Sous Vide

navychop

Member of the Month - July 2014!
Original poster
Pub Member / Supporter
Lifetime Supporter
Jul 20, 2005
59,445
26,517
Northern VA
I thought his was a crazy idea. A year ago, a relative asked if we would like one as a gift. I declined.

But it’s been sitting in the back of my mind ever since. So I did a little research.

The idea is to cook the food at the final desired temperature. This can take one or more hours. But there is no perfectly done moment, like there is when grilling. You can prepare the food ahead of time and it can just sit in the warm water for hours if need be. It never boils. As with other slow cooking methods, the end result is very tender.

You can cook from frozen using food in the cryovac it came in. Or you can vacuum seal it. Or you can put it in a freezer zipper lock bag. Submerge the bag up to the top, and let all the air out and no water in, and seal it.

Set the time and temp on the Sous Vide device. When the water is at temp, add the food. Let water circulate on all sides- don’t pack tightly.

So I bought the top recommended brand per Cook’s Country / Cook’s Illustrated / America’s Test Kitchen. I got the white model. Of course, immediately after that, the stainless steel model went on sale for less than we paid. Sigh.

Since we weren’t at home, where we have a vacuum sealer, we used the freezer bags. First cook: Catfish! Came out very tender, perfectly done. But I must admit I’d prefer my catfish fried.

Second cook: Carrots. Added a little butter, sugar and salt. Excellent results.

Third: Chicken thighs. OMG!!!. I’ve never had such tender chicken. Exquisite.

Tonight, we will try steak. Guaranteed to not be under or over cooked.

For chicken, steak, pork - after cooking, put on a very hot griddle to brown it and put a bit of a crust on.

I can’t recommend this highly enough. It is wonderful. I’m considering getting a second one.

I bought the Joule. It connects via BT or Wi-Fi to your smart phone. The very simple app lets you cook different ways. You can set the time and temperature directly, as when using a third party recipe. Or tell it the kind of meat, and it will ask how thick it is. Then for steak it will show you pictures of rare to well dead. You pick the pinkness. It then sets the time and temperature for you. Your phone tells you when done. You can open the app anytime and monitor progress. It doesn’t matter if you’re an hour late getting to eat it.

We plan to fill a pot with ice and water and a couple of frozen steaks. Leave it plugged in but off. Call up the app say, 4 hours later and tell it to cook for 5 hours or so. Presto, walk in the door after work and the food is ready. Better than a crock pot.

Some folks prepare complete servings and freeze them, and use the Sous Vide to warm it up. Longer but better than by microwave.

There’s a lot more, but enough for now.

Anyone else here have a Sous Vide? Your experience?


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!
 
Interesting. I added two attachments to my own post before this one, but when I try to view them, it says I don’t have permission to view the attachment.


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!
 
I see two attachments but cannot open them in the Reader app, but don’t even see the attachments in FF on my iPhone.
 
In Chrome I see attachments listed, but when I “click” on them it says I must be logged in to do that. Of course, I’m already logged in.

And in FF, I can’t edit my previous post. If I could, I would’ve put this bit in it.
 
That one hour T-Bone was TENDER! Next time we’ll run it under the broiler more, or longer on a cast iron.

This is how we’ll cook steaks in the future.

I’d post more pictures, but that seems to be pointless.


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!
 
  • Like
Reactions: dfergie
Passed thru the clearance isle at Walmart, saw 2 power precision sous vide cookers for $49, snagged one Friday... had classes that night and Saturday so couldn't play with or even take out of box. Thinking of ordering this to cook in as my beer making pot was a fire casualty and my deep fryer pot is too deep and bulky. I'm working evenings all week and we're going on a real gas and Sam's run on Saturday miles away so it will be that evening or Sunday before we try.
 
We’re considering something like that too.

I bought a round cover that greatly reduces evaporation. I find we lose little at 139, but a noticeable amount at 150. Preferred the cover idea to the ping pong balls.

Waiting on it to go on sale again, then we’ll snag another one.

We might take our biggest pot, turkey sized, and wrap towels around it and over it, and see if the Joule can maintain temps.

What will be your first cook?

Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!
 
I like the personal size cooler mods like this one. I have a cooler just like this one but have not done the modification yet. I've just been using Saran Wrap to control evaporation.
 

Attachments

  • sous vide 059.JPG
    sous vide 059.JPG
    55.5 KB · Views: 215
Missed this thread when it first came out. I have several cookers from Anova. For something relatively short cooking like a steak or chicken or fish I haven't noticed evaporation to be an issue. This is using a 6 quart stainless pot.
 
I’ve considered doing something like that with a new buy cooler. Maybe Sous Vide a whole turkey.

Anybody tried that?

I’ve read that Sous Vide for a whole duck is not a good idea.


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!
 
Passed thru the clearance isle at Walmart, saw 2 power precision sous vide cookers for $49, snagged one Friday... had classes that night and Saturday so couldn't play with or even take out of box. Thinking of ordering this to cook in as my beer making pot was a fire casualty and my deep fryer pot is too deep and bulky. I'm working evenings all week and we're going on a real gas and Sam's run on Saturday miles away so it will be that evening or Sunday before we try.
never worked, taking back & will order a good one from Amazon.
 
Got a sauerbraten going. 18 hours, plus an hour for gravy etc.

Our second.

Interesting story. My wife went to the German Gourmet to pick up some sauerbraten spice packages and a few other things. She asked for ginger snaps, to make (thicken) the gravy. Got a puzzled look, and someone else that works there was called over. They couldn’t understand her request. “You mean, the Cookie?”

Well, it turns out the Germans do not use ginger snaps. Just flour. The ginger snaps was an American adaptation to use up leftovers. The time of year when sauerbraten was eaten was near the holidays (slaughter before feeding cow all winter) when gingerbread was also available. So we have our American style sauerbraten.

The last one we made was without cookies, this one will be with.


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys
 
Great. We will buy another, just hoping for a sale.

Or we could buy the Anova for much less. The two cookers wouldn’t match and would have different controls- but so what? Gotta think about it and discuss with SWMBO.


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys