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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

#21

Post by chrisa »

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.

Ah yes, I forgot to mention: watch your eggs very closely, or they turn slimy (which is as gross as it sounds, yes). If you get them out in time though, they taste basically like an omelet cooked in a pan. Then again, I was a teenager last time I did that, so maybe I'd have a different opinion if I tasted them now :)

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

#22

Post by logicalmind »

whyenot wrote: post #20

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.

Killing most bacteria is a function of temperature and time. The higher the heat, the less time it has to be at that temperature. The lower the heat, the longer it has to be at that temperature. It's all a numbers game. Nothing is completely safe.

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

#23

Post by yish »

tptacek wrote: post #18
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?

Pretty easy once I got all the parts together. Assembled it all over the course of one night. Hardest part was drilling the hole into the side of the hotel pan for the water heater. Luckily my neighbor is an electrician and had a step bit that worked perfectly, took about 45 minutes.

Oh, and the Radio Shack relay mentioned didn't work for me when hooked up to my PID's solid state relay (different PID then used in the link). The switching voltage wasn't enough but eventually got a relay that only needed 5V to switch. Short term I used the internal relay which worked fine, but was noisy and I wasn't comfortable driving that amount of amperage through it.

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

#24

Post by whyenot »

logicalmind wrote: post #22
whyenot wrote: post #20

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.

Killing most bacteria is a function of temperature and time. The higher the heat, the less time it has to be at that temperature. The lower the heat, the longer it has to be at that temperature. It's all a numbers game. Nothing is completely safe.

That's not entirely true. If you for instance "cook" meat at 100 degrees you'd end up with more bacteria than you started with. You do need to cook at a temperature that is hot enough to actually kill the bacteria. It's not a numbers game at all, it's understanding a little microbiology.

Nothing is completely safe, but food poisoning is also not fun.

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

#25

Post by yish »

whyenot wrote: post #20

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.

Typically you would sear the fish/beef/chicken before/after for texture, flavor and color. Beef for instance will come out grey on the outside and look unpleasant unless seared (inside is still bright red/pink though).

The bigger risk is the time that the food is left in the danger zone of above 50 degrees and below 125 degrees (don't quote me on those numbers, going off memory). Basically any bacteria present in food in that temp range will start reproducing quickly. I have heard 4 hours as the time limit acceptable to have food in that temp range before being considered unsafe.

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

#26

Post by logicalmind »

whyenot wrote: post #24
logicalmind wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killing most bacteria is a function of temperature and time. The higher the heat, the less time it has to be at that temperature. The lower the heat, the longer it has to be at that temperature. It's all a numbers game. Nothing is completely safe.

That's not entirely true. If you for instance "cook" meat at 100 degrees you'd end up with more bacteria than you started with. You do need to cook at a temperature that is hot enough to actually kill the bacteria. It's not a numbers game at all, it's understanding a little microbiology. Nothing is completely safe, but food poisoning is also not fun.

I highly recommend that anyone read this information before attempting sous vide. It outlines the various bacteria involved and the time/temp calculations for various items:

http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html

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

#27

Post by tptacek »

whyenot wrote: post #24
logicalmind wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killing most bacteria is a function of temperature and time. The higher the heat, the less time it has to be at that temperature. The lower the heat, the longer it has to be at that temperature. It's all a numbers game. Nothing is completely safe.

That's not entirely true. If you for instance "cook" meat at 100 degrees you'd end up with more bacteria than you started with. You do need to cook at a temperature that is hot enough to actually kill the bacteria. It's not a numbers game at all, it's understanding a little microbiology. Nothing is completely safe, but food poisoning is also not fun.

128f and above, with the caveat that pasteurization takes a lot longer at 128f than it does at 150f.

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

#28

Post by shpxnvz »

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…

Thanks for the link! I've been looking for plans to build a mash heater for home-brewing, and that looks like it will fit the bill nicely.

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

#29

Post by stcredzero »

yish wrote: post #23
tptacek wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Pretty easy once I got all the parts together. Assembled it all over the course of one night. Hardest part was drilling the hole into the side of the hotel pan for the water heater. Luckily my neighbor is an electrician and had a step bit that worked perfectly, took about 45 minutes. Oh, and the Radio Shack relay mentioned didn't work for me when hooked up to my PID's solid state relay (different PID then used in the…

By using beer cooler, you can reduce the heat output required to maintain a constant temperature. I also wonder if one could substitute a mixer or model boat propeller on the end of a rod and a small motor for the pump?
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