Sous Vide - Vacuum Pouch Insight

When I first received my Sous Vide Supreme, it came with their vacuum sealer.  Note: they've since come out with a vacuum chamber sealer, but it's too expensive for me - I hope it's chump change for you!  I had a lot of trouble trying to figure out how to use the vacuum sealer without sucking fluid out of the meat and into the vacuum.

You do not want to suck fluid out of the meat and into the vacuum!  It will coat the inside of the vacuum pouch, preventing the ability to heat it enough to seal the bag, and it can destroy the vacuum motor, air seals, and will harbor bacteria, so don't do it!

I was very frustrated by this.  I did a lot of searching on the web, and found some insight, which I'm going to present here as well as have some links for you.

In using the vacuum sealer that came with my machine,  there are several approaches (this works for any type of FoodSaver vacuum sealer device):

• If the meat contains a lot of fluid, then place it into the refrigerator to chill it enough so the fluid is more viscus and will move slower, hopefully it will take so long for it to move to the top of the bag while sealing that it will have sufficient time to draw the vacuum and seal the bag before the fluid coats it.
• Make your bags longer, and place the meat as far away from the sealing point as possible, so the fluid will have further to travel before it gets to the area where you are sealing.  Longer distance to travel = longer time to get there.  Making my bags longer helped a lot.
• Tilt the front of the vacuum machine up, so it creates a hill to climb for the fluids.  This won't stop the fluid from climbing because of the force of the pressure flowing out of the bag and into the vacuum sealer, but it will take longer, and longer time to travel helps.
• Place a folded up paper towel between the meat and the seal point so it will absorb the fluids.  Hopefully, it will absorb enough so none is left to get to the seal point.  Or, it just might slow the fluid down long enough in its travel.
• Freeze the fluid into cubes and drop into the pouch to seal.  They won't unfreeze fast enough to cause a problem.

If none of those methods work, then switch to a Zip Lock Freezer Bag and use the Water Immersion method.  This involves placing water in a deep bowl, deep enough to hold the water and most of the Zip Lock Freezer Bag.  Close most of the Zip Lock Freezer Bag (leaving one end open to let air escape from the bag), then slowly immerse the bottom of the bag into the bowl containing the water.  Tilt the Zip Lock Freezer Bag so the open end is at the top, then immerse the bag.  The water will exert pressure on the side of the Zip Lock Freezer Bag, forcing the air out.  Just before water will flow into the Zip Lock Freezer Bag, finish sealing the bag.  Here's a video of a person doing this (about 2:00 minutes into the film).  

Banjo's Recipe: Brining Pork Spare Ribs

Why do we brine?

We brine meats in order to impart moisture, and sometimes flavors, into a meat.  This is particularly useful for meats such as turkey breast, which can be very dry after cooking.  In this case with pork spare ribs, I've cooked them many times but I have never tasted how one tastes after brining, so that's what I'm going to do!

Brining Vs Marinating

Brining adds moisture into a meat by osmosis, which is the cell's attempt to balance it's internal salt content with salt content outside of itself.  The meat is put into a liquid bath that contains a high percentage of salt.  As the cell attempts to balance the salt levels, moisture is drawn into the meat, swelling the cells with the additional moisture.

Marinating is similar to brining, but has a higher acid content, in an attempt to tenderize the meat.  Since my meat will be cooked via Sous Vide, which will tenderize the meat via time and temperature instead of acid, there is no need to marinate the meat.

I had wondered whether or not a brine would contain worcestershire sauce or soy sauce, as both are high in salt.  I have a lot of worcestershire sauce that is getting close to its age-off date, so I was interested in using it before having to chunk it.  However, in my research, I kept coming across worcestershire and soy being used in marinates, but not in brines.  Since I know both to be high in salt, I began to wonder, what is the difference between a brine and a marinate?

