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OK. Sous Vide looks more interesting to me that overly salting a piece of meat. tptacek care to weigh in? I am about 23 hours away from buying a rice cooker + p

OK. Sous Vide looks more interesting to me that overly salting a piece of meat. tptacek care to weigh in? I am about 23 hours away from buying a rice cooker + pid controller to make this happen. I do the pid part at work so it is interesting to me from a work point of view too. Edit: If you have not seen sous vide cooking: http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html It looks amazing to me.

ecuzzillo 17y ago
I really want to do sous vide, but basically everything I've read says you get bad results unless you have a serious-dude vacuum chamber packer sealer $4000 thing, which seems mildly impractical. Especially, you can't do the spectacular compressed stuff without one of those. You can get sous-vide-like results sometimes without said equipment, though; Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home book contains a lot of unstated backports from sous vide techniques. For instance, he has you blowtorch a big prime rib roast and then cook it at very low temperature in the oven (275 F) for two hours. It reliably comes out with the uniform-pink-almost-all-the-way-to-the-edges effect. Presumably not quite as close.
- tptacek 17y ago
  I call shenanigans on the $4000 SV rig stuff. Commercial kitchens will spend $4000 on an immersion circulator alone, and that's before the cryovac or whatever they're doing to seal food. If you want to (a) make watermelons with the texture of a strip steak or (b) cook SV in huge volume, you need to investigate high end equipment. Otherwise, the concept behind SV is extremely simple. Precisely controlled temperature over long cooking time. The $120 PID controllers do that job just fine. What have you read that says you need a cryovac to do SV well? The Baldwin guide actively endorses the ghetto setup, and there are numerous blogs of people succeeding with it. The Keller sous vide book isn't a home cookbook any more than the Alinea cookbook is. You're not making French Laundry food at home no matter how you equip your kitchen.
  - ecuzzillo 17y ago
    Actually, I do make French Laundry food at home sometimes. From the original cookbook, anyway. I would think you still need something vaguely vacuum-sealer-like, since as the Baldwin guide says any air pockets will expand and insulate half the object. But I suppose I'll try the $40 vacuum sealer.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      You definitely get small pockets of air. On the other hand, the week I started doing this, I fanatically probed the temperatures of the proteins I cooked, and they were invariably exactly where I set the controller to. It got boring, so I stopped checking. Also, the difference between perfect 131-133f ribeye and carefully cooked conventional ribeye is not subtle.
      - weaksauce 17y ago
        I would imagine that the pockets of air is going to matter less the longer you have the protein in the bath. What is your typical use case start it in the morning before work and then dinner? or is is a more abbreviated cycle?
dzlobin 17y ago
I was cooking at a two Michelin star restaurant last year where a large majority of proteins and vegetables were cooked sous vide. Don't underestimate the importance of a good salting, but sous vide will make everything you cook perfect, and consistent. There is a better home option now than the rice cooker + pid timer( which does not circulate water and leads to uneven cooking. http://www.sousvidesupreme.com/ http://www.sousvidesupreme.com/ This is as good as you can get without buying a $995 dollar immersion circulator(which you should buy if you can). Pick up the more expensive foodsaver, if you can't afford a commercial unit. I cook at arazorashinyknife.com these days, and our commercial unit which costs $5000 just died on us, it cost $1000 just to have a guy look at it -.- http://cookingissues.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/coming-soon-sous-vide-and-low-temp-primer/ http://cookingissues.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/coming-soon-so... Here is a primer on sous-vide cooking, which by the way can can be done the ghetto way by sealing a sturdy ziplock bag almsot under water, to get as much air out as you can. Then you can leave a large pot of water running under the hot water tap until you can get the water to the temperture you need.
- ars 17y ago
  Aren't you worried about the plasticizers from the bags?
  - tptacek 17y ago
    Yes.
  - illumin8 17y ago
    Sous Vide sounds interesting, but I don't relish the though of eating known carcinogens that are leeching into my foods. BPA is a serious risk, and the FDA so far has refused to take much action on it. It seems that corporate profits trump safety these days. How much rocket fuel is safe to drink in our public water supply? What are a few deaths against the right to corporate earnings?
    - tptacek 17y ago
      You're not crazy, but if you're serious, you basically need to avoid all commercial meat, both because nobody's guaranteed that things like BPA haven't leached into your food before it arrives on the shelves, and because commercial meat is exposed to worse things than plasticizers.
whimsy 17y ago
I thought of this exact page whilst reading; I'm glad I wasn't the only one. It would be pretty awesome if you documented how you made it work (especially if you do it in such a way that is cheap and easily reproducible).
- tptacek 17y ago
  1. Buy Auber Instruments SV controller @ ~$120. 2. Buy mechanically-switched Black & Decker rice cooker @ $40. 3. Buy Seal-a-Meal vacuum sealer @ $40. 4. Buy two aged rib-eye steaks. 5. Pat steaks dry, salt liberally, pepper. 6. Seal steaks in a single vacuum-sealed bag with 1 tbsp of butter for each steak. 7. Set Auber PID controller for 131f. 8. Put sealed steaks in the bottom of the rice cooker. Fill with water. 9. Ensure that the thermal probe from the PID controller is in the water. 10. Ensure that the rice cooker is plugged into the PID controller, and the PID controller into the wall. 11. Walk away for 4 hours. 12. Heat peanut oil in a skillet until shimmering. 13. Remove steaks from water bath. Pat dry. Oil should be just-smoking. 14. Sear steaks on both sides, 30-40 seconds per side. 15. Rest meat 10-15 minutes. 16. Serve.
  - spudlyo 17y ago
    Thanks so much for this list. Very excited to try it!
    - tptacek 17y ago
      Wait until you try good-quality short ribs, cooked at 134 for 3 days. Medium-rare short ribs!
  - Edaname 17y ago
    Don't forget to include SousVideMagic controller. The new model 1500D has better precision (0.1)over the old model.
fms 17y ago
You are right. SousVide cooking prepares healthy meals with less salt and spices, and at the same time, preserve the vitamins and nutrients and flavour much more than conventional cooking. Our latest release SVM 1500D temperature controller works beautifully with a basic rice cooker. FreshMealsSolutions is introducing another new product called FreshMealsMagic which is a heater and circulator all in one for $159.00. It will make any pots into a constant water bath for sousvide cooking ( no need for rice cooker).
- tptacek 17y ago
  Get me a review unit! If it works, I will sing its praises to the heavens.

