Just before Christmas T-bone shared a post doing big beefy ribs via the sous vide-que process. He did a bath at 144* for 24 hours then smoked. I recall several comments offered by Potkettleblack talking about the possibility of doing some at a bath temperature of around 130* for a variety of hours. The lower temperature obviously works toward a medium rare result.
I have never tried beef shorties sous vide but saw the advantages. Instead of experimenting with a rather expensive cut of meat, I took a plate, divided it in half and thought about doing a couple of differing temperatures at varying times. On a whim I checked the old interweb and found that our friends at ChefSteps had already done the work for me.
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Not to go through the entire details of what they discovered at varying temperatures versus time (here is the link if interested, beef short ribs) , I chose the 144* route after thinking I would prefer the 130* option better. At 144* in 48 hours they achieved a steak-like texture that still had a 'to the tooth' bite, but also had the beginnings of some soft shredding. That appealed to my palette.
I decided to just go ahead and do both halves at that 144/48 option. So in the bath they went......
.....at 48 hours I immediately removed them and chilled them in an ice bath for about 10 minutes. It was a Wednesday evening and I knew I had a brisket cooked planned for the weekend so I decided to refrigerate them in their shrink wrapped bags until that time. I pulled them out of the frig on Saturday, unbagged them and re-applied my seasoning....
...as I mentioned I had a brisket cook going at about 250-275* and toward the end of the cook I slapped the ribs on with it. I smoked them to about 150* IT, it took about an hour to get them up to temperature. As T-bone mentions in his post, they came out beautifully. Tender yet steak like (as ChefSteps had described) and still full of juiciness......
Bottom line I'm sold on sous vide-que for shorties. There really is little or no difference between this result and a straight smoke. The advantage is the ability to control precisely the outcome of the initial cook with the smoke finish being the only variable. Thanks T-bone for starting this, perhaps a third try at the 130* mark is in order for final comparison, I agree the higher temperatures are of no interest to me.
KEEP THAT BATH WATER CIRCULATING AND YOUR SMOKE BLUE ..... TROUTMAN OUT !!!
I have never tried beef shorties sous vide but saw the advantages. Instead of experimenting with a rather expensive cut of meat, I took a plate, divided it in half and thought about doing a couple of differing temperatures at varying times. On a whim I checked the old interweb and found that our friends at ChefSteps had already done the work for me.
​Not to go through the entire details of what they discovered at varying temperatures versus time (here is the link if interested, beef short ribs) , I chose the 144* route after thinking I would prefer the 130* option better. At 144* in 48 hours they achieved a steak-like texture that still had a 'to the tooth' bite, but also had the beginnings of some soft shredding. That appealed to my palette.
I decided to just go ahead and do both halves at that 144/48 option. So in the bath they went......
.....at 48 hours I immediately removed them and chilled them in an ice bath for about 10 minutes. It was a Wednesday evening and I knew I had a brisket cooked planned for the weekend so I decided to refrigerate them in their shrink wrapped bags until that time. I pulled them out of the frig on Saturday, unbagged them and re-applied my seasoning....
...as I mentioned I had a brisket cook going at about 250-275* and toward the end of the cook I slapped the ribs on with it. I smoked them to about 150* IT, it took about an hour to get them up to temperature. As T-bone mentions in his post, they came out beautifully. Tender yet steak like (as ChefSteps had described) and still full of juiciness......
Bottom line I'm sold on sous vide-que for shorties. There really is little or no difference between this result and a straight smoke. The advantage is the ability to control precisely the outcome of the initial cook with the smoke finish being the only variable. Thanks T-bone for starting this, perhaps a third try at the 130* mark is in order for final comparison, I agree the higher temperatures are of no interest to me.
KEEP THAT BATH WATER CIRCULATING AND YOUR SMOKE BLUE ..... TROUTMAN OUT !!!
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