# Sous Vide and the Danger Zone?



## checkerfred

I've done a search here and on google but I'm still not getting how cooking with sous vide is safe.  Specifically getting the food out of the danger zone in ample time.  I can see if it's a thinner cut of meat, but what about something like a roast or butt?  I see where people cook them for like 8-16 hours at temps of 140-150.  How does a larger cut hit that internal temperature in time to be safe?


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## Fgignac

My understanding is that this comes down to 3 things.

First, when dealing with full muscles (like roast or butt) as opposed to ground meat (like burgers or sausage), there is very little change of there being harmful bacteria on the inside of the meat if it was properly handled. Most pathogens exist in the animal's digestive system an not inside the muscles. So unless the meat was prodded to the center, any bacteria would be on the surface. This is why it is safe to eat a rare cooked steak, as long as it was well handled by the butcher.

Second, water is a much better conductor of heat than air. This means that, in a water bath, the temperature of your roast will actually rise much faster than it would in a smoker or oven at the same temperature. So it's actually getting up to safe temp faster than you think. Minimum cooking time can be easily calculated with the thickness of the meat and the temperature of the water. If you do a google search for "sous vide cooking time chart" you will be able to find many tools to allow you to figure out the minimum time required to bring a piece up to temp. Anything longer than this (like doing to butt for 18 hours) is only about texture. The extended cooking time breaks down the connective tissue and make for a more tender end product. That is one the big advantages of sous-vide. By tweaking temperature and cooking time you can create exactly the texture you want.

Third, anything cooked over 130* for enough time will be pasteurized. Killing bacteria isn't just a matter of temp, it is a combination of time and temp. Bacteria start dying at 130*, but at a slow rate. The hotter it gets, the faster they die. So holding a piece of meat at 130* for long enough will be just as effective as heating it to 165*. This is also why it is not recommended to cook something lower than 130* for more than 2 hours. At this temperature, pasteurization does not take place and you are essentially "incubating" the bacteria. Again, search for "sous vide pasteurization chart" and you will find tools that will show you how long you need to keep various meats and a certain temperature to insure safety.


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## daveomak

http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html


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## checkerfred

Fgignac said:


> My understanding is that this comes down to 3 things.
> 
> First, when dealing with full muscles (like roast or butt) as opposed to ground meat (like burgers or sausage), there is very little change of there being harmful bacteria on the inside of the meat if it was properly handled. Most pathogens exist in the animal's digestive system an not inside the muscles. So unless the meat was prodded to the center, any bacteria would be on the surface. This is why it is safe to eat a rare cooked steak, as long as it was well handled by the butcher.
> 
> Second, water is a much better conductor of heat than air. This means that, in a water bath, the temperature of your roast will actually rise much faster than it would in a smoker or oven at the same temperature. So it's actually getting up to safe temp faster than you think. Minimum cooking time can be easily calculated with the thickness of the meat and the temperature of the water. If you do a google search for "sous vide cooking time chart" you will be able to find many tools to allow you to figure out the minimum time required to bring a piece up to temp. Anything longer than this (like doing to butt for 18 hours) is only about texture. The extended cooking time breaks down the connective tissue and make for a more tender end product. That is one the big advantages of sous-vide. By tweaking temperature and cooking time you can create exactly the texture you want.
> 
> Third, anything cooked over 130* for enough time will be pasteurized. Killing bacteria isn't just a matter of temp, it is a combination of time and temp. Bacteria start dying at 130*, but at a slow rate. The hotter it gets, the faster they die. So holding a piece of meat at 130* for long enough will be just as effective as heating it to 165*. This is also why it is not recommended to cook something lower than 130* for more than 2 hours. At this temperature, pasteurization does not take place and you are essentially "incubating" the bacteria. Again, search for "sous vide pasteurization chart" and you will find tools that will show you how long you need to keep various meats and a certain temperature to insure safety.




What about ground meat?  I’ve seen people doing burgers sous vide style.  I assume that since they aren’t super thick they come up to temp quick enough?


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## checkerfred

Thanks Dave!


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## dr k

daveomak said:


> http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html
> 
> View attachment 387928


this is his heating table not pasteurizing table. Just checking to make sure you wanted the other.


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## SonnyE

If you might need a converter to figure out Inches to mm...
Try this.


