Hey all. I got kind of way into sous vide in the last year or so. I love it, and it’s changed my entire relationship with meats. I’d love to discuss sous vide techniques and tricks in general, but I also have a question:
What do you reckon the maximum cook time is for a strip steak? We got a pack of NY strips from Sam’s and they are LOUSY with connective tissue. The first batch were borderline uneatable, and I cooked them 134F for just around 2 hours. For the last two in the pack, I’m thinking of cooking them for maybe 4-6 hours @127F.
Now, I’ve done round steaks over night and chuck roasts for 3 full days. But I’ve never cooked a reasonable steak cut for more than 3 hours. I’m hoping to break down some connective tissue so they are more tender. I read online not to cook a “tender” cut more than 4 hours, but while NY strip is a tender cut in theory, this particular batch is not tender.
Any thoughts? Six hours at a low temp going to make a mushy meat slurry?
Plan B might be to just dice them up and call it stew meat.
How thick are they? The usual rule of thumb is one hour per inch of thickness, adding 50% if frozen. I’ve never tried to “redeem” poor quality meat with SV, but I did recently cook a tri-tip roast from frozen for about seven hours, then seared on the grill, and it was about 2" thick. No problems at all with texture.
Oh my friend, there’s a lot of fun and experimentation to be had. One of the attributes I like about sous vide is the ability to cook for longer times without ever overcooking, which allows further breakdown of collagen and connective tissues. A three day chuck roast is fork tender and fantastic. Same with round (steaks and roasts). One of our favorites is sirloin fajitas (the Ms. doesn’t like sirloins for steaks but if I cook them long enough and cut them into fajita meat, she loves them).
You can’t turn a bad steak into a fillet, but you can vast, *vastly *improve on the tenderness and break down the chewy connective gunk.
I’ve heard that sous vide was never meant to cook the life out of things, but was supposed to have precise cook times to achieve a more consistent internal temperature, and not to hold it there. It was market to the US with those longer times as a easy way to cook.
If you cook that in any method for longer then needed it will tenderize it, but that’s what stews do and what you will need to do with that horse meat you have. No need to go sous vide however, there re many easier ways to do that.
I sous-vide. This sounds more like a problem with the steaks than with the method. Strip steaks are in the top 3 for steak cuts. While I know different people have different tastes, I find steak cuts do not improve the longer they sit in the water bath. I’ve had gristly cuts, and no amount of sous-vide is going to cure gristle. That sh*t will be as inedible at 8 hours as it is at 2. To answer your question, no more than an hour or two after the steak has reached temp.
My brother likes to cook and barbeque, so I was thinking of getting him a sous vide device for Christmas. One of them that gets good reviews is only about a hundred bucks and it’s small enough to store easily.
One question, though. Isn’t it necessary to put the food in a sealed bag? Is that a pain?
Sealed bag - yes. Vacuum-sealed bag - no. I go through a lot of vacuum bags and ziploc bags. But it isn’t a pain. Are you looking at the Joule? That’s the one I use, probably the smallest footprint. Another item to consider is a container large enough to hold whatever food one wishes to cook sous-vide. They’re not terribly expensive, but they take up room.
If you don’t have a vacuum-sealer, you’ll want to use gallon-size plastic bags with a zipper lock. Once you put whatever you’re cooking in the bag, close it almost all the way, then immerse it in water up to the top, squeeze as much air out of the bag as you can, and then close the zipper the rest of the way.
The site I read recommended the Anova Precision Cooker Nano, which is about $100. And for the container, I assume he has a large pot or stockpot, which can be used for other things.
I’d suggest you try an experiment: one steak for 8 to 10 hours hours at maybe 125F? (depending on you final doneness target) then finish it off with a sear. Then have another steak in a bag at the same time and leave that for a few hours longer.
The longest I’ve personally seen anything in was at a friends house last year, (the guy who got me into sous vide). He did pork ribs with homemade marinade in the bag for 36 hours. They were the best ribs I’ve ever had in my life, and I consider myself to be somewhat of a rib connoisseur.
I use straight ziploc bags and my “go-to” container is an old Coleman cooler, cooking everything in the garage.
Well, to follow up, I cooked the steaks for a little under 7 hours at 130F, and they sucked. It wasn’t the cook, it was the meat. I have no idea how strip steaks could be that tough and weird…the texture was just…stiff. The fat-cap was where it should be and they looked right, but it felt like the cut was wrong for the grain.
No idea what that’s about, but the dogs are really happy.
