Heya. I've watched this thread on and off over the years but couldn't quite get myself motivated enough to try it. Lately I've been reading a lot of food writing, including the "Momofuku" cookbook by David Chang. In it, he described a 'ghetto sous vide' which essentially called for using hot tap water in a bowl.

OK, so I didn't go quite that low tech. I have one of those big Nesco roaster ovens and a couple of different probe thermometers. With some experimenting, I realized I could maintain the water temp to within a few degrees with very little babysitting. (I wouldn't attempt this when I wasn't home.)

So, I Foodsaver'd two strip steaks that were maybe 3/4" thick. I held them at about 125-129 for an hour or so. Then icebath. And this is where I think I screwed up--I didn't leave them in the icebath for very long.

I then seared them in hot pan for about 60 seconds a side.

When I cut into them, they were what I considered to be overcooked (more towards medium than medium rare), but very very tasty, so I'm definitely going to try again. Just curious if anyone has any troubleshooting tips for my doneness. Possible thoughts:

--My thermometers were wrong (I used one digital probe thermometer and one instant-read meat thermo, both showed me just under 130 most of the time)

--Icebath not long enough (I've seen 20 minutes elsewhere)?

--60 seconds too long in pan for what were pretty thin steaks?

Thanks in advance. I want to try this next.

http://momofukufor2.com/2010/04/ghe...ger-steak-saam/

I've never used an ice bath for a steak. Why would you? I went right from the sous vide to a hot pan for a sear. The only time I use an ice bath is when I want to halt cooking immediately (like with eggs) which isn't necessary for a steak. You can cook it for a long time and as long as you don't exceed the target internal temperature it isn't going to get more done.

I tried a cheap roaster from Walmart once and the temperature varied wildly at different spots in the roaster.

If the steaks were super thin, that might account for the issue.

I got lazy with steaks and skipped the searing part and felt like I never really needed it.

Not actually sure, just saw it mentioned in several places to 'stop the cooking'.

It's on a lot of random blogs if you google 'steak sous vide recipe' kinda search, and was in that cookbook I mentioned.

e.g.

http://www.justincancook.com/2010/1...-sous-vide.html

"After the hour, I dropped the bag into an ice bath to stop the cooking."

I have to admit, it doesn't make too much sense to me, but I thought maybe it had something to do with preventing overcooking when you do the sear.

I've never used an ice bath, either. I usually sear, but sometimes I skip that.

My personal opinion is that the temperatures given in the charts are too high. If I sous vide beef at 140 as indicated to reach medium, I will have well-done beef, not medium. I have a Sous Vide Supreme and a Thermapen, and they are within a degree of each other, so I feel pretty confident the temperature of the water is accurate. I thought maybe the discrepancy between the charts and my results might be due to altitude (I live at high altitude). But if you're experiencing the same thing...

Like Nancy and Carolyn, I also got to the point where I don't pan sear the steaks anymore. It's just one more step and more dirty dishes, lol. I do think the steaks look slightly nicer after searing, but not enough to make me want to consistently do it for family use. Also, I find it time-intensive right when I need to be getting the rest of the food onto the table piping-hot.

I don't think I've ever heard about the ice bath.

The article you linked just said to use the water bath if you were not going to eat the steak right away. Steak is one thing you can cook for hours and hours and it just gets more tender so I can't understand the logic behind "stopping cooking" before the ice bath.

The nice thing about sous vide is you don't have to worry about overcooking. Lots of recipes are cooked for well over 24 hours and never use a ice bath. You take it out when you're ready to eat. Basically once a protein reaches an internal temperature it won't go beyond that or get overcooked.

Eggs and seafood are the exception.

The only time I'd use an ice bath is if I were going to refrigerate it later. That just cools it down faster and doesn't get your fridge hot.

I like my steak at around 135' which is medium-rare. It took me a few times to figure out exactly what temperature I liked best.

Hmm, I keep looking but I can't find what you mean, granted my reading comprehension skills are worsening with age. I just see this:

"After the hour, I dropped the bag into an ice bath to stop the cooking. After drying the outside of the steak with a few paper towels, I put it in a super-hot skillet for about 90 seconds per side."

He doesn't seem to say anything about setting them aside.

This is kind of neither here nor there--the icebath never made much sense to me (although it does if you don't want to eat/sear them right away), and I'm definitely fine with dispensing with it all together; it just came up in my first several google hits.

I think on next attempt I would ignore the whole icebath question and just try about five degrees lower on maintained water temp. I can see myself not caring about the sear eventually, but for now it seems to be a psychological necessity.

I was surprised my Nesco roaster would hold a temp so close (I filled it with as much water as I could, hoping the extra mass would make it somewhat less prone to temp swings). I did expect it to be all over the place. Possibly I got lucky with this unit? Don't know.

Thanks for responses, and thanks, Nancy, for keeping up with this thread for so long. When I ran across that recipe in the Momofuku cookbook, I immediately thought of you.

LOL! Beats me. I thought it said that. Hmmm... what did I read?


Try moving the temperature probe around and see if it varies. My roaster was wildly different. In some spots it'd be boiling and in others it'd register 140'.

My Nesco roaster is still shockingly good at holding a temp within a degree (no matter where the probe is).

Wanted to touch on the ice bath thing I mentioned a few posts above...I'm reading Thomas Keller's sous vide book from 2009 (Under Pressure) and in the intro he really really hammers on the importance of putting meat into an icebath after the sous vide, mainly for safety reasons (but also texture?). Not just refrigeration, immediate icebath. Of course, he's also saying the maximum you should sous vide anything under 140F is four hours (again for safety reasons) and yet I see people all over the internet talking about cooking cheap cuts of meat at <140F for *days*. Pretty confused right now. Generally I don't have a lot of food anxiety (I like steak tartare, for example), but Keller goes so far as to say that anything held in the 'danger zone' (40F-140F) for more than four hours should just be thrown away.

(I don't necessarily anticipate doing a lot of long-term sous vide but the idea of making cheap cuts of meat more tender without braising was appealing.)

I'm pretty behind the curve on this whole trend, so I'm sure this conversation has been had many times elsewhere.

EDITED TO ADD: Indeed, I just found a *4000-post long sous vide thread* on egullet ranging from 2004 to 2010. I imagine I'm about to absorb way more info on this topic than my poor brain is prepared for.

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/116...hl__sous%20vide

The thread is so long there's an index here.

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/136274-sous-vide-index/

Well, Keller's book is kind of old. It was one of the earliest that came out. Douglas Baldwin did all sorts of research on food safety and pasteurization. Try googling for his stuff. It should be available in a PDF.

In a nutshell, lower temperatures are fine as long as the duration is long enough.

Yeah, Egullet is a good resource.

I wanted to point out another use for sous vide: Fermenting.

I wanted to make some creme fraiche, but the house is kind of cold so I knew it would take forever. So I stuck my jars in the sous vide and turned the temperature to 85'. It did separate a little, so I'm trying a new batch for gifts and setting it down to 80' and not leaving it so long. I'll check it before dinner tonight.

BTW: It tastes delish despite the slight separation. I'm going to serve it on Pear Clafoutis for NY Eves.

All right... this technique is definitely wonderful. My 2nd batch of creme fraiche was done in about 8 hours.

So I got a sous vide controller unit for Christmas (one of the ones with an industrial probe thermo that just cuts the power to your existing appliance on and off). This enables me to try longer cooking times.

So far I've done:

1) Tons and tons of poached eggs. So awesome for this. Still tinkering with timing and temperature.

2) Strip steaks--meh, I can make these better in a hot pan.

3) Lobster tails sealed in bag with butter and SV for about 40 minutes at 144 (I think, don't quote me)--best lobster I've personally cooked. Also did a small piece of tenderloin, it was also very very good due to perfect evenness of cooking.

4) Chuckeye steaks--24 hours at 130 degrees. It was kind of meh--the texture was great, but it still had that slightly greasy pot roast flavor. The mouthfeel was steak, the brain still knew you were eating what should have been made into pot roast.

Going to read back through this thread now. eGullet is still overwhelming and a lot of times it's stuff I'm not interested in (ribs cooked for days and such).

Very nice! When you get a chance, try a lemon egg custard.

Eggs, lemon juice, sweetener in a ziplock baggie after blending well. Get out as much air as possible and weight it down.

Cook at 160 for 15 minutes or so. Don't overcook!

Okay, I've read 30 pages of this thread hoping to find answers, but I think I just need direct troubleshooting help.

I also think I've confused myself with too much information from too many sources, including traditional cookbooks, including ones with 'ghetto' SV, and lots of eGullet forum reading. As well as so many inconclusive blog entries. "I did this [random SV recipe]...it was okay. Next time I'll do it differently."

I attempted some flank steak. These were about 1/2" to 3/4" thick, at most. I marinated them in a fairly typical marinade (acid/soy sauce/garlic) for 24 hours, then SV for 45 minutes at 122. (I like my meat pretty rare and I keep feeling like it's coming out overdone from the SV for my taste.) Extremely fast sear (30 seconds/side) in a very hot pan. End result? It was almost too tough to cut.

The timing (24 hr marinade + 45 minute sous vide) was from a cookbook. I guess 45 minutes just isn't long enough for flank?

Skirt and sirloin are both on sale this week and I'm tempted to continue experimenting, but I'm seeing lots of conflicting info, and have had a lot of disappointing beef results (with the exception of tenderloin). I don't really like traditionally super-long-cooked braises (brisket/shoulder/etc), so I'm really interested in how to maximize plain ol' steaks via SV, with the knowledge that I usually cannot afford 'good' cuts (in my mind, tenderloin and ribeye).

Short version, how would you cook the following?

1) Sirloin steak

2) Skirt steak

3) Lamb shank (have one in fridge, literally cannot find a single reference online to anyone SV'ing this cut, wondering if it's a bad idea).

Thanks in advance.

I don't doubt it was tough. Tough cuts of meat take a long, long time to cook. At 122' I'm not sure that's hot enough to break down collagen fibers. You'll have to try it for 24ish hours I think. I think at 135' or so, 8 hours might work.

Also, be careful how you slice it. You want to cut across the fibers, not along with them. That can make a huge difference.

I can't recall how long I did sirloin, but I thought it came out good. Lots of times I'd put it in before I go to work and pull it out for dinner. Only thing I don't like about sirloin is the liverish flavor it gets sometimes.

This is not really a braise because the temperature is a lot lower. Braising is done at a simmer (185+ degrees). Give it a shot with a much longer cooking time. Also, don't sear too long, if at all. You might want to give it a taste before you sear it.

122' is very, very low... it might be too low to really breakdown the collagen. I usually have mine at 135'.

Try googling on "lamb shank sous vide" tons of stuff.
http://svkitchen.com/?p=2582

Bunch of stuff at svkitchen about Skirt/Flank steaks:
http://svkitchen.com/?PHPSESSID=46a...0&submit=Search