Inaugural Sous Vide Launch

[troutman]

Well as all things would have it, it was time to finally embrace the new technology. I say new but it's obviously been around for a while with professional chefs who have used sous vide as a restaurant staple. I was in New Orleans in 1993 to interview for a large hotel project and the developer treated us to lunch in the warehouse district in a restaurant that had just opened by this rising young chef. During lunch he asked the waiter to have the owner come by and say hi to us. This unassuming guy stops by, handshakes all around and we order this killer meal. He suggests the pork chops. Well pork chops it is. I'm here to tell you I don't remember all of my thousands of restaurant eating experiences all over the country, but for some reason that one stuck in my mind. When asked how in the world they could get a 2" think chop to butter smooth, fork cutting texture, the waiter explained to us it was done via sous vide and searing it in a double broiler. The name of the restaurant, by the way, was Emerils and unknowingly I got to meet the man himself, Emeril Lagasse.

Okay so fast forward to today and this website. I'm blown away by the marriage of sous vide and smoking/queing. So much so that I had to take the plunge with so many others demonstrating a whole new set of techniques that have peaked my interest. Thus my first attempt at this process. I'm especially interested in taking the lessor cuts of meat; flank, round, sirloin, chuck, etc. and seeing how tender and unctuous I could make them. Decided to do a chuckie first so hit the butcher and had him give me a big 2" thick clod. I'm in the long process of smoking, SV, chilling and searing at the moment but was hungry for something sooner so also picked up a 2" thick, 2.5# top round to do a London Broil straight sous vide, chill and RS. Given that here is the result of my first SV attempt;

Here is my take on this so far;

PROS - extremely tender meat after a 24 hour bath at 132*. Although not done here, the marriage of smokiness and tenderness is unbeatable.

CONS - long process (although worth the effort). I may adjust the time downward a bit because although super tender, the meat had a slight spongy feel to my palette. I'm thinking less time may firm that up a bit. Obvious lack of deep seared flavor, very superficial.

All in all this definitely becomes part of the tool chest. I don't see it as a do all, end all for cooking meat (or anything for that matter) but it definitely has it's place in the Troutman pantheon of cooking accouterments. More later on the verdict for the smoked chuckie currently taking a bath.

KEEP ON SMOKIN' - TROUTMAN OUT

 

[Rings Я Us]

Hey, very cool write up.
Hope you get hundreds of great meals using the sous vide.
Looks so juicy.. love the onions and mushrooms.

 

[motocrash]

A meal fit for a king! I too like the sauteed mushrooms/onions.I do'em with some beef broth added and often make rice pilaf with them and the same beef broth to make the rice in the rice cooker.The beef broth? Arby's Au Jus! it's awesome,not too salty.Little tubs are $.50 here. I get 3 at a time and pour into a vac seal bag,freeze and seal to have some on hand.

 

[troutman]

I’ll bet Arby’s jus is good, love it on their Sammie’s. I used the marinade from the cook bag , about 1/3 cup red wine and some beef stock. Also some butter to give it some glean as well as rosemary and garlic. Really added to the beef.

 

[disco]

I appreciate this. I have been wavering on SV and I appreciate the information. Point!

 

[dirtsailor2003]

Looks like a tasty meal.

My experience with the tougher cuts have been higher temp bath, shorter cook time.

The lower temp longer cook ends up with a bad mouth feel. Mushy meat.

Cuts like chuck brisket, etc. I've had the best luck at a bath temp of 180-183, 10-12 hours.

 

[SmokinAl]

It sure looks good from here!
Can't wait to see how your chuck turns out!
Al

 

[troutman]

It sure looks good from here!
Can't wait to see how your chuck turns out!
Al

Well I hate to report that although the London Broil went over well, the chuckie was an epic fail! After an overnight dry brine with kosher salt, a 1 hour fairly lite smoke on my WSM, then into the bath at 155* set to cook for 24 hours, I retired for the night. The next morning I got up to find the bath murky brown and the bag bloated with cook water. Not to be deterred, I re-bagged the meat and let it run its coarse. All I can say is the water getting into the bag sucked all of the moisture out of the meat. It also shrunk by about 25% and was dry as dust. It looked like a pot roast that had been braised way too long (which is essentially what happened). Actually had a good back taste and was extremely tender but just lifeless.

Anyway, failure is the precursory to success so I'm doing another one soon. I have a number of other things in the queue and with Turkey Day coming I may postpone for another day. Thanks for asking, I know it works, just got to have better luck with my cooking bags!!

 

[m3taldoc]

I've been using Sous Vide for about a year now. Magnificent on chicken, steaks, short ribs, pulled pork, almost anything ... if you've got the time or wherewithal to plan ahead. From what I've seen on SMF, you guys are plan-ahead types, so no problems there.

I'm wondering what the best sequence of events would be to smoke + sous vide? Normally, sous vide does all the real cooking, and you use a very hot heat source from a grill, skillet, or blowtorch to provide some char (the malliard reaction) for a good sear. I'd expect you want to add smoke prior to any sear, but what about prior to a long low cook?

BTW -- I have used sous vide to finish cooking of sausages to prevent fat blowout and still achieve finishing temperature. Decent results achieved (sorry, I didn't take pics), but more experimentation is needed.

 

[troutman]

I realize the classic sous vide as described by Kenji and others has the smoking done after the cook. My experiments doing a quick slow smoke then into the bath have yielded really good results. The sear goes quickly and the depth of smoke amazing. Chuck is fairly cheap to experiment on so I’ll continue to find the perfect cook for our pallets.