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## SonnyE

I've done Pork Loin via Sous Vide, which is essentially a pork roast. (Don't pop my bubble.)
I did it at 145° F for 6, 8, and 12 hours. I haven't found my favorite time yet, because I keep futzing with seasonings and Olive oil, and generally experimenting.
But... they have come out good and I ate them. I think I like the 12 just fine.
Now, if anybody thinks 145° for 12 hours is going to leave anything to question, I suggest you stick your finger in 145° water for 12 hours, then tell me if any bacteria (or anything else) is still alive on your finger. 
I'm quite sure the answer will be no.


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## checkerfred

dr k said:


> this is his heating table not pasteurizing table. Just checking to make sure you wanted the other.


Good catch


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## chef jimmyj

Fgignac...Nailed it! Could not have given a better explanation myself. Like Point...JJ


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## TomKnollRFV

I think the other thing you need to remember is that <assuming you set up the Sous Vide right> it's immersed in the hot water. There should be no air, some people vaccum seal every thing for this, not just ziplock+force the air out. This means there is a submerged constant heating effect. 

So the outside of the meat, where the bacteria likes to be, will be cooked fairly quickly. Also when doing steak etc, you do a reverse sear <or I'd like to think every one does> which will most definitely get the outside raised to a high enough temp in a hurry and will likely bring the interior temps up briefly and not toughen up the meat.

That said, I'm not sure I'd want to sous vide raw ground meat. That to me is the iffy zone <also I bet it would look really icky..>


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## Fgignac

checkerfred said:


> What about ground meat?  I’ve seen people doing burgers sous vide style.  I assume that since they aren’t super thick they come up to temp quick enough?



With ground meat, the bacteria that is on the outside, obviously, gets mixed throughout the meat. I often do burgers and sausages sous-vide. But with ground meat I always cook to pasteurization. Properly pasteurized meat is generally just as safe as "well done" meat, even if the temperature is lower.



chef jimmyj said:


> Fgignac...Nailed it! Could not have given a better explanation myself. Like Point...JJ



Thank you sir.


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## daveomak

Morning folks....   _*checkerfred*_ had some concerns about the "danger zone"..  So, I opted to list the "heating time" table so he could see just how long it took to get the meat temps up to safe/pasteurization temps...  
I think I was just attempting to show how long it does take to heat up meats, in a water oven...

_*Fgignac*_ pointed out 2 of the most important notes you can have in your cooking arsenal....  _*Whole muscle*_ meats are sterile inside, until adulterated.....  and _*ground meats*_ are terribly contaminated and all methods at your disposal are good to use to keep it safe to eat..



checkerfred said:


> I've done a search here and on google but I'm still not getting how cooking with sous vide is safe.  *Specifically getting the food out of the danger zone in ample time. * I can see if it's a thinner cut of meat, but what about something like a roast or butt?  I see where people cook them for like 8-16 hours at temps of 140-150.  How does a larger cut hit that internal temperature in time to be safe?


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## chef jimmyj

Hamburgers and Sausage are sufficiently thin that they heat quickly enough to be risk free. I would not even consider the 4 pound meat loaves I make. I don't see the point anyway. My meat loaf is very tender. What is there to gain?...JJ


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## SonnyE

chef jimmyj said:


> Hamburgers and Sausage are sufficiently thin that they heat quickly enough to be risk free. I would not even consider the 4 pound meat loaves I make. I don't see the point anyway. My meat loaf is very tender. What is there to gain?...JJ




Not sure JJ, but if you have something in a SV bath, couldn't you just leave it in there until the perpetually late get there and get settled (Glass of whine, Or Dervies, yackabit).
Sous Vide isn't for everything. For example, I think it would make a terrible Ice Cream maker.....


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## Bearcarver

SonnyE said:


> I've done Pork Loin via Sous Vide, which is essentially a pork roast. (Don't pop my bubble.)
> I did it at 145° F for 6, 8, and 12 hours. I haven't found my favorite time yet, because I keep futzing with seasonings and Olive oil, and generally experimenting.
> But... they have come out good and I ate them. I think I like the 12 just fine.
> Now, if anybody thinks 145° for 12 hours is going to leave anything to question, I suggest you stick your finger in 145° water for 12 hours, then tell me if any bacteria (or anything else) is still alive on your finger.
> I'm quite sure the answer will be no.




