I did a couple of pounds of pork belly - 175 for 10 hours, with a salt/sugar cure on the outside to keep the texture. The bag had some soft, rendered lard in it, and some far-too-salty stock, so I sighed and threw out the stock. What did I use the pork belly for? Find out in the "What did you cook today?" thread.

London broil marinated overnight, and 130 for 10 hrs. Perfect sear, and a perfect tender rare.

Nice. How did you sear it?

Cast iron skillet.

Since we had a wagun vacation, I had time to learn some more cooking stuff. I just got a new Power Quick Pot (Instant Pot type deal) for $80 at Sam's. The new ones have a SV function also. My Anova will still be my primary SV device, but the PQP opens some extra functions. After SVing a steak pat it dry, and let it cool for awhile. This way if you sear it a bit too long the inner meat has cooled, and won't get grey. For the searing: let the pan get hot, and about 15 seconds before you put the meat in then add the oil. If you get one check the SV temp with a thermometer. I set the pot for 125, and my thermometer read about 130. The PQP's don't have a way to circulate the water, but as an alternate/backup it will be another good tool.
https://www.samsclub.com/sams/power-qui ... 0002046087

One things I have noticed with sous-vide cooking is that a lot of fancy-pants hipster cooks have discovered that there's a whole range of terrible, non-traditional textures that usd to be signals of undercooked and possibly dangerous food that can now be achieved much more safely, and they're LOVING it.

And I do not.

It's worth remembering that when experimenting.

I was wondering about that. Great reminder.

Does anyone smoke and Sous-Vide? I am thinking about adding a SV to the arsenal and wondering how to incorporate it since I usually low-n-slow with smoke for a while then straight onto high heat for sear. Are any of you combining smoke and SV and sear, if so how?

I did brisket by sous-vide for tenderness, allow to cool, put in the fridge uncovered, and then on the day I wanted to serve it I smoke it back up to temperature.

It was tasty. It was pretty good, but there were trade-offs. Also some mistakes on my part.

Sous-vide does not render fat like higher temperatures do
There are different kinds of fats, with different chain lengths in the molecules. The ratios of these chain length dictate the flavour profile of the fat. It's why cooking anything in bacon fat makes it taste nearly entirely of bacon. The shorter the molecule length, the lower the temperature that it melts and renders off. Since sous-vide doesn't get hot enough to melt the medium and longer chains, a lot more fat stays in the meat.

Letting the meat air-dry overnight in the fridge was a mistake
Smoke sticks to cold things and wet things better than hot things and dry things. I should have let it sit in the bag with the juices, and I should have spritzed it repeatedly, to get more smoke to stick.

I can have a chunk of brisket ready 2.5 hours after I get home from work.
I cooked it sous-vide for 8 hours the day before, and put it in the fridge. On the day I got home from work, turned on the smoker, let it get to 275 and then put the chunk of brisket on for 2 hours to get up to temperature again. Since there's no chemical changes that need to happen (cooking of meat from raw to rare to medium to well done, or turning of collagen into gelatin) the heat gets absorbed quickly, and it gets up to the serving temperature of 160ish in about 2 hours.

As a method of not screwing up a brisket, it's pretty good. It makes tasty meat, and it removes some of the risks of brisket - not knowing when it'll be ready and not getting it wrong. But the texture is not the same a smoked brisket, and you don't get the good bark. The texture is wrong because the fat is wrong, and there's too much of it left. The bark is wrong because there's nearly none of it.

So, is there a case for doing it? Absolutely. It's a tool for the toolbox. Is it something I do regularly? No.

If you want to read more about it, hop over to AmazingRibs.com.

The guy is kind of goofy, but he has some great info:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpFuax ... lFR3gWhrMw

Interesting topic on using garlic when cooking with sous-vide.

https://www.amazingfoodmadeeasy.com/inf ... -sous-vide

"So the short answer is yes, it can be dangerous but it is very, very unlikely. To paraphrase one food scientist, you are more likely to choke on your food than get sick from raw garlic in sous vide."

So.
70 minutes at 150 for chicken breasts. Some butter and garlic in the bag. Couple minutes under the broiler.
Awesome.

How simple it is to make a good piece of meat out of a cheap piece of meat with this thing is awesome.

Reposting from closed thread:



Here's a wealth of info:

The first link is the intro stuff, 2nd link are tons of recipes.

In case you don't know, when a chart says, like, 1-3 hours, it means internal temp should be reached at about an hour, noticeable deterioration of texture begins near hour 3....

This guy, Kenji, is one who was doing it before the craze. Some info is good to double-check, as some can be a bit dated.

Check your finished temps & you should be good

Welcome to the jungle...


https://www.seriouseats.com/sous-vide-101

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/top ... /sous-vide