ecuzzillo 17y ago

I really want to do sous vide, but basically everything I've read says you get bad results unless you have a serious-dude vacuum chamber packer sealer $4000 thing, which seems mildly impractical. Especially, you can't do the spectacular compressed stuff without one of those. You can get sous-vide-like results sometimes without said equipment, though; Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home book contains a lot of unstated backports from sous vide techniques. For instance, he has you blowtorch a big prime rib roast and then cook it at very low temperature in the oven (275 F) for two hours. It reliably comes out with the uniform-pink-almost-all-the-way-to-the-edges effect. Presumably not quite as close.

tptacek 17y ago
I call shenanigans on the $4000 SV rig stuff. Commercial kitchens will spend $4000 on an immersion circulator alone, and that's before the cryovac or whatever they're doing to seal food. If you want to (a) make watermelons with the texture of a strip steak or (b) cook SV in huge volume, you need to investigate high end equipment. Otherwise, the concept behind SV is extremely simple. Precisely controlled temperature over long cooking time. The $120 PID controllers do that job just fine. What have you read that says you need a cryovac to do SV well? The Baldwin guide actively endorses the ghetto setup, and there are numerous blogs of people succeeding with it. The Keller sous vide book isn't a home cookbook any more than the Alinea cookbook is. You're not making French Laundry food at home no matter how you equip your kitchen.
- ecuzzillo 17y ago
  Actually, I do make French Laundry food at home sometimes. From the original cookbook, anyway. I would think you still need something vaguely vacuum-sealer-like, since as the Baldwin guide says any air pockets will expand and insulate half the object. But I suppose I'll try the $40 vacuum sealer.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    You definitely get small pockets of air. On the other hand, the week I started doing this, I fanatically probed the temperatures of the proteins I cooked, and they were invariably exactly where I set the controller to. It got boring, so I stopped checking. Also, the difference between perfect 131-133f ribeye and carefully cooked conventional ribeye is not subtle.
    - weaksauce 17y ago
      I would imagine that the pockets of air is going to matter less the longer you have the protein in the bath. What is your typical use case start it in the morning before work and then dinner? or is is a more abbreviated cycle?