Research showed a marinate to be high in acid in an attempt to tenderize meat.  I checked a USDA source for the ph level of foods (ph is a measurement of acidity), and found that both worcestershire sauce and soy sauce are about as acidic as vinegar, so that explains why they don't show up in brines (salt, not acid) but do show up in marinates (acid and salt).

So, while either worcestershire or soy sauce can be added to a brine for flavor, I don't want to add so much that I've changed it into a marinate.  Dang - thought I was going to use up that worcestershire sauce!

Ingredients


Note: I prefer to use distilled water as our water has a lot of fluoride in it.
Note: I do not have a 6 qt lexan container, so instead I use a water cooler.  I use a water/ice mixture (just enough water to fill up to the ice) in the cooler instead of just water.  This also means I don't have to find room in the refrigerator!

Time
I'm going to brine the pork spare ribs for 48 hours.

Steps

1. Mix the brine ingredients into a container large enough to hold two (2) racks of pork spare ribs, about 9 lbs of ribs.
2. place spare ribs into brine container
3. Place container into refrigerator, which should be at a temperature of 40 dF or below.
4. Leave in brine for 48 hours.
5. At the end of 48 hours (or there about - not critical), remove ribs from brine.
6. Blot ribs dry with paper towels (do not rinse off).
7. Your meat is ready for use!

Brine Recipes

Alton Brown's (note: we are using his Boston Butt recipe):

Brine:

• 8 ounces or 3/4 cup molasses
• 12 ounces pickling salt
• 2 quarts bottled water
• 6 to 8 pound Boston butt
• Combine molasses, pickling salt, and water in 6 quart Lexan. Add Boston butt making sure it is completely submerged in brine, cover, and let sit in refrigerator for a minimum of 8 hours. 12 hours is ideal.

Douglas Baldwin's 

Brine in a 7–10% salt, 0–3% sugar water solution (70–100 grams salt and 0–30 grams sugar per 1 liter) in the refrigerator for 12–24 hours.

Links

• This is a very good, informative link to cooking pork spare ribs Sous Vide, along with brining the ribs.  BTW - Douglas Baldwin, who made the video this link points to, has an excellent site for cooking Sous Vide, as well as an excellent book.

Banjo's recipe: Pork Spare Ribs with Sous Vide

Meat
I picked up a package of Spare Ribs from Costco.  The package weight about 9 lbs.  This contains two (2) whole racks.

Preparing

• Prepare the brine (Banjo's Pork Spare Ribs Brine).
• Cut the pork spare ribs into sections small enough to fit into several vacuum pouches.  I will not place into the vacuum pouches at this time because I want to brine them first.
• Place the spare ribs into the brine.
• Place brine into the refrigerator for 48 hours
• After 48 hours, remove spare ribs from brine and blot ribs dry.
• Prepare any special sauce and place sauce into vacuum bags where you will be putting your spare ribs.
• Place ribs into vacuum bags and seal.  
• Note: if you have difficulty with this step with applying vacuum without sucking fluids out of pouch, then use Zip Lock Freezer Bags gallon size to put sauce and ribs into, then use 'water immersion' method to evacuate the air, or leave the sauce out.
• Note: if you prefer, you can put a dry rub on the meat instead, which should allow you to use your vacuum device to seal.

