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Having compared the methods in my own kitchen, I'm also coming around to the idea that the reverse sear is a better method than sous vide, because I seem to get

Having compared the methods in my own kitchen, I'm also coming around to the idea that the reverse sear is a better method than sous vide, because I seem to get a better crust on the steak (likely because the steak is dryer than what I can remove from the s-v'd steak with paper towels). But, I find this only holds true for really nice cuts like filet mignon. If I want to cook a cheaper steak like a NY strip, I think the sous vide method produces a much more tender piece of meat, probably because I can cook it longer without overcooking it.

bradleyjg 5y ago
Haven’t yet gone down the SV road myself. I intend to buy the equipment and start playing around some time this year.
tptacek 5y ago
I've done the same tests with ribeyes and strips and, in a triangle test, you can't tell the difference between a circulator cook to 54c and a toaster oven reverse-sear cook to 45c (both followed by a hard sear). I really can't see much reason to circulate steaks anymore; there isn't even really a convenience win to it.
- fisherjeff 5y ago
  Hard disagree on convenience: Timing hot steaks with hot sides is virtually effortless with a circulator
  - tptacek 5y ago
    Not really. You have the same problem either way, because you've gotta sear both steaks. If you're going to need to hold the cooked reverse-sear steaks, bring them up to 120-124 (your final target temp is 128-132) instead of 115. I get what you're saying (I've got like 4 different circulators here, I'm not against them!) but the reverse sear is forgiving and flexible enough that I don't really even get a convenience win from it. (For calibration: my modal steak is a Whole Foods ribeye or strip, unmodified except for being salted ahead of time).
    - fisherjeff 5y ago
      Likewise, I’m 100% not against a pure reverse sear. I just prefer to focus on getting the sides prepped and done, knowing that whenever they’re ready, the meat’s only a few minutes out.
    - JshWright 5y ago
      For me the convenience factor has to do with the fact that I can vacuum seal and freeze a bunch of meat at once, then it's just a matter of tossing the vacuum sealed bag in the circulator a few hours before dinner. Then I just need to pull it out, hit it with the torch, and we're ready to eat. I suspect the longer cooking time to account for the meant being frozen helps with fat rendering. We buy half a beef every six months or so (split with my parents, so I guess it's technically 5/7th's of a half? 5/14th's of a cow?). For a few hours on a weekend doing some prep/portioning, I can dramatically reduce the workload for several week's worth of meals. Obviously there's other tradeoffs involved and different personal circumstances to consider, but for me the circulator wins out from a convenience perspective.
  - gruez 5y ago
    I fail to see how a circulator is more convenient or effortless. For starters you need to prep a bag and a pot of water if you're using a circulator. On the other hand with reverse sear all you need to do is stick a thermometer in, throw it on a pan/rack and put it in an oven. After you're done with the circulator you have to wrangle with a wet bag full of beef liquid and dry off the steak (otherwise your sear will be impaired). With reverse sear you can take it directly from the oven to the pan. During the sear stage, the timing you need is minimal for both. You only need to get the pan as hot as you can get it, and sear both sides until it's charred to your liking.
    - stickfigure 5y ago
      If you buy whole or fractional cow, the butcher will typically hand you boxes of separately vac-sealed cuts. At that point, it's really hard to beat the convenience of "grab one, throw it in the circulator". You don't even need to defrost it.
    - burntsushi 5y ago
      I don't really understand how you can "fail" to see the convenience. The convenience comes from the ease of getting it right. I consistently over-cooked steaks with the reverse sear method. Maybe half the time. With sous vide, I never---literally never---overcook a steak. That's the convenience. I don't have to worry about the temperature. I drop it in the bath and I take it out at my convenience.
      - tptacek 5y ago
        I'm interested in what tended to go wrong for you with the reverse sear. One tricky thing is that the temperature increases nonlinearly, so if you take a couple readings and get a mental trajectory of when it's going to hit 115, you're likely to be wrong. The flip side though is that cooking at 250 (or, sheesh, 200, as they're doing across the thread) gives you a _real big bulls-eye_ to hit. Nobody's gonna say that a circulator steak is bad. It's the second-best way to cook a steak. :)
        5y ago
gruez 5y ago
>probably because I can cook it longer without overcooking it. how long are we talking here? 1 hour? 2 hours?
weeksie 5y ago
