Sous Vide Bags for 185 degree cook?

[Hugh]

I've been using ziplocs with the displacement method. I want to do some chicken at 185 degrees. Any recommendations for amazon or other?

[EdF]

webstaurant.com should have some good options. But watch the shipping and handling charges.

You sure you want 185 SV?

[Hugh]

I'm playing around with frozen thighs. Takes so long to cook them to get the texture I like. Saw one recipe which called for 185 degrees for an hour and thought I'd try it.

[RonB]

You could use vacuum sealer bags. If you don't have a sealer, you would have to clip the open bag to the side of the container so that water does not get inside the bag. They come in pint, quart, and gallon sizes.

[shify]

That's what I do. Ordered a batch of vacuum dealers bags from Amazon and use for most of my cooks. Only actually seal them for long cooks

[freddh]

This is what I use for Sous Vide. The food saver bags are much more expensive so I use those only for freezing. These rolls (50 ft.) do not fit the food saver machine, however I take an empty roll and roll about half on to it. Works just fine. Also I concur that 185 for chicken is a little high-try 148 for 4 hours or 158 for 2 (dark meat) and additional hour for breast’s, if cooking both.

2 Pack - SimpleHouseware 11" x 50' Commercial Vacuum Sealer Rolls Food Storage Saver Compatible to Foodsaver Sous Vide (total 100 feet) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01K07MZBO..._Ttzg6vjjc4Ui6

[Troutman]

I buy these bags as well. I just reverse the way I seal and vacuum the bag into my Food Saver upright, works just fine. Did have one leaky bag with a 160* cook, that after triple sealing it as well. At 185* I might be a little nervous, double bag if you do cook that hot.

[fzxdoc]

185°F for chicken seems high, Hugh . I'm assuming you're doing dark meat. Have you seen the Food Lab's comparison of sous vide times/temps for chicken thighs?

You must be planning for another Sunday get together. Hope it's fun.

Kathryn

[Ray]

fzxdoc Hi Kathryn! That's a great link above. I'm going to purchase a sous vide cooker and would like your recommendation.

[Hugh]

This experiment is for cooking dinner after work. I cooked some thighs longer and it seemed to cut down on the red tinge around the bone, and we liked the texture. But it just takes to long from frozen. I saw a discussion that you can cook them at 185 from frozen and you get that well done texture so I will give it a try. Seems like a good time to try cooking with an open bag so wish me luck.

[fzxdoc]

Let us know how it works out for you, Hugh. I understand, cooking from frozen. Takes a loooong time.

Kathryn

[fzxdoc]

Ray , I've only had experience with the Joule, which I really love. I love it for its sleek size, reliability (so far) and for having all the recipes/times/temps built into the app on my cell phone/iPad so that when I'm thinking of sous-vide-ing something it's an easy reference to go to, read, and set the time/temp from. Very slick. Of course I can always go off road with it and manually put in whatever time/temp I want. I'm not sure if all that info is available on the app without a Premium Membership, which I purchased at the same time I bought the Joule.

HTH,
Kathryn

[fzxdoc]

Ray , enjoy your Joule. I love mine. In fact, I have 2 of them and recently bought one for a Xmas gift for my stepdaughter. You won't regret your choice, and you'll fund so many uses for sous vide that you never thought of before. Have fun with your new toy!

Kathryn

[Ray]

fzxdoc Thanks, Kathryn! Happy Thanksgiving to you and the fam!

Ray

[fzxdoc]

Thank you, Ray . Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours as well!

K.

[Potkettleblack]

Ray Joule or Anova. Either way. Doesn't really matter.

Hugh 185 for chicken? Hunh?

https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-time-and-temperature-guide

I can't really find anyone who cooks them up there. Are you trying for a braise like solution with vegetables?

[Hugh]

fzxdoc - it took me awhile to remember where I had seen 185 degrees. It was on my joule app on my phone, screen print is below.

I'm just trying it tonight. Also trying open bag for first time. Any body with thoughts on cooking with an open bag, please chime in.

[GadjetGriller]

I do steak open bag all the time (its fun cause I can plug my fireboard into the steak, then watch the graph as it takes (consistently) 90 min for the steak to hit 130. internally, sorry I digress.) I just clip the open bag to the side of the container and its all good.

[Hugh]

Agreed. I like how it opens up some options. When your cooking from frozen and you have an odd shaped piece of meat it would be nice to be able to quickly probe it and see where your at.