Brining
I will be brining the pork spare ribs.  Here is Banjo's Recipe

Cooking

• Cook for 48 hours at 135 dF.  
• Note: if this is your first time cooking Sous Vide, or low temperature cooking, then don't get alarmed about the low temperature for pork.  We are cooking the meat for a long enough time at this temperature in order to pasteurize the meat and to also tenderize it.  It will be slightly red in color because it will come be medium well when we take it out at 135 dF.  There are two things associated with this cooking - pasteurization and tenderizeation.  Per Douglas Baldwin's book, pasteurization will take 1 hour at 130 dF for meat 1.25 inches thick.  Notice we are above this temperature, and at a much longer time, so we are definitely pasteurized!  However, we are going this extra length of time in order to tenderize the meat....it will be "falling off of the bone tender" when we are through.  
• If you will be 'toasting' the ribs on a grill-with-a-dome, then 30 minutes before taking them out of their pouches, heat up the grill, placing your charcoal on one side of the grill while leaving the other side open so your ribs won't be directly over the hot coals (indirect heat).  I try to get my dome up to 400 dF or hotter - you aren't going to cook the ribs because they are already cooked - you are just trying to toast the outside, so hot and fast!
• In inclement weather I will toast our ribs under our oven's broiler. Simply place them in a pan to catch the drippings, meat side up, about 4 inches below the coils.  Place it on "hi", and monitor.  Since they are already cooked, I'm just toasting.  I leave the door open so I can watch to decide when to pull off.  This probably took at least 10 minutes (sorry, I forgot to time this).
• Remove ribs from  vacuum pouch.  You can either eat them at this point, or continue on with 'toasting' to brown.
• Toasting: Rinse the ribs off so you get the salt off of the meat.  (I didn't do this the first time, and they were too salty).  Blot the ribs dry, (this is important as it help speed up the process of toasting the meat) then place the ribs onto the side of your grill opposite the hot coals.  I like to put a aluminum drip pan under them to keep the oil from getting all over my grill.  Toast for about 10 - 20 minutes, or they acquire the browning you desire.  Your goal is to not leave them in the dome for very long, as you are wanting to toast the outside without additional cooking on the inside.

Links

• Banjo's Pork Spare Ribs Brine
• This is a very good, informative link to cooking pork spare ribs Sous Vide, along with brining the ribs.  BTW - Douglas Baldwin, who made the video this link points to, has an excellent site for cooking Sous Vide, as well as an excellent book.

Low Temperature Cooking - Some Safety Considerations

Note: See References below for links.

General
Cooking safely should be the goal of all of us that cook for ourselves as well as others.  It's easy to assume we cook safe, but unless we use an accurate thermometer, and also know the length of time a food has been cooked, our assumptions may be incorrect.

Low Temperature Cooking
Low temperature cooking offers us a method of cooking that:

• can tenderize foods.  We can choose cheaper cuts of meat that are tough and make them tender.
• retain moisture and fat for a more flavorful experience
• be convenient

Some important concepts
(Note: a lot of the insight in this section is provided by Douglas E. Baldwin's excellent and well researched book A practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking.

• Heating food: the center of the food should reach at least 130°F (54.4°C) within 6 hours to prevent the toxin producing pathogen Clostridium perfringens from multiplying to dangerous levels.  Your heat should be sufficient, for the size of the cut of food you are cooking, to heat to a temperature of 130 dF, or higher, within 6 hours of removing the food from the cooler.  Since larger pieces of food require the heating temperatures to migrate a bigger distance before reaching the center of the food, larger pieces of food will take longer to reach 130 dF than will smaller pieces of food.  If the size of the meat is so large as to preclude the heat from reaching a temperature at or greater than 130 dF within 6 hours at the center of the food, then a higher cooking temperature must be used, or the food should be cut to smaller thicknesses.    [A practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking]
• Placing warm, large pieces of food into a refrigerator may take a long time to cool sufficiently to reduce the chance of problem bacterial growth.  Thus, the food should be cooled via a water-ice mixture (50%/50%) in order to quick chill the food.  You can place the food into pouches, such as Zip Lock, removing all or most of the air so the food isn't insulated from the cool water by the air, in order to prevent dilution of the food with the water-ice mixture.
• Raw or unpasteurized food must never be served to highly susceptible or immune compromised populations. Even for immune competent individuals, it is important that raw and unpasteurized foods are consumed before food pathogens have had time to multiply to harmful levels. With this in mind, the US Food Code requires that such food can only be between 41°F (5°C) and 130°F (54.4°C) for less than 4 hours.  [A practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking]
• A refrigerator (not the freezer section) should be set to maintain a temperature at or below 38 dF.  Foods held below 41 dF can retard bacterial growth sufficiently so that the food is safe for up to 10 days.  Foods held below 38 dF can retard bacterial growth sufficiently so the food is safe for up to 31 days.[A practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking]

Testing Thermometers (future section)

References (future section)

• Book Website: A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking by Douglas E. Baldwin  To purchase from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/product/dp/0984493603/
• 
  

Connecting the Dots - Insight into Sous Vide Hamburgers

I'm working on a recipe for Hamburgers / Cheeseburgers.  But I wanted to share some interesting insight while I'm testing a recipe.

