quick Smoke"

[binarypaladin]

I buy most of my meat animal or partial animal at a time. Dinner choices are often made based on what's at the top of the chest freezer. This weekend it was a sirloin roast. Since the meat is already bagged, sous-vide is extremely handy. I go from frozen to target temp.

Sous-vide-que has allowed me to do stuff on an otherwise hectic weeknight that I normally would have had to plan a weekend for. The sirloin roast (pictures attached) came out smokey, peppery, and medium rare end to end. It's the kind of thing I would have had to plan around and now I can just sous-vide, ice, and reheat later. It's much easier to handle a couple hours in the smoker rather than double digits.

The results are not the same as low'n slow, but in some cases I think they're superior—especially in cuts where medium rare is preferable.

Doesn't matter though. I call this "quick smoking" and I dunno if it's a real term or not or if anyone else uses it, but it generally means I'm gonna paint some cold meat with smoke for a short period after it's been finished in another manner. It turns a "meh" weekday dinner into something that's really, really nice.

The only real point of this post is to show the end result (which was super beefy, peppery, and tender) and give a couple shoutouts:

Meathead You have really upped my game entirely. The grill used to require a lot of prep. Now, I can come home after work and have everything ready to roll in about the same amount of time it takes my oven to preheat.

David Parrish I have a Slow 'N Sear. It very much contributes to being able to use my grill easily and for more than just special occasions. It's a fantastic tool and I can't recommend it enough. (Not sad about the Drip 'N Griddle either!)

Lowjiber Has also given me a few nice pointers. (Binder clips FTW.)

Cooking has become my main hobby these days. I think most of my friends and family would agree that they like this interest better than some of my other obsessive pursuits!

[Hulagn1971]

I agree, sous vide is a game changer during the week. So, can you give us the steps you took to achieve this great looking meal?

[binarypaladin]

Sure. I generally sous-vide "naked." After reading a bunch from Potkettleblack I've found this works very well and gives me a "neutral" purge which works well because I rarely use the purge on the same meal since there is some prep required. I have a couple mason jars filled with the stuff for sauces. I digress though. (And really I should have given a shout out to him too!)

This thing was really easy:

1. Sous-vide at 131ºF for a while. I think I did like 12 hours? Since this was a sirloin it I didn't need to break things down as excessively as some other cuts. I probably could have gotten away with merely bringing it up to temperature if I was rushed because of the cut.

2. Remove from the bag, pat dry, salt the exterior (I don't really measure anymore, so much as just get a good coat on there) and then let it sit uncovered in the fridge. In this case it was for a couple days. The end result is a VERY dry exterior.

3. Fire up the grill in a 2-zone at 225ºF, add a wood chunk, and give it two-ish hours to come to 125ºF internal. I probably should have let the temperature come down a but or gone to a lower temp before searing.

4. Paint the meat in thin coat of olive oil and pepper, pepper, pepper. If brisket has taught me anything, it's that it's hard to overdo the pepper crust on beef. In fact, if I had it to do over again (and I do like, next week) I'd use even more pepper.

5. Since I didn't want to use up any more coals (I'm pretty good at guessing the amounts for slow cooks now) I just seared it on a cast iron skillet indoors. Most of the smoke flavor comes from the low cook anyway. (I even ended up with a visible smoke ring on this cook.) I actually seared the bottom too long. Closer to the middle I ended up with more contact than I expected. I don't think you need more than about 30 seconds a side if your skillet is smoking hot. (Or, as said above, I probably should have removed it from the smoker at a temp more lie 110ºF.) I did a minute on the bottom and the results weren't ideal.

I especially enjoy the slices cut thin. Not deli meat thin, but as thin as I can get with my knife. There was a patch of fat near the middle opened up and trapped a bunch of smoke. It was, easily, the best few bites of the whole thing.

The great thing is that I clearly made some technical mistakes during the process and... it was still awesome.

[Potkettleblack]

This is great. Love what you're doing.

[Hulagn1971]

Excellent info, thanks binarypaladin !

[HouseHomey]

I've been using my SV almost daily since I got it. The fried chicken was amazing! Doing it gain tomorrow. Keep it coming my friend! 👏👏

[David Parrish]

That looks mighty tasty!

[Lowjiber]

Very nice looking cook. Thanks for the pics and your processes.

I agree... one can't have too much pepper on beef. Learned that one in Texas.

[dtassinari]

Beautiful!

[JCGrill]

There are so many great ideas on this site. I will be trying things for years.

[EdF]

Great, isn't it?

[Breadhead]

Sous Vide is really helpful when you are having lots of people over for a steak dinner too. If your having 6, 8 or 10 people over for dinner at say 6 or 7pm. Dry brine the steaks the night before and then vacuum pack them sometime in the morning the day of your party. In the early afternoon put them in the hot tub. I like to give them at least 4 hours but 5 or 6 hours is great too. It all depends on if your guests arrive on time or if they're like Californian's where 6 means 6ish... count on 7pm. During the day you futz around and get all of your sides done or prepped, no rush, maybe bake a loaf of bread or some dinner rolls.

By the time your guests arrive you have everything done except searing your steaks. You greet them, fix them a cocktail or a glass of wine, put your appetizers and relax to chat with your guests. Then I will casually go and set up my BGE to sear the steaks. A Santa Maria style grill would be best for this cook, but I don't own one... yet.😡 I'll remove the grate and the fire ring and fill the firebox up 2" below the top. Light the fire and go in the house to remove the steaks from the SV bags, blot them dry and apply some beef love to one side of each steak. Then I take them out to the grill area and set them aside while I blast my lump with my BBQ Dragon to get my fire to Warp 10 searing temperature. Then I put my regular 18" grate on top of my firebox which is a perfect fit. When I'm searing lots of steaks I use the BGE instead of the Weber kettle and the SnS because the SnS only has room for 2 steaks at a time. I can do 4 or 5 at a time on my BGE.

So... letting the Sous Vide circulator do the first part of the cook while you futz around the kitchen all day doing most of your sides and all of your prep work... by the time your company arrives you've got all most all of your work done and you have lots of time to socialize and get ready for putting on the searing show that they all like to watch. Sous Vide cooking is like having a Sous Chef really.👍

The pictures are from a couple of weeks ago when I set up my BGE to seared a whole beef tenderloin for a dinner party like this. I had enough searing space to have done 2 whole tenderloins at the same time had I needed to.