Not a very good example of Sous Vide making meat safe.
Pork is safe at 145° IT no matter what the method of cooking is.
The amazing thing is when Pork is safe to eat after 136° for 3 1/2 hours in the Sous Vide.

Bear


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## SonnyE

Bearcarver said:


> Not a very good example of Sous Vide making meat safe.
> Pork is safe at 145° IT no matter what the method of cooking is.
> The amazing thing is when Pork is safe to eat after 136° for 3 1/2 hours in the Sous Vide.
> 
> Bear



Maybe not to you Bear, but delicious to me.


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## chef jimmyj

Once again the USDA temps are designed with a broad margin of error, for general use by minimally trained food service works and home cooks. None of these people are studying Pasteurization Charts or reading the studies on Bacterial Growth Rates under assorted conditions like, pH, Water Activity, Salt and Sugar content and their ability to bind water, Multiple Temp ranges to include High Temp/Short Time, Low Temp/Long Time and combination methods like guick high temp, then low temp finishing. Not too many years ago, the USDA insisted Pork be cooked to 165. Then 145 but the main concern is Trichinosis and that parasite is eliminated at 131 held for 6 minutes. So even the current USDA 145 is higher than necessary for pork...JJ


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## Bearcarver

SonnyE said:


> Maybe not to you Bear, but delicious to me.



I don't even know what that comment means. "Maybe not to me what?"
I thought this thread was about safety & SV temps.

Bear


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## johnmeyer

The other thing that helps get food to temp quickly in a sous vide water bath is the circulator. In fact, as near as I can tell, that is the _only _reason the sous vide products have the circulator. By moving the water, the heat from the water is transferred more quickly, because the layer of water immediately next to the plastic bag is never allowed to cool down and "insulate" the bag from the rest of the water.


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## Fgignac

SonnyE said:


> Sous Vide isn't for everything. For example, I think it would make a terrible Ice Cream maker.....



Maybe not for Ice Cream. But it makes a great Yogurt incubator! 



chef jimmyj said:


> the main concern is Trichinosis and that parasite is eliminated at 131 held for 6 minutes.



This is one of my favorite things about sous-vide. I hunt bear, which can also carry trichinosis. But with SV, I can make delicious, medium cooked bear while my hunting buddies, who are too scared to try it, eat theirs well done and then some. No wonder they think bear is tough and dry...



johnmeyer said:


> In fact, as near as I can tell, that is the _only _reason the sous vide products have the circulator.



The circulator also allows for a more even water temperature. If you were to have just a static heating element at one end of a container and checked with a thermometer, you would have varying temperatures throughout the water. The water near the heater would be warmer than the water at the far end, and the water at the surface would be warmer than the water at the bottom. The bigger the container, the bigger the temp difference. Circulating the water mitigates this problem.


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## SonnyE

Fgignac said:


> This is one of my favorite things about sous-vide. I hunt bear,



Isn't that kind of cold?

I'll just let her buy her own Yogurt.


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## dr k

The round 6qt crockpot doesn't  need circulation plugged into my Auber PID. The small size and thick stoneware ceramic is the same temp all over that touches the water. But a roaster would need circulation.  It's a great yogurt maker to pasteurize milk before bring down to 106° or your favorite incubating temp to pitch your favorite container of yogurt as a starter and let it go for 12-24 hours.


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## johnmeyer

I make yogurt every week and have done so since 1974. In other words, thousands of batches. I've used dedicated yogurt makers, but nothing matches sous vide for making great yogurt.

FWIW, there are three keys to great yogurt:

1. The time and temperature to heat the yogurt to denature the proteins. You should heat to 180º F and then _keep _it there for five minutes before cooling down to the incubating temperature and introducing the culture.

2. The incubating temperature. 110º is what I use. Some sites call for temps as high as 115º. It wasn't until I switched from using my Salton yogurt makers to doing it in my sous vide that I realized the Salton units weren't getting much above 103º. You still get yogurt, but it doesn't have characteristics that are quite as good as the 110º culture. 110º led to a big improvement in my yogurt. You can Google this and will find 110º is the most often-mentioned temperature.

