Possilby very limited geeky interest .... but I'll have a go!

There's been the odd outbreak of discussion in the past with respect to cooking (or more often eating sous vide) but has anyone else taken the plunge and is cooking sous vide at home?

I'm a very new convert and in my first few days (Sous Vide Supreme) and would be interested in hearing other peoples' experience of what and how they are cooking with this method.

Also how the "technology" has changed (if it has) the way that they organise and think of their cooking and prep and meal planning. For example the combination of vacuum, sous vide, fast chill and hold and how that might effect meal planning etc. The idea of having some pulled pork constantly available for the odd beer and unplanned evening bap of bbq porkiness for example ...........

Any discussion on the topic appreciated to help a newby self educate (or is it medicate?)!

I know that sous vide cooking is done at temperatures very close to the ideal temperature for bacteria to grow.

You really do need to have the professional heating equipment with precise thermostats to avoid food poisoning.

Audrey

I'm currently in the process of building my own 'sous vide' cooker using this guide as a starting point (though I'm going to enclose my tank and provide some insulation). Assuming the temperature is accurate and stable (easy enough to check with a good thermometer), there's no reason why a diy solution isn't usable. Of course, the downside is that the diy solution is ugly and unwieldy ... but hopefully it will serve its purpose of allowing me to try sous vide without much expense.

Thanks - as I said in my post - I own a Sous Vide Supreme. I've tested it using very accurate probes and it is accurate to +/- 0.5 degrees across the whole tank. As you know the plus side of sous vide cooking is that the highly accurate level of cooking temperature produces a much safer product assuming you set the temperature above pasturisation point.


I'm impressed by your efforts - you're far clever than me ... and there are a few other potential challenges which I guess will be a part of your tinkering.

The piece of kit looks like it should do it but your challenge with attempting to make your own is that you will find it difficult to find a way of maintaining a very constant tempetature across the whole tank. If you think of the way a thermostat works it will continue to warm the water once it's "clicked off" and will continue to cool after it's gone the other way. And if you overoook by a few degrees for say 48 hours it will provide a completely different product than what you had intended.

Professional sous vide machines use chips with predictive PIDs with sensors around the tanks which control different zones of the heating elements to ensure the temperature remains very close to the temperature you specified. And it's that degree of accuracy you're trying to acheive to provide the consistency of texture and degree of cooking - and to ensure pasturisation (killing of bad bugs!) required. For example, with steaks you may conclude that the temperature for you is 134.5 - and once you've arrived at that conclusion you'll find that plus or minus a degree makes a highly discernable and irritating difference.

Unless you can produce that level of accuracy it isn't going to provide you with sous vide cooking and will not produce the same results - and might prove dangerous if you fail to reach pasturisation points particularly with poultry for example.

The piece of kit looks like it will come close and if however the tinkering produces that degree of accuracy then clearly it works! I keep mine in a /larder/utility area so the appearance of your box of tricks wouldn't be an issue. I guess you won't know unless you try so good luck with your experiements and share both the results and some of your successful recipes please!

i have a svs in the apartment, i was doing it in ziploc bags using a meat thermometer out of my dorm in college!

some things to keep in mind:

1. sear after cooking, kills surface bacteria
2. cook above 131 (botulinum bacteria thrives below that)
3. if you do cook below 131 i.e. fish, the maximum amount of time you can leave it in there is 4 hours before the bacteria grows (but fish only needs like 15-30 minutes anyway)

SV in the dorm!?

Currently preparing salt beef for Christmas.

Had some extraordinary pulled pork this week. I was stunned to see that when I drained it and let the juices cool - not a single drop of fat was lost in a 3 day sv.

Sea bass today.

No one else yet - sous-viding?!

Ah well....

Tremendous joy ....everything this weekend at 140 degrees'ish.

Today, trout with tarragon butter and lemon and parsley ...... 1 hour at 140. Joined by Jersey Royals in butter and parsley and a little stir fry with beansprout pointed cabbage carrot and ginger and light soy.