A strip is not a "cheaper" steak than a filet. Filet mignon is a fine cut, it's low in flavor but very tender which means that it tastes better when it's extra rare. Well marbled cuts of steak are usually better at mid-rare b/c the fat melts a little. I do like sous vide for very thick steaks with some marbling—so a strip is a pretty decent one for the dip. However, I've found ribeyes come out spongey when you sous vide them and are better off being reverse seared. Edit: if you're shopping in the supermarket, filets will usually be more expensive. If you're buying prime dry aged from a butcher, it's a different story, mostly because filets aren't usually dry aged. Check Pat's steaks for reference: https://shop.lafrieda.com/collections/dry-aged-beef https://shop.lafrieda.com/collections/dry-aged-beef
- darkerside 5y ago
  I typically see strip steaks for way cheaper than filets per pound at the market (US). Since it's so tender, I've always felt filet are OK to cook a little more well, and you solve for the flavor with sauce, seasoning, or marinade.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    Strips and ribeyes are much more forgiving than filets because filets have very little intramuscular fat. Strips are ribeyes also taste much better than filets because filets have very little intramuscular fat. Don't buy filets. :)
- gruez 5y ago
  >A strip is not a "cheaper" steak than a filet. But objectively speaking a strip steak is cheaper. Based on my observations of supermarket sale prices, the ranking goes: fillet > ribeye > strip > others that I don't bother with (sirloin/round)
  - tptacek 5y ago
    You are missing out on some truly excellent steaks: the hanger is like a cross between the ribeye and the skirt; the skirt is no slouch either! and if you've got some Activa RM handy, you can make a triple-thickness skirt, which is incredibly good; the spider steak (compare to the "oyster" of a chicken leg) is maybe the world's greatest sandwich steak; the tri-tip, which takes a marinade far better than any of the expensive steaks, and which the circulator will make just as tender as a fillet; and the picanha, which is the single greatest grill steak --- I would trade 2 ribeyes for 1 picanha if I was planning to grill.
giraffe_lady 5y ago
I was a professional chef for many years before I got into coding and I very rarely use a sous vide at home. The practical advantages of it have a lot more to do with timing, prep dynamics, and consistency than they do with final quality. There are some things that it makes possible or easy that are otherwise nearly inaccessible to home cooks and that is cool if you want to play around with it. Or if I'm cooking 6 steaks for guests or whatever but that's not a problem I've been having recently. But otherwise I don't find too much value in it personally.
- foobarian 5y ago
  Not a chef but I also found sous vide to cause more problems than it solves for cooking steaks. The biggest problem I have with it is that the fatty marbling does not render to the extent it does on a grill, because I can't afford to sear it as long as on the grill to avoid overcooking it. So I end up with a nice brown sear only on the surface, but then as soon as you bite into it you're met with almost raw fat. It's gross :)
  - tptacek 5y ago
    There's a very simple fix for this problem, which is just to hold the steak for an hour or so to lower the temp (and give more breathing room for the sear) before you sear it off --- which also dries the exterior of the steak and improves the sear.
    - foobarian 5y ago
      That's an interesting idea, thanks. I can see continuing to SV for cuts of meat that really need it, e.g. a whole tenderloin. Otherwise I still find it more work for less result than a charcoal grill. Speaking of which it's annoying to reverse sear on a grill because covering it first for 10 or so minutes cools it down enough that the sear is not as nice as when it's done on the higher heat achieved without a cover.
- emmanuel_1234 5y ago
  Definitely agree with the "cooking 6 steaks for guests". This is my secret trick at barbecues: I pre-cook a bunch of steaks that I keep warn in an ice-chest (with no ice, obviously), then as guest comes and goes, I sear them, which takes a few minutes only. Every group of arriving guest gets to eat a nice perfectly cooked steak, straight out of the fire. My other secret trick is to sous-vide chicken wings, so I don't have to fear about contamination of my tools, people being like "is it cooked enough? It looks pink". After sous-viding, I leave them on a cold side of the barbecue until they turn golden brown: the meat is soft, moist and almost candied. It's fool proof as they'll never really have a chance to burn and they always come up perfect.
Xcelerate 5y ago
I agree with you, and I’m not entirely sure why, because I think it involves more than just the crust. It has something to do with the interior of the meat as well. I own a small Breville oven, and since it’s PID controlled, I set it at a very low temperature like 160 F and then put a separate probe in the meat to pull it at just the right temperature (takes a few hours). I end up with edge to edge evenness and a nice crust as well. It beats the Joule every time I’ve tried it. I will say that I haven’t found anything that beats sous vide for chicken and duck though.