As for buying in to sous vide:
I have the wifi model of Anova ($150) and recommend Anova as a brand, but not this high-end model. I can’t get the wifi to work at all and bluetooth only works if you’re very near it. I don’t see any reason to remote control your cooker, so any cheap sous vide unit (Joule or Anova) should be great. The only consideration is heat/power output and how many people/cuts of protein you can cook at a time in a single bath. For a family of four or more you might need a higher power unit. I’ve had to loan mine to the BIL who has one, too in order to cook steaks for a gathering of 8. One couldn’t cook all of them evenly due to power output.
For the bags, they make reusable washable bags that come with a small pump pretty cheap on Amazon. I haven’t tried them but expect them for Christmas and hope they work well.
I use Ziploc or Glade brand freezer bags (store-brand bags have constantly sprung leaks) and it works perfectly, except for some guilt about the plastic waste. Actually a lot of guilt.
We started out in a stock pot but eventually found having a dedicated 10 liter bin so incredibly handy and nice. It’s also nice because it has an Anova-friendly lid (with a hole for the unit to fit) so for 3-day cooks you don’t have to deal with evaporation water loss.
There is a “sous vide bible” that has tables for pasteurization rates/temps/times that helps figure out how cool you can cook for how long without risk of food-borne illness. I’ve mentioned a 72 hour roast cook I do often that is phenomenal, and for the most part you just have to pay attention to “use or freeze by” dates. Same goes for a 3-day rib cook (man that was a home-run). I’ve heard of even longer baths but I’ve not found a really necessary reason to.
ETA: Personally, 127.5F for 2 hours is my *jam *when it comes to steaks. I don’t know why the .5 matters, but everyone I’ve made them for loves them and I’ve winnowed the process down to a pretty fine art.
I’m not familiar with that document, but a career in the food industry has drilled into my mind the “danger zone” of 41-135 degrees which is ideal for bacterial growth, and that 70-135 for longer than four hours is especially problematic. I imagine that cooking at 125 for an hour or two followed by a sear would probably be alright, but going lower than 135 for more than four hours just strikes me as unsafe.
I have one, and have for around a decade or so. Yes they are amazing for getting a steak to a consistent temp so all you need to do is a sear, and they are amazing for ribs/country style ribs/corned beef.
I also make egg custard in mine - make the custard mixture for a classic baked egg custard, set the temp for 165 F and the timer for 4 hours. Pour the egg mix into standard wide mouthed 12 oz jelly jars, screw the lids on finger tight and stack in the cold water, it will hit 165 fairly quickly if you are using room temp ingredients and be perfect and canned by the time 4 hours is up. I like my egg custard cold, so I just pop the sealed jars in the fridge. Supposedly, at that temp for that time, they are actually hot water bath pressure canned and shelf safe, but as I said, I like mine ice cold. This was one of my go to meals on chemo. I have seen but can’t find a link for making yogurt in a sous vide in half gallon mason jars, but it would probably be simple - set the temp to 100, and add culture to milk, jar and bath overnight.
@Smapti - I can’t say, I don’t have food training and I’m a novice at sous vide. Maybe the length of time would be an issue.
I suggested that because 125F is the internal temp for a “rare” steak & what I usually cook to. Any errors on the sear afterward would start to move you into a medium-rare, then a medium level steak which the OP may not want.
Sous vide works great for mashing smaller batches of beer with exact temperatures and rests. I have a 4 gallon pot I use that can handle up to 8# of grain, or a larger converted cooler (I drilled a hole in the lid that the sous vide slides into).
I find sous vide is great for steaks. Figure out the internal temperature you like, figure out how long you like to finish it in a cast iron pan or blow torch it, and pretty much every time it comes out nicely. Super experienced grillers maybe can do it better consistently. My wife is an example of someone that thinks they can cook a steak, but the results are completely random with 1 out of 10 tries really nice, a couple that are good, and at least have the time raw or shoe leather. Since I’m the one that discovered sous vide and she is the “chef” in the house, she refuses to use it.
I need to try rack of lamb, and a decent sized pork shoulder (I’ve tried but probably the temperature was too low), oxtail soup, [dry aged steak with koji rice. Salmon is nice.
Often afficianado sites try to sous vide everything, and IMHO it’s not great for things like veggies.
For the sealed bags. YOu can seal a ziplock almost the whole way and then do the dip in water thing. I’m lazy, I just suck the air out with my mouth and seal. It is enough of a seal so it doesn’t float.](Sous Vide KOJI RICE Experiment - Dry Aging in 48hrs - Does it WORK? - YouTube)
IMHO, most sous vide afficinado sites claim that EVERYTHING is better sous vide. a lot of veggies turn to baby mush. .
My soon to be ex wife won’t be taking the Anova, so I’ll be cooking a lot more moving forward.