Sous Vide - Sounds weird.. changes the game..

[Prettyman]

Does anyone else use a sous vide for cooking food? Which one do you have and what vessel do you use it in? My step father has been in the meat business for 50 years from mopping floors in a butcher shop at 17 to regional manager at one of the largest distributors in the country and everywhere in between. Dude swears by the things. He gifted us the Anova Bluetooth model for a wedding present a few years ago and my wife and I have been trying to new ways to utilize it ever since. I just posted my sous vide venison “roast beef” recipe in food porn 2020 thread. My favorite thing to use the anova for is keeping food ready to eat without overcoooking it, while spending time preparing other dishes. If you want your meat medium rare it can sit in the water bath for hours and never get 1 degree over finished cook temp. What do you say? Too fancy? Not masculine enough for the mans men? Or perfect kitchen tool?

[stanley]

I have not done it, but my nephew has been doing in the past couple of years at our BIG family Christmas dinner.  In addition to our traditionally roasted standing rib roast, he has been doing a smaller one on the side Sous Vide style.  It is amazing!!

I don't own the set-up, but thinking I'll add to my kitchen gadgets soon.  I have some bison roasts that might take well to that method. 

Regarding not being masculine enough.......   FORGET THAT!!!!    I say cooking your game meat anyway you want is cool stuff!!!  

[dmoto]

I've been using one for 5+ years. It's great and really just another kitchen tool. I've been using it for anything from pre-making camp meals, to 36 hour short ribs, infusing vodkas and bourbons, tomahawk steaks, etc. Camp meals typically include a couple tri tips at 132* for about 12 hours (at home), then leave the tri tips in the bag and back into the fridge/cooler until they're time to eat. Cut them very thin and a quick sear on a cast iron skillet. Makes for a good lunch with King's Hawaiian rolls and some horseradish sauce.

Short ribs - use a Korean gochujang paste on the ribs. Vacuum seal and sous vide at 150* for 36 hours. Remove from the bath, refrigerate and when ready to eat, just sear on a skillet and good to go. Makes for good social bbq or camp meal.

Vodka - Pour vodka in an empty glass beer growler until 3/4 way full. Dump in cut up fruit such as apple, pear, mango. Put the lid on the growler and into the bath at 150* for 4 hours. Makes for great infused booze. Works the same with bourbon or rum. Makes good for social get togethers. Chicks who booze love it.

Elk backstraps - same as a steak, 132* with just salt/pepper and a tbsp of butter. Into the bath for 2 hours and sear on a skillet or screaming hot grill. Turns out great, as it's cooked medium-rare all the way thru, not just in the middle with well done outer edges.

I could go on and on, but hope you get the idea. Kenji Lopez has a bunch of good tips on his website on sous vide.

 

[NewlyMinted]

The first Sous Vide'd meat I had was goose. It was sitting with pear and some seasoning for a few hours and was delicious and tender. I knew I had to get one and play.

Routinely cook beef and pork in it, and definitely pick your poison when it comes to books and resources.. there are a ton.

The only advice I have would be (a) get the highest wattage you can so that you can submerge it in a large stock pot and not have to wait for it to come up to temp or adjust to the newly introduced meat and (b) don't get one that work *only* via an app. Phones and apps change all the time and in 3-5 years you might regret having a useless Sous Vide.

Mine is a 1000W that I use with a massive stock pot wrapped with a towel and I use Saran wrap on the top to reduce evap. not using saran wrap works out fine even for 24hr, but the pot needs to be cleaned more due to calcium lines.

If you want to experiment before you test out your game, get some of the Costco marinated tri-tip. It's already in bagged up perfectly, so peel the sticker off and cook for 14-24 hours at 132C. Then like dmoto said very hot skillet or grill (there'll be flame) to finish.. it'll pull apart or slice up like a dream.

