First attempt at Sous Vide

[Chrisonthego]

Here are my sous vide cookings. Like for any good steaks, i do a reverse sear.

[Huskee]

Yeah, hickory would be a good choice, it's fairly potent for that short of an exposure. Oak or mesquite might work good too.

[FLBuckeye]

That is a really good idea. I like the smoke flavor a lot. What wood would you suggest? I am guessing hickory or some wood of that ilk

[mgaretz]

Yep, have the book. And many others. I still do not agree that the chamber sealer gives you more control over the way foods cook. It will do things like compress watermelon and the like, but has nothing to do with sous vide.

[Huskee]

Looks good my man. I wouldn't turn it away! The only thing I'd do if I were to sous vide is I'd really plop some good amount of wood on there and sear over embers with plenty of smoke to infuse some smoke flavor during that limited coal exposure. But some do sous vide since they don't prefer the smoke flavor on steaks.

[Christobol]

The reason to use a chamber vacuum sealer is not so you can cook sous vide, but rather you have a lot more control over the way that foods cook. If you're looking for a good book about sous vide, check out Thomas Keller's Under Pressure. He goes into the details and theory and science of sous vide and some detail on their 10 odd year journey of figuring out how to use it. And I've you're not familiar with him, he runs THE best restaurant in the country (though sometimes 2nd).

Basically he says that for many foods including those with liquids which is suggested or must sous vide recipes a Food Saver isn't good enough. Things like fruits and vegetables really benefit from a hard tight seal, while fish would be crushed.

One thing I've learned is the time under water can be as important as the temp achieved inside the meat. So rather than just hitting them temp you want, keeping it there for low and slow often allows more time of important chemical changes.

A good starting point for temps and times can be found at:

http://www.sousvidesupreme.com/en-us/sousvide_cookingtemperatures.htm

[mgaretz]

Ah. They are similar but different techniques, unless you can run your grill at very low temps, like 120-130. Since we generally grill/smoke hotter (say 225F) the meat will be warmer towards the edges than the center. The advantage of sous vide is that the entire piece is at your set temperature and you can't over-cook it.

[mgaretz]

You definitely do not need the kind of vacuum a chamber sealer provides to do sous vide. I have used a Food Saver for years without any issues. Many people use the technique that FLBuckeye used of immersing the bag and sealing. The vacuum level isn't important - the idea is to get the air out so that the bag doesn't float and you have good contact to the food so the heat can transfer better.

That's not to say that there aren't reasons to get a chamber sealer, just that sous vide isn't one of them. I did consider getting one so I could do liquids, but I found that most often I can freeze them first in a plastic container, pop out the block then vacuum seal. I decided that was a better trade-off than the expense of a chamber sealer and the space it takes up.

[mgaretz]

FWIW, my wife and I like our steaks rare. I will do 1 to 1.5" thick sirloins, starting with them vacuum packed and frozen, for 1 hour at 125F. Then a quick reverse sear on my Weber gasser with GrillGrates, about 3 minutes a side. Lately I have been using the flat side of the grill grates.

[FLBuckeye]

I meant with the low and slow on the grill

[mgaretz]

I have done the reverse sear before but I think the sous vide was better.

I'm not sure what you really meant, but you still did reverse sear, and it's very common with sous vide - it's exactly how I make my steaks.

[FLBuckeye]

I followed this technique: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/c...vide-hack.html
Saw this somewhere on this site.
My Weber with the lump was super hot. I should have put a surface thermometer to see how hot it got but it was really hot.
I ran the sous vide almost an hour while waiting for the lump to get really hot. I had the Maverick in the water monitoring the temp the whole time.
I agree 135 is too high for the sous vide part. I put the steaks in and the temp went to 127 but by the time the almost hour was up, the temp was 122. After the reverse sear, the steaks temped out at 135 although one of the steaks was a bit thicker than the other so the skinnier one came off a couple of minutes earlier.
As I said, I didn't use a vacuum sealer, just lowered the steaks into the water that forced the air out of the bags.

[Christobol]

I did my first one with a probe in a pot, and just kept the gas stove at it's lowest setting. You can adjust the amount of water and the size of the pot to find a nice combo to help maintain close to the correct temp.

[Christobol]

Got two ribeyes (total of 2.43 lbs.) and attempted the sous vide technique. Dry brined the steaks two hours prior. Filled a beer cooler halfway with hot water from the tap. Boiled some more water to add as needed. Water temp was 108 so I added more to bring it to 130, figuring I would lose a few degrees when the cold steaks were added. Put the two steaks slowly into the water to purge the air from the bags. Temp dropped to 127. After 15 min. I started a chimney full of lump charcoal (wanted a hotter fire than my usual Kingsford blue) and let it get really hot. Used my old Weber with bricks under the coal grate to around two inches from the cooking grate. Plopped the two steaks onto the grate and cooked for a few minutes on each side. Got the desired crust and the flavor was really good. My teen aged daughter said it was the best steak she ever had. I have done the reverse sear before but I think the sous vide was better.
The pictures show my embarrassing lack of talent in photography.

How long did you run the sous vide? What temp do you think you ran them at during that time? I've been playing with my sous vide machine (there are a bunch of inexpensive ones that are $200 now), and have made 20 or so steaks so far. I've found there is quite a variation in the effects upon the steak when the temp varies from 130 to 132 degrees, then 135 is definitely over cooked for by my taste and my gf's. 128 seems too rare, and I guess the fibers have loosened up enough that they are squishy without bursting when chewed making the steak VERY chewy.

I've had trouble doing the reverse sear on the grill because it ends up cooking the interior and overcooking the steak. What sous vide chefs recommend is finishing the steak in a pan with canola oil at 550 plus, to get a good and solid sear. My Genesis S330 only maintains a grill temp of 350-450 over two burners with the sear station in the middle, and it takes a good 8-10 min to get a nice dark brown Mailllard reaction.

Yesterday I tried a top sirloin prime in the sous vide for 2 hours at 120, and 30 min at 126 as I started to sound think how much cooking effect I was actually getting. I finished it in the pan and one turned out awesome but mine was slightly too charred on one side.

≈A note on the vacuum packagers: I bought one from Costco, and after using it for a few months have found it lacks enough sucking power. There is something called a vacuum chamber and it's considered ideal as you can set how many atmospheres to drop, and how tightly to pack the plastic, regardless of other liquids in with the meat. Plus it'll help tremendously with drawing salt and any cooking sauce into the meat while cooking in the sous vide.

[bbantel]

Wow, that looks awesome. Thanks for sharing. TBH, I'm too much of a chicken to sous-vide w/o a machine, but kudos for trying this.