3. Incubation time. I started doing yogurt overnight, with 8-10 hour incubation times. I then kept reducing the time and finally found that the ideal time is four hours. Any more than that and the yogurt starts to get pretty "tangy." It's not bad, but it definitely loses the sweetness of fresh milk. If you keep going all the way to 24 hours, you are going to get a lot of sour notes. I realize some people may prefer it that way, but if your goal is to get live cultures and get the yogurt set, you don't have to keep it going that long.

P.S. Here's a link to one of thousands of sites that describe how to make yogurt. They too discovered the "hold for five minutes" trick that I stumbled into a few years ago. That extra time at 180º makes a huge difference in how quickly and how well the yogurt sets.

The Official YOGURT CULTURE Master Homemade Yogurt Recipe


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## checkerfred

Thank you for all the replies.  I really want to get into sous vide.  I’ve been looking at them for a while but the temp/safety thing just wasn’t clear to me.


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## daveomak

Follow Baldwin's charts and you will not go wrong.....

Baldwin's Sous-Vide Tutorial and Charts


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## indaswamp

daveomak said:


> Follow Baldwin's charts and you will not go wrong.....
> 
> Baldwin's Sous-Vide Tutorial and Charts


Baldwin is 'the guy'.........


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## indaswamp

checkerfred said:


> Thank you for all the replies.  I really want to get into sous vide.  I’ve been looking at them for a while but the temp/safety thing just wasn’t clear to me.


Pasteurization....that's why it works!


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## Bearcarver

daveomak said:


> Follow Baldwin's charts and you will not go wrong.....
> 
> Baldwin's Sous-Vide Tutorial and Charts




Yup---My best SV book is definitely *"Sous Vide for the home cook" *by "Douglas E. Baldwin".

Bear


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## dr k

johnmeyer said:


> I make yogurt every week and have done so since 1974. In other words, thousands of batches. I've used dedicated yogurt makers, but nothing matches sous vide for making great yogurt.
> 
> FWIW, there are three keys to great yogurt:
> 
> 1. The time and temperature to heat the yogurt to denature the proteins. You should heat to 180º F and then _keep _it there for five minutes before cooling down to the incubating temperature and introducing the culture.
> 
> 2. The incubating temperature. 110º is what I use. Some sites call for temps as high as 115º. It wasn't until I switched from using my Salton yogurt makers to doing it in my sous vide that I realized the Salton units weren't getting much above 103º. You still get yogurt, but it doesn't have characteristics that are quite as good as the 110º culture. 110º led to a big improvement in my yogurt. You can Google this and will find 110º is the most often-mentioned temperature.
> 
> 3. Incubation time. I started doing yogurt overnight, with 8-10 hour incubation times. I then kept reducing the time and finally found that the ideal time is four hours. Any more than that and the yogurt starts to get pretty "tangy." It's not bad, but it definitely loses the sweetness of fresh milk. If you keep going all the way to 24 hours, you are going to get a lot of sour notes. I realize some people may prefer it that way, but if your goal is to get live cultures and get the yogurt set, you don't have to keep it going that long.
> 
> P.S. Here's a link to one of thousands of sites that describe how to make yogurt. They too discovered the "hold for five minutes" trick that I stumbled into a few years ago. That extra time at 180º makes a huge difference in how quickly and how well the yogurt sets.
> 
> The Official YOGURT CULTURE Master Homemade Yogurt Recipe


Yes I stumbled across the 180* five minute pasteurization as well.  I sometimes just nuke a half gallon 20 minutes or so to get it there quickly without scorching.  Separating whey when done to get consistency or add back once removed is the toughest part.  Once it's stirred in it's there to stay but when it's it's own separated pool of whey it's hard to remove without incorporating it.


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## johnmeyer

I gave up worrying about the little bit of liquid (whey) on the top. Most of the time you hardly see it, although if you make it in big containers (I use old peanut butter jars) when you scoop some out, you then get more separation in the stuff that's left behind, the next time you go for some more. 

As for heating, I gave up heating in a saucepan decades ago, because of the scorching. Then for twenty or thirty years I used the microwave which, when I was only make a quart or so at a time, didn't take long. I then started making half a gallon at a time and realized the way to go was to just put water in one saucepan and then nest a slightly smaller saucepan in that. I heat it on my portable induction cooker. This is a little like a double boiler except that the pan with the milk is actually in contact with the hot water, rather than above it. Because it only takes a small amount of water in the bottom saucepan, and because water conducts heat really well, it actually only takes a few seconds longer to heat it this way than it does to heat over open flame, and it is much, much faster than doing it in the microwave.