I already had "one dot" on slow, low temperature cooking - the tenderization of tough foods (think slow cooked BBQ here or stews) through low temperatures for an extended length of time.

I also was aware of "another dot" that allows one to cook to lower temperatures but for longer periods of time in order to pasteurize foods.

What I had failed to do was to connect the "two dots".

In recent years, the USDA has recommended higher cooking temperatures for things like ground beef (hamburgers), eggs, etc, to elevated temperatures of 160 dF or so.  In other words, past well done - think charred little tooth-breakers.  They wanted us to do this in order to pasteurize the meat so it did not represent a health hazard.

Which means we need to talk about pasteurization a little bit - not too much, but a little bit.

To pasteurize is not to sterilize - sterilization means to kill all of the 'bugs', whereas pasteurization means to reduce the amount of them, something like 1 million to 1.  So  to pasteurize is to reduce 'the bugs' to the point where their numbers are able to be handled by our bodies.  So in particular where something is cooked, like ground beef, it is important to pasteurize the food before consuming.

However, in the case of hamburger, cooking at normal temperatures, pasteurization is done by heating the ground beef at a temperature high enough to kill the 'bugs' in the short amount of time the hamburger is cooked.

However, there is more to pasteurization.  The way the 'bugs' are killed is temperature and time.  A very high temperature, for a very short time, will pasteurize the food.  A medium temperature for a medium length of time will also pasteurize the food.  And, a low temperature for a long length of time will also pasteurize the food.

From making sure I was producing safe BBQ, I knew all of this from the research I had done.

The Sous Vide method (the translation means, literally, to cook in a vacuum), at its simplest form, is place the food within pouches, then immerse the pouches into a water-bath with a precisely controlled temperature, then cooked at a low temperature for a time sufficient to pasteurize the food.  Cooking it for a long period of time does not over cook the food, it just brings the food up to that temperature.  Cooking it for an extended length of time, typically way past the point of pasteurization, makes the food very tender.

I have been focused on tenderization of the food as the main benefit of cooking in the Sous Vide style, which requires fairly long times.

The two dots that I failed to connect were the cooking long enough to pasteurize, but no longer, as depending on the food itself, I may not need to tenderize.

So this is where the hamburgers come in (as well as any other food like soft-cooked eggs, etc): I can cook them at rare, medium rare, medium - all that would have been below the USDA's recommendation - but still end up with safe, pasteurized food.

So think about this - safe pasteurized foods attainable at lower temperatures but cooked for longer lengths of time:

• hamburgers at medium rare.
• runny eggs.
• chicken breasts that have juice.
• pork that has juice (BTW - the new USDA recommended temperatures for pork is 160 dF).
• home made mayonnaise, which uses raw egg - the eggs can be pasteurized now.
• turkey breasts that are juicy.

We are cooking our first batch of hamburgers right now using our Sous Vide Supreme, and are using a target temperature of 137 dF - about medium rare.  I'll finish them in an iron skillet to toast them.  A better choice may be to finish on the grill, or if you are lucky enough to have one, a Big Green Egg smoker.

I can't wait!

UPDATE: The hamburgers were moist and very flavorful!  I expect this will be the way we cook hamburger going forward.

Banjo's Recipe NC Style Pulled Pork BBQ - Sous Vide Experiment #1

Last updated: 5/21/11 3:15 PM. Final Edition.


