Sous-vide-que tube eye question

[Alan M]

I am having family over for barbecue this Sunday and I am sous vide The steaks early and refrigerating them. Since people are going to be coming and going at their leisure, can I smoke the steaks and rest them before searing for some of the later guests? if I can rest them for an extended period of time do I refrigerate them and how long if it all possible, can I rest them?
Thanks

[Jerod Broussard]

I'd sous vide so that they only need a sear. They can stand and wait for their steak.

I'd pre-sear then sous vide and chill. They'll crust up much quicker on the final sear.

[fzxdoc]

I also do a quick chill to lower the surface temp of the steaks, (not an extended chill in the fridge). Works great.

K.

[Alan M]

Thanks

[mgaretz]

I don't pre-sear but I would get them going in SV so they are "done" when the first guests arrive. They can stay in that bath for six hours or more, so you just pull them out and sear as needed. You can set the initial temp to rare and cook/sear longer to their preferred doneness.

[shify]

Unless I’m not understanding what your are planning, I don’t see the benefit of sous viding steaks first if you are going to stick them in the fridge and reheat them at a later time.

The time it’ll take to reheat/sear isn’t going to be all that different if you cooked from raw so don’t see any benefit. If you wanted to keep them fully cooked in the bath and then take them out as needed and just give them a quick sear when your family is ready to eat, that would make sense to me. You can keep a steak at the final temp for a few hours without much impact and that way you have fully cooked and almost ready to eat steaks when needed and all it would take is a few min over high heat to sear

But to cook, cool to fridge temps and then bring back up to serving/cooking temp, what does SV bring for quick cooking meat like steak if you are basically starting over at square one (e.g., taking a ~40 degree steak up to ~130 degrees) when getting ready to serve.

[fzxdoc]

Sous vide and hold. If you've cooked them to pasteurization time/temp, they'll hold just fine.

Plus why serve reheated meat if you don't have to?

Remember that for food safety, meat should not be sous vided below 130° for longer than 4 hours. That 4-hour rule also includes the time that you may have let the meat rise above 40° (say, sitting at room temp, for example) before giving it the sous vide treatment.

A quick read of this sous vide safety page about times and temps is quite informative. I use their cooking time/pasteurization chart vs. meat thickness all the time. Jason Logsdon is a sous vide maven, and his charts are based scientific measurements by Dr. Baldwin and other sous vide food safety luminaries.

Kathryn

[yakima]

Completely aside from solid food safety advice, I learned that "maven" refers to both male and female. For some reason I thought it was feminine only.

[Bob K]

also thumbs up for casual use of "luminaries"

[Evvy]

For gatherings, I'll cook sous vide ahead to rare, just above 130-degrees for safety and then I'll hold them to customize them based on what guests like for doneness. It makes for great fun around the grill and picnic table. Remember, a fool with a tool is still a fool! Make methods your own and enjoy the cook, company and love. 🩷

[bmillin]

Maybe I missed it but the type/grade of steal was not mentioned? One of the benefits of sous vide is tenderizing the meat. Anyway, here is my $.02

Sous vide at 131 for 3-4 hours

Chill

Sear and watch temp - remember, it is already cooked. You can dial it in from there.