bradleyjg 5y ago

Haven’t yet gone down the SV road myself. I intend to buy the equipment and start playing around some time this year.

tptacek 5y ago

I've done the same tests with ribeyes and strips and, in a triangle test, you can't tell the difference between a circulator cook to 54c and a toaster oven reverse-sear cook to 45c (both followed by a hard sear). I really can't see much reason to circulate steaks anymore; there isn't even really a convenience win to it.

fisherjeff 5y ago
Hard disagree on convenience: Timing hot steaks with hot sides is virtually effortless with a circulator
- tptacek 5y ago
  Not really. You have the same problem either way, because you've gotta sear both steaks. If you're going to need to hold the cooked reverse-sear steaks, bring them up to 120-124 (your final target temp is 128-132) instead of 115. I get what you're saying (I've got like 4 different circulators here, I'm not against them!) but the reverse sear is forgiving and flexible enough that I don't really even get a convenience win from it. (For calibration: my modal steak is a Whole Foods ribeye or strip, unmodified except for being salted ahead of time).
  - fisherjeff 5y ago
    Likewise, I’m 100% not against a pure reverse sear. I just prefer to focus on getting the sides prepped and done, knowing that whenever they’re ready, the meat’s only a few minutes out.
  - JshWright 5y ago
    For me the convenience factor has to do with the fact that I can vacuum seal and freeze a bunch of meat at once, then it's just a matter of tossing the vacuum sealed bag in the circulator a few hours before dinner. Then I just need to pull it out, hit it with the torch, and we're ready to eat. I suspect the longer cooking time to account for the meant being frozen helps with fat rendering. We buy half a beef every six months or so (split with my parents, so I guess it's technically 5/7th's of a half? 5/14th's of a cow?). For a few hours on a weekend doing some prep/portioning, I can dramatically reduce the workload for several week's worth of meals. Obviously there's other tradeoffs involved and different personal circumstances to consider, but for me the circulator wins out from a convenience perspective.
- gruez 5y ago
  I fail to see how a circulator is more convenient or effortless. For starters you need to prep a bag and a pot of water if you're using a circulator. On the other hand with reverse sear all you need to do is stick a thermometer in, throw it on a pan/rack and put it in an oven. After you're done with the circulator you have to wrangle with a wet bag full of beef liquid and dry off the steak (otherwise your sear will be impaired). With reverse sear you can take it directly from the oven to the pan. During the sear stage, the timing you need is minimal for both. You only need to get the pan as hot as you can get it, and sear both sides until it's charred to your liking.
  - stickfigure 5y ago
    If you buy whole or fractional cow, the butcher will typically hand you boxes of separately vac-sealed cuts. At that point, it's really hard to beat the convenience of "grab one, throw it in the circulator". You don't even need to defrost it.
  - burntsushi 5y ago
    I don't really understand how you can "fail" to see the convenience. The convenience comes from the ease of getting it right. I consistently over-cooked steaks with the reverse sear method. Maybe half the time. With sous vide, I never---literally never---overcook a steak. That's the convenience. I don't have to worry about the temperature. I drop it in the bath and I take it out at my convenience.
    - tptacek 5y ago
      I'm interested in what tended to go wrong for you with the reverse sear. One tricky thing is that the temperature increases nonlinearly, so if you take a couple readings and get a mental trajectory of when it's going to hit 115, you're likely to be wrong. The flip side though is that cooking at 250 (or, sheesh, 200, as they're doing across the thread) gives you a _real big bulls-eye_ to hit. Nobody's gonna say that a circulator steak is bad. It's the second-best way to cook a steak. :)
      - 5y ago

gruez 5y ago

>probably because I can cook it longer without overcooking it. how long are we talking here? 1 hour? 2 hours?