I should have been doing it this way all along.


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## dr k

johnmeyer said:


> I make yogurt every week and have done so since 1974. In other words, thousands of batches. I've used dedicated yogurt makers, but nothing matches sous vide for making great yogurt.
> 
> FWIW, there are three keys to great yogurt:
> 
> 1. The time and temperature to heat the yogurt to denature the proteins. You should heat to 180º F and then _keep _it there for five minutes before cooling down to the incubating temperature and introducing the culture.
> 
> 2. The incubating temperature. 110º is what I use. Some sites call for temps as high as 115º. It wasn't until I switched from using my Salton yogurt makers to doing it in my sous vide that I realized the Salton units weren't getting much above 103º. You still get yogurt, but it doesn't have characteristics that are quite as good as the 110º culture. 110º led to a big improvement in my yogurt. You can Google this and will find 110º is the most often-mentioned temperature.
> 
> 3. Incubation time. I started doing yogurt overnight, with 8-10 hour incubation times. I then kept reducing the time and finally found that the ideal time is four hours. Any more than that and the yogurt starts to get pretty "tangy." It's not bad, but it definitely loses the sweetness of fresh milk. If you keep going all the way to 24 hours, you are going to get a lot of sour notes. I realize some people may prefer it that way, but if your goal is to get live cultures and get the yogurt set, you don't have to keep it going that long.
> 
> P.S. Here's a link to one of thousands of sites that describe how to make yogurt. They too discovered the "hold for five minutes" trick that I stumbled into a few years ago. That extra time at 180º makes a huge difference in how quickly and how well the yogurt sets.
> 
> The Official YOGURT CULTURE Master Homemade Yogurt Recipe


Wow! Heat and hold milk at (I did 2%) 180 for five minutes, cool and pitch a container (I did plain fat free Oikos) at 110 , stir and wait four hours is a hit. Like you said not as tangy with fresh milk flavor. Will be good to cook with in sauces, baked potatoes but mainly by itself. Thanks for the info.


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## weedeater

Since this thread started out as a thread about Sous Vide and safety I thought I would pose a question to see what fellow SV users think. 

I use SV on a lot of tough pieces of meat like anything with “round” in the name. SV does a great job of making these cuts tender but if I had a complaint it would be that you can end up with a very tender piece of meat that has very little distinctive flavor.  These cuts tend to be very dense and marinates, spices, and rubs tend to not get much penetration into the meat.

My question for further discussion is:  Would it be save to use a “Jaccard” type meat tenderizer on say an Eye of Round and then Sous Vide it.  The purpose of using the Jaccard would be to open up the meat more to allow better penetration of flavor enhancers rather than for tenderazation.  Sous Vide already does a good job on the tender part. 

My concern is the old question poking and puncturing meat that now is potentially not sterile internally.  My feeling is that you are still fine given the long time frames in SV at temps above 130 degrees.  After several hours in the bath you have reached a temp internally that kills any potential bad stuff.  

What say yes?  

 chef jimmyj
 , 

 daveomak
 , others?

Weedeater


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## daveomak

For "rounds" etc, do not vac pack...  add spices and herbs to the bag and meat....  Vac pack sucks the meat flat and doesn't allow to flavors to penetrate the meat...  let the meat cool in it's juices, they should suck back into the meat....
Jaccard should be OK if you are SVing the meat like for 24 hours at 135

From Baldwin's tutorial....
At lower temperatures (120°F/50°C to 150°F/ 65°C), Bouton and Harris (1981) found that tough cuts of beef (from animals 0–4 years old) were the most tender when cooked to between 131°F and 140°F (55°C and 60°C). Cooking the beef for 24 hours at these temperatures significantly increased its tenderness (with shear forces decreasing 26%–72% compared to 1 hour of cooking). This tenderizing is caused by weakening of connective tissue and proteolytic enzymes decreasing myofibrillar tensile strength. Indeed, collagen begins to dissolve into gelatin above 122°F to 131°F (50°C to 55°C) (Neklyudov, 2003; This, 2006). Moreover, the sarcoplasmic protein enzyme collagenase remains active below 140°F (60°C) and can significantly tenderize the meat if held for more than 6 hours (Tornberg, 2005). This is why beef chuck roast cooked in a 131°F–140°F (55°C–60°C) water bath for 24–48 hours has the texture of filet mignon.