Already in for Sunday pork belly with 5 spice for around 50 hours or so .... then a honey char siu type final crisping with thai rice and stir fry.

Tommorow air dried rib-eye beef. I guess around 12 hours at 138'ish and then skilleted.

Anyone else out there immersed in the bath?

Been thinking of trying it.

But I fear that I'd go for the pro setup with some expensive machine, then abandon it out of boredom, and have another piece of cooking equipment taking up space when I move on to something else (my storage locker in Crooklyn is full of these).

I still don't get it.

Can someone explain why Sous Vide is different from Boiling Bags??

No boiling mate. It's all about temp control... 134F for steak is ideal, for example.

So, basically a perfectly steamed steak with no exterior char? I'd give it a shot as I will most anything, but it sounds absolutely disgusting for meats of any kind.

Let's take steak as an example.

What you are trying to do when you cook a steak either on a skillet, pan or bbq is cook it to your chosen degree of doneness. There are several problems and challenges that conspire to prevent this.

One is that the temp is difficult to guage even for experienced cooks even when assisted by a fast temperature probe. Secondly the steak will be cooked to different degrees throughout it's thickness. Thirdly the steak continues to cook whilst you rest it. Fouthly the cooking process causes the sinews to toughen so it toughens meat. etc etc.

What sous vide does is to gently cook your meat to exactly the right temperature to the degree and hold it there. It will hold it there for 24 hours if you wish and it will not detriorate. This means you are not cooking the accompniments to the time when the steak is perfect - because the steak will wait until everythign else is ready. This is really good when entertaining because the food is always ready whenever you want it to be.

When you "finish" the steak you put it into a searing skillet with butter/oil to caremelise the outside. Sous vide also has the effect of improving the meat so that (to my taste) it gives the steak of a softer wagyu consistency. You can't make poor meat good - but it really does seem to soften all steaks I've cooked - although I do prefer air developed rib-eye.

A side benefit is that the process by which you make meat safe to eat is a combination of time and temperature. This means that you can safely prepare chicken, turkey, pork etc to a more juicy consistency as long as you cook it (pasteurise it) for long enough. This is strange because you can safely eat pink chicken which is contra instinct!

No hard work or science cooking sous vide - the sous vide comes with very precise temperatures and minimum cooking times for every protein you will cook. Basically it means that all your proteins cooking will be better and consistently better - in other words your protein cooking will ALWAYS be perfect.

In terms of usage. I think it's important not to see it as an every day thing. Once the novely wears off - I do not use it all the time. I'll have weeks when it's not used and then a weekend where salmon will go in one day (absolutely perfect fish like you have never tasted) then steaks followed by a two or three day pork belly. The pork belly is finished under a grill to produce crackling and then painted with a honey, chilli, sugary spicey top and regrilled. So you end up with very juicy soft pork with a crispy skin with gorgeous soft fat. Something I find impossible any other way.

I'd say it's for serious cooks rather than the "everyday" kitchen.

I will add this, along to what (the obviously knowledgeable) uk1 said:

With steak (or any meat, if you so desire), once the cooking process is done, you can sear the outside of your cuts on a grill, or a pan, or even in a broiler, to get that "char" on the outside. The trick is to get all of the benefits that uk1 talked about, but to also get the char (if you want it).

So it's not really disgusting, the way you put it. And believe me, that's what I thought at first too. Boiled meat? BLAAAAH! But it's not that.

I look forward to trying it one day. I've always enjoyed having my meat or fish cooked to varying levels of doneness throughout. Major part of the appeal. Hence the skepticism.

You may well have eaten it without knowing it. For example Heston Blumenthal states that ALL proteins in his restaurant are cooked this way.

I also think you're unusual in that most people imho would prefer not to have burnt and done bits and other bits rare or even raw - but would prefer consistency all the way through ie if they want rare - they want it all rare.

The only way you would be able to tell that a steak had been prepared sous vide and seared is that the steak would be "perfect" ie the extraordinary texture of the meat with toughness virtually removed and both the inside would be the same colour and degree of doneness from just under the surface to the center - something theoretically impossible to do by cooking any other way eg