[EdF]

Thermoworks has a probe that is really small and foam tape to go with it so you can leave the probe in the bag to verify internal temp when SV-ing. I bought it, but haven't used it yet. That may say something!

[EdF]

I don't know. Seems like 185 is going to start getting you into confit territory. But I can't speak from experience.

[Hugh]

EdF - I don't have any experience with confit so this is all new to me. The idea just intrigued me and the chicken is cheap.

First problem I've discovered is getting the water up to 185 takes a lonnggg time. I had to use my large container to fit 8 thighs. I've had it in the bath for an hour and 45 minutes and my little Anova has only brought the temp up to 175.

[EdF]

I know that's kind of a standard temp for SV-ing veggies. But I haven't done it yet, so I don't have any experience with the time to temp etc.

[Hugh]

I ended up pulling them when the water was at 180. Internal was 165 so not a successful experiment. Next time I'll cook fewer in a smaller pot and boil water to get to temp right away.

The were nice and juicy but not pull apart tender that I was looking for. Good eating though finished with the broiler and a little Alabama white sauce.

[fzxdoc]

Nice job, Hugh . I've only done veggies at 185°F. My Joule heats the water up pretty quickly before and after the food is put in, but then I've never done a bunch of thighs at that temperature. Your cook looks really good. Dressing those leg quarters with white sauce sounds yummy indeed.

FWIW, Douglas Baldwin sous vides chicken legs at 175°F for 4 to 6 hours.

I like your idea of experimenting with chicken for sous vide methods because it's so cheap.

I use ziploc bags with the displacement method all the time. Works great for me. For the higher temp cooks above 155°F or so I use Foodsaver vacuum bags but I don't vacuum seal them, usually--especially since I killed my last vacuum sealer by sealing moist foods and getting too much moisture into the sealer.

I think the displacement method works great. What did you decide about it?

Kathryn

[Hugh]

I'm finding the displacement method really works for me. I use it for freezing meat as well as cooking. My only issue was cooking at temps over 158 but sans vide seems to have solved that problem.. I've only done two sans vide cooks, but so far so good. Tonight the chicken floated so I just slid some silver ware in the open bag. Ridiculously simple.

[Potkettleblack]

With veggies, you can do the "sans vide" method, and just bag in an unsealed food saver bag, and clip to the side of the pot. If you’re not worried about storage/long term preservation and are doing a short cook, sans vide is a good solution.

[Hugh]

Any concerns cooking sans vide at this temp with ziplocs?

[Potkettleblack]

Ziploc freezers are only rated to 158*. But I use em for corn, because I’m lazy. Have heard of them going catastrophically bad, though.

[Hugh]

So I just did an experiment on my experiment....

I took three of the thighs that were cooked to 165 internal last night and cooked them at 185 for an hour tonight. I am confident in saying they were cooked.

Boiled water in my pot on the stove to get the water up to temp, that was pretty quick.

Used an open Ziploc bag "sans vide" clipped to the side of the pot. Seemed to work pretty slick.

Broiled them AGAIN to get the skin crisp.

The results. Not surprisingly they were dry. But they were edible. With the Alabama sauce I still enjoyed them.

There was about a tablespoon of purge which confuses me. They were juicy last night. If there was no juice left in the meat tonight, shouldn't it of ended up in the bag??

I really liked how the bone joints came apart. That is what I'm looking for.

I am going to try this again with fresh thighs at 185 and only cook them once for an hour to see if they are more juicy.

[fzxdoc]

Keep those experiments coming, Hugh . It's always fun to read about your cooks.

I read somewhere on Chef Steps to expect a lot of purge from chicken cooked at 185°F . Sieve it and make a tasty pan sauce to put on first, then use the white sauce. Sounds crazy but I did that with some top sirloin steaks last week--made a red wine sauce from the filtered purge, spooned it over the sliced steaks, and then put chimichurri sauce on top of that to serve. Super yummy. That's why I'm thinking something similar may work with your chickie leg quarters, a purge sauce and white sauce too.

Kathryn

Edited to Add: I'm too much of a chicken (pun intended) to use ziplocs above 155°F or so. I've read several sad stories about burst ziplocs, plus the solid contents of the burst bag apparently get caught in the sous vide machine so cleaning becomes a challenge. I don't want that to happen on my watch. Some folks use double bag ziplocs, but the idea of displacement is to have as tight a contact as possible between the water and the bagged contents, so adding another bag might interfere with that notion.