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## chef jimmyj

Use the Jaccard but hedge your bet. Before puncturing, wash the meat with cold water and again with Vinegar. Dry with dispoable paper towel and season the surface. S&P, SPOG or Rub of choice containing Salt. The Surface will be sanitized and the Jaccard will push the salty seasonings inside adding to the flavor while the salt inhibits any bacteria that may still be present...JJ


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## weedeater

daveomak said:


> For "rounds" etc, do not vac pack... add spices and herbs to the bag and meat.... Vac pack sucks the meat flat and doesn't allow to flavors to penetrate the meat... let the meat cool in it's juices, they should suck back into the meat....



I have seen this argument about not vac packing and I just don’t buy it from my experience. I spent a lot of years without a vac sealer, using ziplock freezer bags for SV and other cooks and from my observations I have seen no difference.  

Since I usually cut a large piece like Eye of Round in half before SVing it this might be a good experiment to do.  Vac Pack one and just bag the other.  All other things being equal this should be a good comparison.  I’ll put that on my list for a Sous Vide in the near future.  

Weedeater


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## weedeater

chef jimmyj said:


> Use the Jaccard but hedge your bet. Before puncturing, wash the meat with cold water and again with Vinegar. Dry with dispoable paper towel and season the surface. S&P, SPOG or Rub of choice containing Salt. The Surface will be sanitized and the Jaccard will push the salty seasonings inside adding to the flavor while the salt inhibits any bacteria that may still be present...JJ



Thanks Chef jimmy!  I always wash the meat with cold water prior to seasoning.  The Vinegar would add another layer of safety.  Will give this a try soon and report back my thoughts on the Jaccard process.  

Weedeater


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## JWFokker

checkerfred said:


> What about ground meat?  I’ve seen people doing burgers sous vide style.  I assume that since they aren’t super thick they come up to temp quick enough?



A rare to medium rare burger is never hot enough to be pasteurized so the trick is to sear and consume the burgers ASAP once they reach the desired temperature. Ground meat doesn't keep in the hot water bath for very long regardless. Texture/consistency is ruined after a few hours. With burgers you only want to heat them up to the desired internal temperature and then finish immediately.


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## Jonok

(Not a paid endorsement)
If you’ve got a Schwann’s guy around town, they sell irradiated ground beef.  No worry about bacterial contamination (unless you contaminate it yourself, after you thaw it and remove it from the package) so it’s perfectly safe to eat rare.  I cannot taste any difference between that and 80/20 that I’ve ground myself.


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## johnmeyer

JWFokker said:


> A rare to medium rare burger is never hot enough to be pasteurized so the trick is to sear and consume the burgers ASAP once they reach the desired temperature. Ground meat doesn't keep in the hot water bath for very long regardless. Texture/consistency is ruined after a few hours. With burgers you only want to heat them up to the desired internal temperature and then finish immediately.


If you follow the sous vide tables you should be able to get a perfectly safe rare to medium rare burger.

As for using sous vide for a burger, and whether it is a good idea, or not, have a look at this great post from a year ago:

Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburgers Sous Vide Style


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## chef jimmyj

What is the point of par-cooking a burger SV. For one, burgers, that are not worked too hard, are tender. A 1 inch thick 8oz burger cooks med/rare and juicy, in 3-4 minutes per side on cast iron or grill. Seared and perfectly cooked in one step. I just don't see what there is to gain other then having raw burger in the Danger Zone, 2.5 hours, while soaking in 130°F water...JJ


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## JWFokker

Makes for a juicier burger if you heat it up slow then sear for 45-60 seconds per side, and they're evenly done all the way through regardless of patty thickness.

Not my personal favorite method of cooking burgers but close.


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## chef jimmyj

I will have to give it a try. The SV Burger is going to have to be amazing to be worth the extra cook time...JJ


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## JWFokker

If you want to get really technical you're supposed to let the burgers rest for 5 minutes after you pull them from the water bath to compensate for the heat applied when you sear them. If you sear them immediately you are going to go past your desired internal temp.


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