Sous Vide: Rib Eye

[fzxdoc]

The only advantage to my mind might be that you get a flavorful purge that way, @tbob4.

Yes, Potkettleblack, I agree that Chef Steps seems a bit cavalier with some of their methods. On their website, there is little if anything written about food safety such as botulism risk with raw garlic, except perhaps in the forums, which I really don't want to comb through.

They talk a lot about the safety (or not) of using plastic, but not much is said (except for temperature charts) about safety with the food itself. It might be there, but when you type Food Safety into the search engine on their site, you mostly get info about using plastic.

Sorry to hear about your recent bout with food poisoning. It sounds perfectly awful. No wonder you're gunshy.

Kathryn

[Potkettleblack]

You can also pre-saute the garlic. You can also go to 4 hours on the garlic and fridge store. I don't doubt the folks on ChefSteps. But not everything they do works as well for me. Training deficit, knife skills, pan experience, etc.

[Michael Brinton]

I wanted to shave with a chef's knife but my wife stopped me. ;-) Your right, pragmatism, take what you can use.

[tbob4]

Everyone in this thread - thank you very much for your continued advice and debate. It's very valuable and informative. I'm really happy that you all contribute on a regular basis.

[Spinaker]

I second what tbob4 has said. This is awesome!!! I love it when threads get all food-geek like this. We are getting some Grade A information here. Really helpful and informative!! Thanks!!

[fzxdoc]

I love it when threads get all food-geek like this.

Me too! I learn a lot, and sometimes shy away from things only to come back around to them later on, once my skittishness is reassured.

Having Douglas Baldwin's book and his website are wonderful for helping to gentle down the skittishness in my new sous vide endeavor. I wish he'd write a whole food safety section for the Chef Steps/Joule site. We're spoiled here because Meathead (with help from his very knowledgeable wife) do such a great job of reminding us of food safety in so many of his articles.

Kathryn

[vandy]

This is my last attempt at SV Ribeyes. I used Clint Cantwell's method for cooking them which I must say is pure genius. I pre seasoned the steaks with Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper before putting them in the SV bath. I also used some advise from Breadhead and the SV time, I SV'd all four ribeyes for 4 hours at 131 then took them straight from the water bath to a cooler with a mixture of half water and half ice for 1 hour. When I took them out of the ice bath I put 2 of them in the fridge that is set to 37 degrees for around 24 hours, the other 2 I put in the freezer so I could cook them at a later date. The finished photo is of one of the 2 that I cooked the next day on the grill side of my Lang 36 hybrid. I set the grill up for 2 zone cooking with charcoal using the fuse method then added several small chunks of Mesquite wood, I put the 2 steaks on the cool side of the grill until IT was at around 115 then put them on the hot side of the grill over the charcoal and wood chunks to sear them and bring the IT up to 135 before taking them off and letting them rest for about 10 minutes. I have to say these were by far the best steaks so far, they had the grill taste that I was after but were so tender that you could cut them with a fork. They were not mushy at all from 4 hours in the SV bath but had that nice firm beef texture with all the taste of a Ribeye with all that beefy flavor that everyone looks for. I think if I had any complaints is that they did not have quite enough of the salty peppery taste so next time I will go a little heavier on the Kosher salt and black pepper before putting them in the water, they were also a tad overcooked for my taste so next time I will take them off of the grill at 130 to 132 IT. All in all I would say the cook was a success and will be my go to method for steaks from now on. I love the convenience of cooking them a day ahead and basically warming them on the grill to add that grill flavor, excellent!! Thank you Clint Cantwell for taking the time to experiment with this method and then let us all in on it!

[Breadhead]

You might want to try searing them right out of the SV bag sometime too. Blot them dry, add some beef love and sear them immediately. Then add fresh ground pepper. Meathead taught us that the high temperature sear were doing will burn the pepper off.

[Breadhead]

Those steaks look great to me...👍

[vandy]

I have tried searing right out of the SV bag and they were tender and a good steak but just did not have that grill flavor that I am accustomed to when cooking all the way on the grill. This way I get the best of both worlds IMHO and they were great, good smoky flavor and very tender and juicy.

[StanLake]

I just enjoyed THE BEST Ribeye steak of my life! My first action was to go the butcher and request some cut to order at 2 inches - my goodness that translated into a 2 pound cut of beef!!

I put the beef in a zip lock baggie with olive oil, coarsely ground pepper and a little bit of salt, set the sous vide for medium rare and let her rip for 3 hours.

I still don't understand the fundamentals as to why the ice bath is required, but that is what I did - plunged that puppy straight from the warm water into the ice bath.

After 30 minutes, I put it into the oven at 225 - it took about a half hour for the internal temp to hit 105 (start point of 94 degrees). I pulled the steak out, flipped it on the grill and changed the temp on the oven to 500. A few minutes later (things are fuzzy now, no notes and some wonderful red wine, I am afraid) the internal temp hit 120, I flipped the steak over, threw some stinky cheese on top and back into the oven for another few minutes and pulled at 130.

I was surprised to see that the internal temp rose to 140 by the time we actually got around to cutting that wonderful specimen of God's Grace.

Last night's steak was absolutely the best I have ever eaten.

Thanks for the introduction to sous vide, and to Clint's recipe

[Potkettleblack]

So, the shocking for something that goes from bath to sear is to cool the surface so that you don't radiate as much heat to the interior. This reduces the grey, overcooked band. I think 10 mins would be sufficient, and then just turn & burn it under the broiler for a minute or two per side.

[vandy]

StanLake I think Clint is a genius for coming up with this method for cooking a ribeye. The way I understand the fundamentals of the ice bath is to get the core temp of the meat down quickly to avoid any bad things growing on the meat from cooling off slowly (not all the way sure about that myself so I am assuming). Once you have the core temp of the meat down then you can go about grilling and adding that grill flavor because the longer you can keep it in the smoke of the grill the better the grill flavor will be. The first one I did was taken out of the water bath and straight to the grill and it was tender and juicy but I may have just as well baked it in the oven the whole time because that grill flavor was totally absent but then again it did not spend but about 4 to 6 minutes on the grill. By cooling the steaks off I was able to leave them on the grill for a total of about 45 minutes with charcoal and some wood chunks to really get a good grill flavor on them.

[EdF]

Yep, gives you time to get some smoke flavor on it, based on the "smoke sticks to cold" principle.

[vandy]

Absolutely EdF!

[SteinerBBQ]

Thanks for getting this thread start Spinaker

Ended up buying a ribeye while going grocery shopping and gave Clint's recipe a shot. Delicious! I actually prefer it without the smoke flavor, but besides that such a fun way to enjoy a Saturday at home. Love that garlic and parsley with butter combination. I ended up using 5 cloves of garlic instead of the called for one. Love me some garlic.

[Spinaker]

You're welcome! This helped me a lot!! Tons of great info here.

[Breadhead]

I'm a no smoke on beef guy myself. If it's lean cheap beef... maybe!