This Method
This method will make use of skinless, boneless, Boston Butt Pork,  a Sous Vide Supreme (SVS) for initial cooking, a charcoal grill (with a dome) for finishing, and some wood chips.  Please refer to previous posts regarding making NC Style Pulled Pork BBQ for other methods (see references at the bottom of this blog entry).


Background
I have been making NC Style Pulled Pork BBQ since 1987. I have used many different tools to make BBQ in the 22 years I have been making it. Some of my approaches:

• Using a gas grill (this was my first attempt)
• Using a Weber Bullet style charcoal smoker.
• Using an offset Brickman Hondo smoker.
• Using a barrel smoker that I built
• Using a Big Green Egg
• Welding a large smoker and using it in competition at the Big Pig Jig at Vienna GA.
• Designing my own computer controlled inlet air damper smoker.
• Building a 'flower-pot' smoker designed by Alton Brown.
• Designing my own low temperature oven using a heat lamp, Arduino microcontroller.
• Using a flower pot and a thermocouple controller on a hot plate
• Using a regular household oven as the cooking chamber, a heat-light-bulb (150 watts) for a heat source, and controlled by an Arduino.

So you can see I've done a few experiments!

Today I'm trying out the SVS to make NC Style Pulled Pork BBQ.  I've used the SVS to cook a lot of items, but this is the first attempt at BBQ!

Purests
Now some of you may say that's not the right way to make BBQ. And from a purest standpoint, I guess you'd be right. But I've done the purest form for years and this is what I want to try now! I like experimenting and I am searching for the best BBQ, and I don't care what I do to find it!  Besides - unless you take whole wood and burn it down to coals in a separate fire, then gather the coals and spread them underneath the pork, and continue to do this for 24 hours or more, you aren't doing it in the purest method either!  Offset smokers of any kind are not traditional  and purest!

Hardware

• A package of Boneless Boston Butt Pork Shoulder purchased at Costco.  Their packages of butt come in 12 - 18 lb with two butts per package.  This particular package weight 13.5 lbs.  For this test, I'll be using one of the two butts, and it weights about 6 lbs.  The other butt I've rewrapped and placed into the refrigerator for Experiment #2 to come in the next couple of days - it will also be posted here.  Costco's butt is boneless and already has the skin (AKA rind) removed so it is very lean, therefore you may need to add some additional fat to the final product to boost the flavor, but that's up to you.  When I add any fat, I prefer rendered bacon fat, but you can use any kind, although I would use butter if bacon is not available.
• A small amount of vegetable oil for brushing onto the meat surface after it comes out of the SVS and being finished on the grill.
• A charcoal grill with a dome, with a large enough surface area so you can position the pork on the side opposite the charcoal (you want to avoid placing the pork directly over the coals).  This is for finishing the BBQ.
• Lump Charcoal for the grill.  I never use regular briquettes!  They use many different ingredients to bind the briquettes together.  Always use Lump (sometimes called 'natural') charcoal.  They burn hotter and do not impart any off flavors to the BBQ.  Do not use charcoal lighter fluid to start the fire, as it too may impart an off flavor to the BBQ!  Use a chimney to start the lump charcoal.
• Some wood chips for adding smoke flavor to the cooked pork.
• Some aluminum foil for wrapping the wood chips in for smoking on the charcoal grill.
• A good cigar.  This is for me while I write this.  
• Talisker Single Malt Scotch.  Unfortunately, I'm on a diet, so I'm not having any Talisker today.  See my other blog posts from April 2011 for diet information.

