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For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

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Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#91

Post by logfromblammo »

IvyMike wrote: post #17
surement wrote: post #11

This is a nice project but this common misconception is false: > Searing the food after sous-vide seals in the juices http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/to-sear-or-not-to-sear-985...

It may not be about sealing in the juices, but a sous-vide steak out of the bag is a very unappealing grey color. And the Maillard reaction is necessary for proper taste. You need to do something to it, be it throw it on a hot pan for a minute a side or use a Searzall.

Or you could drop your bagged meat into an oil bath regulated to 150 degrees C. It would probably be more in character for the cooking method.

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#92

Post by lee »

ha292 wrote: post #89

Question for sous-vide aficianados. Are you not worried about the chemicals going from plastic to your feed ? I grew up knowing that, by and large, the less manufactured stuff you put in your food the better the food is for your body. So, it seems highly dangerous to me to take natural piece of food, wrap it in a highly complex chemical compound (plastic), heat it, and then consume it.

I don't know much about sous-vide, but the cooking temperature is 55 to 60 degrees celsius. That's fairly low. Most plastics shouldn't deteriorate at that temperature.

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#93

Post by maratd »

ha292 wrote: post #89

Question for sous-vide aficianados. Are you not worried about the chemicals going from plastic to your feed ? I grew up knowing that, by and large, the less manufactured stuff you put in your food the better the food is for your body. So, it seems highly dangerous to me to take natural piece of food, wrap it in a highly complex chemical compound (plastic), heat it, and then consume it.

Most of the time the food came in that very plastic. I mostly sous-vide meat that came frozen and is already vacuum sealed. One less step.

You're generally heating it to 140 F or so. I don't know if that's sufficient to trigger leaching of some sort, but the plastic isn't deformed in any way and there's no aftertaste.

Any experts care to weigh in?

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#94

Post by joshu »

ojiikun wrote: post #88

Pedantic: you built a really cool PID-controlled immersion heater, not a "sous vide cooker". Sous vide is the technique of preparing food in a vacuum. Placing food in a zip-top bag and displacing the air out might give you a reasonable water-product interaction surface, but it does not form a vacuum, and therefore is not cooking en sous vide.

Even more pedantic: The cooker doesn't generate the vacuum. You use an immersion heater to cook the things in the bags.

It's also generally thought you don't really need to bother with actual vacuum for meats anyway.

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#95

Post by joshu »

scott_karana wrote: post #35
bitroliest wrote: post #6

Not directly related to the tech, but "sealing in the juices" with a sear is broscience. [1] http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/12/the-food-lab-how-to-cook-...

"Sealing in the juices" is definitely false, but a hot sear to cause the Maillaird protein reaction is important if you want to have the distinctive "traditional" steak taste.

The more important question for sous vide: Sear before or after vacuuming? Or both?

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#96

Post by eropple »

tptacek wrote: post #48
eropple wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Average" is probably not the right word, but maybe the author is referring to full-on water baths, not immersion circulators? the Sous Vide Supreme Demi is between $300 and $350. A Fusionchef water bath is up to $2000.

Why would anyone buy either of these? Serious question.

I have the SVS and an Anova and I use the SVS much more often. In my experience it holds to temperature better and more uniformly, the heating element spans the entire base so it's easier to cook in bulk (without worrying too much about blocking convection), I didn't have to hack a lid together, and it looks a lot better on my kitchen counter--which is important because it never leaves the counter, I use it five to six times a week.

I'll use the Anova (which I got for free, I wouldn't have bought it otherwise) if I need a very large bulk batch of something that I'm not worried about keeping at a precise temperature, but the SVS fits me a lot better otherwise.

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#97

Post by joshu »

scott_karana wrote: post #42

> An average sous-vide cooker costs $2000, with low-end cookers going for around $300 Seems a bit exaggerated, and I'm not sure why, when this article was pretty awesome otherwise. The professional-grade, ubiquitous Polyscience MX units are around ~$1000[1][2], and the low-end cookers start at $180-200[1][2]... 1 http://www.amazon.com/MX-Immersion-Circulator-C-Clamp/dp/B00... 2 https://www.instrumart.com/products/370…

Absolutely, this jumped out at me as well.

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#98

Post by joshu »

tgb wrote: post #37

Sous-vide is interesting to me but only seems worth it if you eat a lot of meat. Am I mistaken?

The low-pressure vacuum sealer doesn't do anything for vegetables, but chamber vacuums burst the internal air cells in plants and can significantly change textures to an amazing degree. (This is separate from the actual cooking process, which itself can change things, but not to the degree that occurs for meats.)

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#99

Post by eropple »

tptacek wrote: post #51
eropple wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Sous Vide Supreme[1] and it's pretty much the secret weapon for making cheap beef tasty. Even cheapo chuck can do really well in one of them if you let them go for a while. What's nerdy-cool about it, I think, is that if you're quick, you can seal a steak with no air bubbles whatsoever and the steak will remain bright red while it cooks. Obviously you sear it after, but watching people's eyes bug out a littl…

Really? You're getting better performance from an SVS than an Anova? My understanding is that for reasonable water baths, the Anova is pretty close to the performance of the Polyscience, which is the gold standard. When Kenji Alt tested the Anova, he found his unit had been miscalibrated; maybe check yours? I donated my unopened Sansaire to Butcher & Larder and the first thing they did with it was set it up in a huge…

For my use cases, I find the SVS Demi (sorry, forgot to note that before) to work well. I use it primarily for cooking for one or two people, on a daily basis, so it does have a home on the counter and all. Setup/teardown (or just having an ugly stockpot on the counter) makes the Anova worse for my use cases, so I only break it out for big, 5-6 gallon batches of stuff, at which point there is something of a temperature gradient at the far end of the bath. I don't think it's a calibration thing, because it does work fine on smaller batches, it's just not very useful to me there.

Also, I bought the SVS Demi on sale for under $300. The Polyscience bath is like $500. (I got the Anova for free.)

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#100

Post by soegaard »

ha292 wrote: post #89

Question for sous-vide aficianados. Are you not worried about the chemicals going from plastic to your feed ? I grew up knowing that, by and large, the less manufactured stuff you put in your food the better the food is for your body. So, it seems highly dangerous to me to take natural piece of food, wrap it in a highly complex chemical compound (plastic), heat it, and then consume it.

When you cook sous vide you buy bags made specifically for the purpose. Bags made of polyethylene or polypropylene are the most common. For more info see http://modernistcuisine.com/2013/03/is-it-safe-cook-plastic/
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