dzlobin 17y ago

I was cooking at a two Michelin star restaurant last year where a large majority of proteins and vegetables were cooked sous vide. Don't underestimate the importance of a good salting, but sous vide will make everything you cook perfect, and consistent. There is a better home option now than the rice cooker + pid timer( which does not circulate water and leads to uneven cooking. http://www.sousvidesupreme.com/ http://www.sousvidesupreme.com/ This is as good as you can get without buying a $995 dollar immersion circulator(which you should buy if you can). Pick up the more expensive foodsaver, if you can't afford a commercial unit. I cook at arazorashinyknife.com these days, and our commercial unit which costs $5000 just died on us, it cost $1000 just to have a guy look at it -.- http://cookingissues.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/coming-soon-sous-vide-and-low-temp-primer/ http://cookingissues.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/coming-soon-so... Here is a primer on sous-vide cooking, which by the way can can be done the ghetto way by sealing a sturdy ziplock bag almsot under water, to get as much air out as you can. Then you can leave a large pot of water running under the hot water tap until you can get the water to the temperture you need.

ars 17y ago
Aren't you worried about the plasticizers from the bags?
- tptacek 17y ago
  Yes.
- illumin8 17y ago
  Sous Vide sounds interesting, but I don't relish the though of eating known carcinogens that are leeching into my foods. BPA is a serious risk, and the FDA so far has refused to take much action on it. It seems that corporate profits trump safety these days. How much rocket fuel is safe to drink in our public water supply? What are a few deaths against the right to corporate earnings?
  - tptacek 17y ago
    You're not crazy, but if you're serious, you basically need to avoid all commercial meat, both because nobody's guaranteed that things like BPA haven't leached into your food before it arrives on the shelves, and because commercial meat is exposed to worse things than plasticizers.

whimsy 17y ago

I thought of this exact page whilst reading; I'm glad I wasn't the only one. It would be pretty awesome if you documented how you made it work (especially if you do it in such a way that is cheap and easily reproducible).

tptacek 17y ago
1. Buy Auber Instruments SV controller @ ~$120. 2. Buy mechanically-switched Black & Decker rice cooker @ $40. 3. Buy Seal-a-Meal vacuum sealer @ $40. 4. Buy two aged rib-eye steaks. 5. Pat steaks dry, salt liberally, pepper. 6. Seal steaks in a single vacuum-sealed bag with 1 tbsp of butter for each steak. 7. Set Auber PID controller for 131f. 8. Put sealed steaks in the bottom of the rice cooker. Fill with water. 9. Ensure that the thermal probe from the PID controller is in the water. 10. Ensure that the rice cooker is plugged into the PID controller, and the PID controller into the wall. 11. Walk away for 4 hours. 12. Heat peanut oil in a skillet until shimmering. 13. Remove steaks from water bath. Pat dry. Oil should be just-smoking. 14. Sear steaks on both sides, 30-40 seconds per side. 15. Rest meat 10-15 minutes. 16. Serve.
- spudlyo 17y ago
  Thanks so much for this list. Very excited to try it!
  - tptacek 17y ago
    Wait until you try good-quality short ribs, cooked at 134 for 3 days. Medium-rare short ribs!
- Edaname 17y ago
  Don't forget to include SousVideMagic controller. The new model 1500D has better precision (0.1)over the old model.

fms 17y ago

You are right. SousVide cooking prepares healthy meals with less salt and spices, and at the same time, preserve the vitamins and nutrients and flavour much more than conventional cooking. Our latest release SVM 1500D temperature controller works beautifully with a basic rice cooker. FreshMealsSolutions is introducing another new product called FreshMealsMagic which is a heater and circulator all in one for $159.00. It will make any pots into a constant water bath for sousvide cooking ( no need for rice cooker).

tptacek 17y ago
Get me a review unit! If it works, I will sing its praises to the heavens.