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

Never heard of this

[Prettyman]

My wife has a tendency to almost over use the sous vide because of its simplicity! I feel like its a great crutch for a cook who lacks confidence when it comes to finished temps etc. I can pull a piece of meat off the grill and know its cooked to the perfect temp but she struggles with it. The sous vide style of cooking helps her a lot in that manor. She will throw some chicken breasts in a marinade in the pot for a couple hours before dinner at 145, and just sear them whenever the rest of dinner is ready. No stress, no timing, and no “is this safe to eat?”.

[muledeerarea33?]

I have the anova model and love it. I went to a restaurant supply and bought a used plastic tub with lid for water bath. Cut circle out of the side for the sous vide. I just wrap it in a towel or two but insulating with sheet foam wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

[Elkaddict]

Love it! Been using one since Christmas, they’re foolproof for steaks, pork chops, chicken, haven’t tried elk yet but I’m sure going to! Anyone that doesn’t know about it just Google it and watch some videos. Easy way to prepare dinners.

[cactusjack]

I love it.  I have had great luck cooking my daughters bison this way.  He was a 7 year old bull and tough as can be.  Any roast, seasoned with salt, pepper, rosemary, whatever else I feel like throwing in, 36 hours at 132deg and then seared it with a Searzall torch.  Tender, moist and delicious.  

Chicken breasts are great this way too.  

Dmoto's way of doing camp meals is great.  sealed in bags, cooked and just reheat.  Perfect quick meals that are easy to clean up.  Im going to make some this weekend and get them ready for my deer hunt.  

[Outdoor Writer]

I don't know much about this stuff, but reading this thread and doing a bit of research seems to indicate that the units to do this are WAY over-priced because of the avante garde factor. In contrast, it appears a big deep fryer cost a 1/3 as much and will do the same thing with water instead of oil, no? Tell me why I'm wrong??

We have the one below for frying; I think we paid about $70 on Amazon. 

And then there are ones like these for about $50 that might even be better for Sous vide:

[Coach]

6 minutes ago, Outdoor Writer said:

I don't know much about this stuff, but reading this thread and doing a bit of research seems to indicate that the units to do this are WAY over-priced because of the avante garde factor. In contrast, it appears a big deep fryer cost a 1/3 as much and will do the same thing with water instead of oil, no? Tell me why I'm wrong??

We have the one below for frying; I think we paid about $70 on Amazon. 

And then there are ones like these for about $50 that might even be better for Sous vide:

This kind of reminds me of when I started getting interested in air fryers and after a little research discovered these fancy new contraptions were just convection ovens - ha ha. That said I still bought one and we use it a lot. 

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

That will do the same thing as long as it will hold the temp where you want it. Anywhere from 120 to 165

I started out using this method with a cast iron pot and the oven. I just put temp probe in the water and kept an eye on it, when the temp started to get lower I would kick the oven on for a few minutes then turn it back off. Not as easy but the same thing.

I catered a party and did 4 whole fillets in my sous vide machine and then transported them to the party in a cooler with 132 degree water in it. An hour later it was still 129 and worked out perfect. 

As far as cost I bought my first machine 13 years ago for 459.00 so todays 119.00 units are much more affordable. I still use my original unit.

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

One thing not mentioned I do a lot with this method is take a whole roast frozen and toss it in the machine in the morning and let it ride all day. At dinner time just sear it off hot and slice and serve. Nice and easy.

Another fun one is to take frozen steaks and toss them on the smoker for an hour then bag them up and sous vide them for another 2 hours at 129 then sear them off and serve, that one is really good.

[Outdoor Writer]

5 minutes ago, MULEPACKHUNTER said:

That will do the same thing as long as it will hold the temp where you want it. Anywhere from 120 to 165

I don't know why the fryers wouldn't do that since they have seemingly accurate temp controllers. I would probably opt for the pot-like ones rather than the type we have. 

[dmoto]

I could see fryers working as long as the temp control is accurate. My only issue would be the volume of the fryer. If I'm doing a large batch of tri tips, ribs, etc (for instance I did 6 tri tips and 9 racks of ribs for a houseboat trip to Powell) it wouldn't work so well. Using a sous vide "tower" allowed me to do huge batches in a 75 qt cooler.