Instructions

1. Obtain a skinless, boneless, Boston butt.  If you use Costco, then remove one butt, and rewrapp the other and place back into the refrigerator, as two whole butts are probably too big for a SVS to cook at a single time.
2. Cut the butt into strips about 2 - 3 inches wide, and as deep as it comes from the package.
3. Package into pouches using your preferred method (vacuum food sealer, vacuum chamber, ziplock).  For my single 6 lb butt, I ended up with 6 - 7 strips, which I packaged into two separate pouches, ensuring no overlap between slices of pork.
4. For this experiment, I used a temperature of 160 dF.  For me, the results of this experiment was the pork was dried out too much so the temperature was too high. For the next Experiment #2 I will use a different temperature, but I wanted to post the results of this experiment as I prepared it.  See Experiment #2 (future - in next couple of days) for the results of that experiment.
5. Cook the pork for about 24 hours.  The exact amount of time is not critical, but you are trying to achieve a balance between two things: sterilization and tenderness.  You want to ensure your time of cooking will allow the pork to sterilize, and the amount of tenderness you want will also reflect the time used.  Please see references below for additional insight on this topic.
6. 15 minutes prior to removing from the SVS, start the charcoal, as it will need about 20 -30 minutes to come entirely up to temperature.  You want a hot fire so you end up with a dome temperature of 400 - 450 dF, so use a good amount of charcoal.  Only you know the characteristics of your grill, so you will need to use your best judgement on this. 
7. Wrap your wood chips in aluminum foil, forming an air tight pouch, and punch a few holes in the top of the foil.   I use a couple of handfuls of chips.  I do not soak my chips in water.  I prepare multiple packets in case I want to add more chips.  Soaking chips can lead to creosote problems which will make the meat taste bitter.  I use any of the following: Oak, Hickory, Mesquite.  I used Hickory for this test.  Oak, which has a stronger flavor, may be a better choice since we are adding smoke at the end of the smoking period when it is tougher to get the smoke onto the meat.  At some future experiment I intend to smoke prior to pouching and placing into the SVS, but for this experiment I smoked afterwards.
8. At the end of your cooking period, remove the pork from the SVS but do not yet remove from the pouches.  Allow the meat to rest in its juices to reabsorb some of the moisture - about 15 minutes.  At this point, it should have resulted in your charcoal being up to temperature and ready to go.
9. At the end of the rest period, remove the pork from the pouches.  Blot dry.
10. Lightly brush the pork with vegetable oil.  This will serve two different purposes: it will allow the pork to absorb more smoke flavor, and it will help brown the meat.
11. Place the pork onto the grill surface so it is not directly over the hot coals.  
12. Adjust the air dampers so the coals will stay hot.  You should start seeing some blue tinted smoke from your chips.  You want a temperature in the dome of 400 - 450 dF.  This will brown the outside of the meat while evaporating some of the moisture at the surface of the meat, which will give it a slight crunch.  The pork is already cooked, so you are just interested in toasting the meat, and a hot fire is the best approach as it will allow you to toast quickly.  If your fire is not hot enough, then it will take a long time to toast the meat which will over cook the meat and dry it out.
13. Heat the cooked pork until it takes on a dark tan color, much like a correctly cooked Thanksgiving Turkey.  This could be anywhere from 10 - 30 minutes.  I let mine go for 30 minutes.
14. Remove from the gill and place into a bowl to shred.  I use two very large forks.
15. Taste the meat.  If it needs some additional fat (you were using very lean meat), add some bacon fat (butter if none available).  The meat should have a slight glisten to it when enough fat has been added.  For 6 lbs of pork, I would add about 3 ounces as a starting point.  You can add more, but you can't take any away once added!
16. If done correctly, the BBQ should have a slight crunch to it at this point from being indirectly heated in the hot, dry grill dome.  Shred the pork with any added fat.  I use two very large forks to pull it apart, mixing it up good.
17. If you know that everyone likes their NC Pulled Pork BBQ with the same sauce, you can add some now, but don't over do it - people can add more sauce at the table, but again - they can't take it away.

Critique

• We are experienced BBQ smokers and tasters!  
• We very much enjoyed the BBQ made using this method.
• We would have preferred more smoke.  I hope to correct this in Experiment #2.
• We enjoyed the toasted pork, and particularly enjoyed the crunch!
• The BBQ did not have enough fat on it.  We did not have any bacon, so we had to use butter.  I do not like the taste of butter on BBQ as much as bacon, but in a pinch.....
• It was overly dry.  It lacked both moisture as well as fat.  
• I may cook the next experiment at 135 dF (still debating next temperature for experiment, but no higher than 145 dF), leaving it in the SVS long enough to ensure it is sterilized.

