After liberating the sous vide unit I got mom for Christmas I decided to get various meats to play around with. I got some frozen chicken, boneless breasts and thighs, some frozen tilapia and some fresh bottom round steaks (since they were pretty cheap, and I want to test the limits of sous vide).
I already made some chicken, it turned out pretty good at 146 degrees for 2 hours (I put them in frozen), and seasoned them with cajun powder before vacuum sealing. They weren’t super juicy though. Not sure if that’s due to them being regularly inexpensive frozen pieces or if it was because the cajun pre-seasoning. I’m not too worried about that though. I have 10 pounds of chicken to experiment on, though any tips there would be much appreciated.
I’m mainly concerned with cooking these bottom round steaks. When I searched google for the best way to sous vide bottom round steaks mostly what I saw looked like big roasts chunks of meat. But the steaks I have are cut similar to how you’d see a t-bone cut, maybe an inch or bigger thick. But not huge roasts. What would be the best way too sous vide these to eat them like a steak?
And if anyone is on the fence about getting a sous vide, I’d strongly recommend going for it! The device I got mom was 200 bucks. Other than that all you need are a vacuum sealer and a container big enough to hold your sous vide device and whatever you’re cooking. We used it to make t-bones a few weeks ago, just basic grocery store t-bones, nothing fancy. We cooked them for an hour at 134 or so degrees (if memory serves), then pan seared them on a skillet. They were excellent, perfectly medium rare from the center to the seared crust. And it could not have been any easier or fool proof!
I did a piece of round roast two weeks ago. I believe it was bottom, but don’t remember for sure. Seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic then cooked at 140 for three days.
It was tender and tasted good, but dry. I believe because it was so lean with virtually no fat or collagen.
I’ve done chuck roast the same way and It was very juicy like good rib roast.
I do bottom round for french dips quite a bit. For a roast, I go for about 18-24 hours at 126 or so for medium-rare to rare.
Steaks will be much faster. Assuming you like medium-rarish and 1-1.5" steaks I’d do it at the same temp for maybe 4 hours. Take notes, adjust as needed, but my guess is that would be a good starting point.
I’ve done the exact same thing as GaryM. The problem with bottom round is that no matter what you do it doesn’t have much flavor compared to all the other cuts. The best I’ve been able to do is to cook them at 61C (~142F) for 72 hours and then either make a gravy from the liquid left in the bag or slice it thin for sandwiches.
For bottom round cuts the thickness doesn’t matter much since you cook them so long anyway.
I think you guys who are not getting great results on the bottom round are doing it for too long at too hot of a temperature. I started out doing it for 36 hours or so, but was not happy with the texture at that point. 18 hours or so is plenty.
And 140 is too hot, unless you are very opposed to any pink in the meat.
Mine turns out tender and very flavorful. It’s my go-to cut for sandwiches and such.
For multi-hour cooks, it takes basically the same amount of time whether it’s roasts or steaks. The internals get up to temp within an hour and the same chemical processes are going on identically after that.
Personally, I’ve never had any luck with round in any application.
Thanks for the input, all! I think I’ll try Athena’s method first, hopefully I’ll get it started tonight.
As for my chicken, keeping in mind they were frozen boneless, skinless thighs and breasts from Sam’s Club…I did them for 2 hours at 146 (from frozen) and seasoned them with cajun powder on each side before vacuum sealing them. and while they were very tasty, they seemed a bit dry. My current theory is that it’s the seasoning’s fault. But might it be the chicken’s not so great to begin with? Or maybe my temperature was too high? I got 146 from more than one source though.
Anyway, i’m loving the sous vide so far. It’s a great tool for someone like me who can’t cook! I can only imagine what a real could do with it.
Er, what? In all my reading on sous-vide, I’ve never read anything to suggest that timing isn’t a matter of thickness, and my own experience has been the same. A 4" thick roast is going to need more time than a 1" thick steak. Example [here](http://www.sousvidesupreme.com/en-
us/sousvide_cookingtemperatures.htm), second chart.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying?
Anyway, I like the bottom round, and JUST the bottom round. I’ve tried other round steaks without much luck.
Try doing chicken at 140 or so. I’m not a big fan of chicken breasts in general, but they actually turn out pretty good sous-vide. This is an interesting experiment with chicken breast as well.
Yeah, I did use the juice from the bag to make gravy, and that part was good. We made open face sandwiches with the leftovers.
The book, Baldwin’s Sous Vide for the Home Cook, that came with my unit has a receipe for pork shoulder that calls for slicing about 1.5" thick and brining overnight, then cooking in individual bags at 175 for 8-12 hours.
I’ve cooked them at different times from 55C-61C. I’ve found that when I cook much below 61C they start getting tough and/or stringy; i.e. not all the collagen melts.
I think what Shalmanese is saying is that once you start cooking for a long time (e.g. longer than 10 hours) then the thickness of the meat doesn’t really matter because the internal temp of the meat reaches the desired temperature after a few hours.
There are two times, time to temp and time to tenderization. Time to temp is affected by thickness but time to tenderization is not. For tender cuts, time to tenderization is basically 0 so you follow time to temp guides. For tough cuts, time to tenderization is usually 12+ hours so time to temp becomes inconsequential.
Note, also that it’s recommended that you portion sous vide meats before you cook since thick roasts take too long to get up to temp and can become bacteriologically unsafe.
Something I like to do if I am going to do if I am cooking a cut of meat to eat like a stake is after cooking the meat for about 12 hours sous vide, I heat up my grill to a really high temp and sear the meat. It’s pretty cool because it really turns out looking as good as the stake in pictures on restaurant menus. perfectly cooked with perfect grille lines.
Also to avoid dry meat, just stop cooking lean meat! it’s not any more complicated than that. For chicken, either get boneless leg meat or try cooking the breasts with the skin still on. Basically, the more fat in the meat, the better.
Hey, I don’t have a sous-vide, but I looked it up on my favorite cooking site, and the first thread had a good recommend for what to do with bottom round. It’s a few posts down, username “zackly”:
I spent about $50 to buy all the parts for a temperature controller that will allow me to use a crockpot or similar appliance for sous vide, but haven’t gotten around to putting it together yet.
You’ve inspired me to move forward. I’ll be getting out the soldering iron and Dremel over the weekend.
I got a bit delayed in starting this. With the 1 inch or so bottom rounds I should try 4 hours? Or should I go with the 18 or so timing? It seems, to me, like no matter the size of the meat, if you’re hitting 4-8 plus hours of cook time it’s to get the meat to slow cook and break the connective tissues down.
If you want to be sold on it, start small. Sous vide some grocery store, normal quality t-bones. Season them however you like, vacuum seal them up and cook them to your liking*. When done, sear them. It’s so good that you’ll want to see how much better higher grade steaks might be.
*By searching how long it takes to get the cut of beef to the temperature you prefer.
I went with 126 degrees for about 4.5 hours. I first salted and peppered them before vacuum sealing. While the meat was pretty tough, it was tasty as hell. And when cut thin the toughness was as big an issue. I have 2 more all ready to go in the freezer. Next time I’m going to go for 12-18 hours just to see the difference.
Tomorrow, however, I’m off to the butcher for either porterhouse steaks, or possibly lamb chops. It’s so easy to cook meat to perfection now. For the first time ever I’m excited to cook stuff!