Quick sous vide question

Cafe Society
1

I got 2 nice steaks on sale for dinner tonight. My wife likes her steak medium, I prefer the rare side of medium rare. Any reason this plan wouldn’t work?

Set the sous vide to temperature for medium.
Toss her steak in for an hour.
Set the sous vide down to temp for rare - medium rare.
Add some cold water to get it down quickly.
When it’s at the right temp, toss my steak in for an hour.

Remove, sear as normal, serve.

So the upshot her steak would be in for 2 hours, 1 hour at medium to cook it the way she likes, 1 hour at med-rare to keep it warm before serving. Should be no problem, right?

2

I’d say keep them both down to rare temperature, then sear, and put her steak in 350°F oven until it reached medium rare temp. You might want yours in the oven too for a minute if searing doesn’t raise the internal temperature sufficiently. Keep a note of the temperatures and times so you can adjust for the next time. I lost patience with sous vide, but it does help getting meat to just the right doneness repeatedly.

3

I agree, especially since the temp difference is relatively minor compared to, say, steak & chicken. Use the sear/oven finish to bring the remainder of the way as needed.

4

I prefer reverse searing (forward searing? I can never remember), because it keeps the sear from taking it over temperature. This really helps with thinner cuts.

  1. Sear both
  2. Set temp to 135F, put in the medium one for an hour
  3. Drop the temperature to 129F
  4. Put in the medium rare one for an hour

Make sure each cooks for no less than 1 hour, and no more than 4 hours, but less time if thinner or tenderloins.

5

I was also going to recommend the reverse sear- mostly because it dries out the surface of the steak as part of the cooking process, giving you a better sear than you get with sous vide.

But I think you’ve got the reverse sear backward- it’s the technique where you basically cook it low and slow in an oven set super low, then sear it in a pan or on a grill.

Reverse-Seared Steak Recipe (seriouseats.com)

An advantage you have in this situation is that you can just start your steak later than your wife’s, without having to fool with temperature, etc… (the article I posted has time/temp tables).

6

So I ignored everyone’s advice and went ahead with my stated plan, and it worked great. I didn’t want to use the oven, because I was using it for other things, and I really liked the foolproofness of sous vide. I may try echoreply’s method next time, sear before sous vide - though does that produce a soggy crust?