weeksie 5y ago

A strip is not a "cheaper" steak than a filet. Filet mignon is a fine cut, it's low in flavor but very tender which means that it tastes better when it's extra rare. Well marbled cuts of steak are usually better at mid-rare b/c the fat melts a little. I do like sous vide for very thick steaks with some marbling—so a strip is a pretty decent one for the dip. However, I've found ribeyes come out spongey when you sous vide them and are better off being reverse seared. Edit: if you're shopping in the supermarket, filets will usually be more expensive. If you're buying prime dry aged from a butcher, it's a different story, mostly because filets aren't usually dry aged. Check Pat's steaks for reference: https://shop.lafrieda.com/collections/dry-aged-beef https://shop.lafrieda.com/collections/dry-aged-beef

darkerside 5y ago
I typically see strip steaks for way cheaper than filets per pound at the market (US). Since it's so tender, I've always felt filet are OK to cook a little more well, and you solve for the flavor with sauce, seasoning, or marinade.
- tptacek 5y ago
  Strips and ribeyes are much more forgiving than filets because filets have very little intramuscular fat. Strips are ribeyes also taste much better than filets because filets have very little intramuscular fat. Don't buy filets. :)
gruez 5y ago
>A strip is not a "cheaper" steak than a filet. But objectively speaking a strip steak is cheaper. Based on my observations of supermarket sale prices, the ranking goes: fillet > ribeye > strip > others that I don't bother with (sirloin/round)
- tptacek 5y ago
  You are missing out on some truly excellent steaks: the hanger is like a cross between the ribeye and the skirt; the skirt is no slouch either! and if you've got some Activa RM handy, you can make a triple-thickness skirt, which is incredibly good; the spider steak (compare to the "oyster" of a chicken leg) is maybe the world's greatest sandwich steak; the tri-tip, which takes a marinade far better than any of the expensive steaks, and which the circulator will make just as tender as a fillet; and the picanha, which is the single greatest grill steak --- I would trade 2 ribeyes for 1 picanha if I was planning to grill.

giraffe_lady 5y ago

I was a professional chef for many years before I got into coding and I very rarely use a sous vide at home. The practical advantages of it have a lot more to do with timing, prep dynamics, and consistency than they do with final quality. There are some things that it makes possible or easy that are otherwise nearly inaccessible to home cooks and that is cool if you want to play around with it. Or if I'm cooking 6 steaks for guests or whatever but that's not a problem I've been having recently. But otherwise I don't find too much value in it personally.

foobarian 5y ago
Not a chef but I also found sous vide to cause more problems than it solves for cooking steaks. The biggest problem I have with it is that the fatty marbling does not render to the extent it does on a grill, because I can't afford to sear it as long as on the grill to avoid overcooking it. So I end up with a nice brown sear only on the surface, but then as soon as you bite into it you're met with almost raw fat. It's gross :)
- tptacek 5y ago
  There's a very simple fix for this problem, which is just to hold the steak for an hour or so to lower the temp (and give more breathing room for the sear) before you sear it off --- which also dries the exterior of the steak and improves the sear.
  - foobarian 5y ago
    That's an interesting idea, thanks. I can see continuing to SV for cuts of meat that really need it, e.g. a whole tenderloin. Otherwise I still find it more work for less result than a charcoal grill. Speaking of which it's annoying to reverse sear on a grill because covering it first for 10 or so minutes cools it down enough that the sear is not as nice as when it's done on the higher heat achieved without a cover.
emmanuel_1234 5y ago
Definitely agree with the "cooking 6 steaks for guests". This is my secret trick at barbecues: I pre-cook a bunch of steaks that I keep warn in an ice-chest (with no ice, obviously), then as guest comes and goes, I sear them, which takes a few minutes only. Every group of arriving guest gets to eat a nice perfectly cooked steak, straight out of the fire. My other secret trick is to sous-vide chicken wings, so I don't have to fear about contamination of my tools, people being like "is it cooked enough? It looks pink". After sous-viding, I leave them on a cold side of the barbecue until they turn golden brown: the meat is soft, moist and almost candied. It's fool proof as they'll never really have a chance to burn and they always come up perfect.

Xcelerate 5y ago

I agree with you, and I’m not entirely sure why, because I think it involves more than just the crust. It has something to do with the interior of the meat as well. I own a small Breville oven, and since it’s PID controlled, I set it at a very low temperature like 160 F and then put a separate probe in the meat to pull it at just the right temperature (takes a few hours). I end up with edge to edge evenness and a nice crust as well. It beats the Joule every time I’ve tried it. I will say that I haven’t found anything that beats sous vide for chicken and duck though.