Been resistant and a skeptic for a while. I have read many post about Sous Vide uses and results but stayed away. That's about to change, my youngest Daughter gave me a Breville Joule Sous Vide, 1100 Watts, white body, stainless steel cap & base plus a hard case for Breville Joule Sous Vide. Damn this site!More toys!
I think you are going to like it. Simple stuff like asparagus and corn on the cob are over the top, and I use it to make turkey breast for sandwiches regularly.
I too resisted for a long time. I am not bashing or promoting it either way... I've not gone deep into doing anything fancy with it yet...
Love it for: When I am getting close to use by date (or find those yellow label sales at Wal-Mart) but can't cook it for a couple of days... Take it home... put it in the hot tub time machine, and buy myself a couple of days until I can get it on the grill....
Love it for: Winter and poor weather cooking... Not going to lie... I don't like standing in a monsoon or blizzard trying to grill something... I'm just not that hardcore.... Hello SV and Torch in those situations.
Dislike: Wasted Resources: more plastic bags (although you can buy reusables) etc...
Dislike: More cleanup. Now I have to clean and dry my container and circulator (I have a pretty bad hardwater problem)
Dislike: Takes up space. I have very limited counter space and no other good place to put it in the house... 3-4 hours not bad... 3 day SV... not convenient.
Dislike: Electricity... not sure but I swear it causes pulsing in my lights in one room... hmmmm
Dislike: Requires planning if you want to use it.... You have to reverse engineer your cook from hours to days depending on what you are doing.
Dislike: Takes a bit more research to figure out time and temp etc...
Neutral: I haven't yet been able to discern a large difference in steaks (which have been 90% of what I have used the SV for)… but I'm still learning.
Still I like having tools and this is a tool that has its place and purpose... right tool for the right job makes life better... I don't regret having it... in fact my wife just got me some Christmas presents for my SV setup.
binarypaladin , interesting... however being that I only have one bathing location in my house it could become problematic after a day or two... although it may be a good way to get my wife to finally decide on buying or building a new house... or adding on to ours.... "Honey, somebody in the pit told me to put the SV container in the bathtub for long cooks.... so we need a new house!" She was embarrassed to tell people I cooked a chuck roast on the floor in our Livingroom for 3 days. lol
Karon Adams Consort of the Flame Cooking is a Sacred Endeavour
Big Poppa's Drum conversion
Maverick wireless meat & grill thermometers
Thermopen Instant Read Thermometer
Pit IQ blower
Wait until you startma king Pot du Creme (and every other custard) in 4 oz jelly jars....
and Yogurt
and if you vacuum bag your BBQ as soon as it is cool enough to do so, reheating in the sous vide is 99.95% the flavor of fresh off the smoke.
and all frozen soups and stews,
and pasteurizing eggs
and gummies
and pate
....
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.
.
.
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and fish.
if your dog likes fish
cause fish always tastes like.....fish
SV is a great tool. Like all tools, it shouldn't be used for everything. It has some things that it excels at, some it's OK at and a few that it's just not meant for.
Most of the things it excels at, IMO, are those where cooking to a precise temp is really helpful for getting the right result. Want eggs where the whites are set and the yolk is custardy? You can do that. Want carrots that tasty intensely of carrot? SV carrots are eye opening. Want really moist chicken that's still completely done? Do chicken breast at 155F.
The duck confit I've got going is another example. I don't have duck fat around and I don't really want to make tons of confit at a time. But I wanted some for NY Eve, so I have two legs in the water bath now. They'll be done in about 24 hours. This works because the legs render their own fat which they cook in since it can't escape.
Some things, like steak, are just preference. You don't get the gradation from a well done band on the outside fading to a medium band and then medium rare inside. You can kind of fake it (cook a little shy of the doneness you want and sear for longer each side) but for people who rarely cook steak, it's a godsend if they decide to grab some prime grade ribeyes... they at least won't screw them up. But for people who are good at judging doneness? Eh. (Though you CAN SV a steak from the freezer so it can be great if you forgot to defrost something for dinner and it's an hour from eating time.)
Last edited by rickgregory; December 26, 2019, 07:32 PM.
I came here on the opposite route. I was big into sous-vide and moved into grilling and smoking after the fact.
I sous-vide way less than I used to. When I was a relative n00b to cooking, sous-vide made me look like some kind of sorcerer. Cast iron + sous-vide = near perfect steaks with virtually no practice or particular skill.
Over the past year or two though, I've learned that while sous-vide is very convenient, I almost never like the results as much as other methods—at least in the meat department.
It's super cool for things like yogurt and custard. It's the best way, but far, to do soft-boiled eggs. Chicken breasts can be done to a level of juiciness that you cannot get anywhere else. Another thing that is really nice is being able to hold food for longer periods of time. When cooking multiple dishes for fancy meals and parties, you can prep something for sous-vide first, throw it in, work on other stuff, and not worry about overcooking. I smoked a goose for Christmas Eve and also did a few racks of lamb. The lamb went into the water bath after I put the goose on and I just didn't have to worry about trying to time anything around anything else.
As has been mentioned above, reheating vacuum sealed frozen foods is super awesome. If you're busy you can prep tons of food, toss it in the freezer, and have a lot of homemade MREs, haha. (I often sous-vide things in the bags they were frozen in from the store. A lot of people do not recommend this but... convenience wins the day a lot with me!)
The bags really bother me. I really wish there were decent reusable options, but in general that's not the case. I have a few silicon bags but they're small, don't work as well, don't seal as well, and are a pain to clean.
Nothing more than another heat application tool. Difference is it can run low enough to make your doneness target a non-moving target.
Useful mainly for controlling schedule. Also for pasteurizing all kinds of things (eggs can be pasteurized but behave otherwise as normal for applications, medium rare burgers etc ). Can be used to achieve tenderness in tough cuts at low temperatures.
Eggs pasteurized at 132F are very slightly cloudy on the edges of the white but otherwise behave as if raw, except for the salmonella risk. Cool trick.
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