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Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World's Best Sous-Vide Hack

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Re: Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World's Best Sous-Vide Hack

#11

Post by farmerbuzz »

tptacek wrote: post #4

This is an awesome hack, but I gotta point out that the price point on "real" SV he's using is off. It's $400+ if you buy a Sous Vide Supreme. But you can also buy a $40 rice cooker (which is a multitasker) and a $130 PID controller from Auber Instruments. The only downside to the beer cooler hack, besides the fact that it's not precise enough to do eggs, is that it won't work over very long cook times. It looks like…

Are there any crock pots out there with suitable temperature range and digital temperature control? Seems too simple to not exist..

Re: Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World's Best Sous-Vide Hack

#12

Post by icey »

tptacek wrote: post #4

This is an awesome hack, but I gotta point out that the price point on "real" SV he's using is off. It's $400+ if you buy a Sous Vide Supreme. But you can also buy a $40 rice cooker (which is a multitasker) and a $130 PID controller from Auber Instruments. The only downside to the beer cooler hack, besides the fact that it's not precise enough to do eggs, is that it won't work over very long cook times. It looks like…

Auber has great customer service too - the sensor on my PID went bad and when I emailed Auber about it, they FedExed a new sensor to me within minutes.

Re: Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World's Best Sous-Vide Hack

#13

Post by logicalmind »

geoffc wrote: post #2

That's cool! I'm going to try an omaha steak in my cooler, it is already vacuum sealed so as far as I can see I just throw the steak in the hot water and go have a few cold beverages while it cooks. Mmmmmh.

I don't want to burst your bubble or anything, but you should call omaha steaks and ask them what the USDA grade of their steaks would be if they paid for them to be graded. Combine that with the fact that they are usually frozen and you're not getting a good deal on their meat.

Re: Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World's Best Sous-Vide Hack

#14

Post by tptacek »

farmerbuzz wrote: post #11
tptacek wrote: post #4

This is an awesome hack, but I gotta point out that the price point on "real" SV he's using is off. It's $400+ if you buy a Sous Vide Supreme. But you can also buy a $40 rice cooker (which is a multitasker) and a $130 PID controller from Auber Instruments. The only downside to the beer cooler hack, besides the fact that it's not precise enough to do eggs, is that it won't work over very long cook times. It looks like…

Are there any crock pots out there with suitable temperature range and digital temperature control? Seems too simple to not exist..

Not really, to either interpretation of that question:

(a) There's no crock pot I can think of that controls the temperature of what's in the pot; in other words, fill the pot with water, and there's no crock pot that keeps the water at 130f.

(b) Crock pots are (allegedly) hard to control with PID controllers (that's why everyone uses rice cookers); the "low" setting on the crock pot is apparently still too hot.

It's also getting harder and harder to find crock pots that don't have digital controls, which is a dealbreaker if you want to use a cheap PID controller.

Re: Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World's Best Sous-Vide Hack

#15

Post by tptacek »

chrisa wrote: post #9

This reminds me of a staple of my Boy Scout cooking: eggs in a bag. Just crack your eggs into a zip top bag (it must be a freezer bag to handle the temperature), add cheese, or peppers, or whatever you like in an omelet, suck out the air, and put it in boiling water until it’s done. Then, if you eat your omelet straight out of the bag, you have no clean up! It had never occurred to me then to try to cook anything els…

Just remember that there's a huge difference between boiling and SV'ing eggs. Boiled eggs sound gross. Boiled steak is gross. You don't want to let the eggs get over 150. Eggs cook fast. Water boils at 212f.

Re: Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World's Best Sous-Vide Hack

#17

Post by tptacek »

DrSprout wrote: post #16

Any consideration for toxicity? I can't imagine plastic baggies are designed to keep food safe for human consumption when you heat them enough to cook meat.

Cheap bags start breaking down around 190f. You wouldn't want to eat anything that came out of a 190f bag anyways. It's a valid concern though.

Re: Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World's Best Sous-Vide Hack

#18

Post by tptacek »

yish wrote: post #7

I have made a modified sous-vide setup based on the following excellent instructions which I have not seen mentioned here. Total cost was under $75 for me since I simplified the setup a bit. Temperature accuracy is excellent. http://seattlefoodgeek.com/2010/02/diy-sous-vide-heating-imm... Quick overview of my modifications. I used a 6" deep full size hotel pan I got in chinatown as my water bath and a standard $9 150…

That is awesome. How hard was it to make? When you switched to the 1500 watt heater, did you have to tinker much with the PID controller?

Re: Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World's Best Sous-Vide Hack

#19

Post by logicalmind »

tptacek wrote: post #15
chrisa wrote: post #9

This reminds me of a staple of my Boy Scout cooking: eggs in a bag. Just crack your eggs into a zip top bag (it must be a freezer bag to handle the temperature), add cheese, or peppers, or whatever you like in an omelet, suck out the air, and put it in boiling water until it’s done. Then, if you eat your omelet straight out of the bag, you have no clean up! It had never occurred to me then to try to cook anything els…

Just remember that there's a huge difference between boiling and SV'ing eggs. Boiled eggs sound gross. Boiled steak is gross. You don't want to let the eggs get over 150. Eggs cook fast . Water boils at 212f.

Except for poached eggs. Cooked in nearly boiling water. Quite excellent.

Re: Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World's Best Sous-Vide Hack

#20

Post by whyenot »

I would be at least a little worried about food poisoning. Cooking salmon at 115 deg F, or beef at 125 deg F or even chicken at 140 deg F is not a high enough temperature to kill off many harmful bacteria and parasites. In normal cooking, the external surfaces of the meat, where most contamination occurs, reach much higher temperatures.
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