References
Banjo's Recipe - Sauce for NC Style Pulled Pork BBQ
Which BBQ Smoker?
BBQ Smoker - Trash Can Smoker?
Sous Vide Cooking - Harold McGee
More Sous Vide Cooking
BBQ and Low Temperature Cooking
BBQ cooking via a low temperature oven
BBQ cooking via a low temperature oven - #2
BBQ cooking via a low temperature oven - #3
BBQ cooking via a low temperature oven - Final

Banjo's Recipe - Sous Vide Skirt Steak Carne Asada

Last Update: 5/16/11, 7:38 PM

I an in the process of developing this recipe to cook, so this post will be modified several times over the next several hours/days before the full, final version is posted, so keep checking back.

Time
Prep Time Sauce
1. If making your own adobo sauce from my recipes, then use suggested prep time from there. Wherever you obtain the adobo sauce/paste, you will need about 1 cup of adobo sauce/paste. If you prefer to buy your adobo, see references and links below.

Prep Time Meat about 15 mins
- 15 minutes for Sous Vide to come up to temperature of 135 dF.
- 10 minutes to get meat cut and bagged, done while Sous Vide coming up to temperature.

Sous Vide Cooking Time
24 hours at 135 dF.

Grill Time
- 30 minutes to start and charcoal to become fully lit.
- 5 - 10 minutes for meat on the grill depending on your grill and your preferences of toasting to meat.

Hardware
1 1-gallon size zip lock bag
charcoal and grill
1.5 - 3 pounds of skirt steak depending on your desired portion sizes and number of people. 1.5 pounds should be about right for 2 people.
1 cup of adobo sauce paste for 1.5 pounds of skirt steak. 1.5 - 2 cups for 3 pounds.

Steps (partial - evolving. See 'Big Picture' below)
1. Cut skirt steak into serving portion size, and place into a 1-gallon zip lock bag, remove air, zip lock closed, and place into refrigerator.
2. Add water to Sous Vide and adjust setpoint to 135 dF. Place lid on Sous Vide.
3. Prepare Adobo sauce using this link.
4. Obtain bagged skirt steak from refrigerator, open up zip lock and pour in adobo sauce.
5. Remove air from zip lock, zip lock closed. Try to spread the meat around so it isn't overlapping, but some overlap is OK.
6. Place into Sous Vide at 135 dF.
7. Cook for 24 hours. The meat will be cooked in an hour or so, but the additional time will make the meat more tender. Work with whatever is convenient for you. If it would be more convenient to go to 30 hours, then that is OK. If more convenient to go to 8 hours, then that is OK too. Anywhere in a range of 8 hours - 30 hours is OK; the longer it stays in, the more tender it will become, but you don't want much! We like the tender/resistance at 24 hours.
8. 20-30 minutes prior to taking bagged meat out of Sous Vide, start up your charcoal grill. This will allow the charcoal to take be completely started and at maximum temperature before using. Place grate onto grill to get hot.
9. Use a wire brush to remove any carbon from previous cooking.
10. At alloted time for cooking meat in Sous Vide, remove meat from Sous Vide and place onto plate to take to grill. Because the meat is cooked, you don't have to worry about cross contamination from raw food, so you can use this plate to take out to the grill and to bring back in from the grill.
11. Place all meat onto grill surface directly over hot coals. it won't be here long! (see below for additional insight)
12. Toast the meat on a side until finished before flipping to other side. You will only turn once. To judge when to flip, lightly lift meat with tongs to examine heated side. When it looks like your desired amount of toasting has taken place, flip. Do not re-flip!
13. When both sides have been toasted to your desired doneness, plate the meat and take to serving area.
14. If desired, you can remove some of the liquid from the bag and place into a bowl and microwave to bring up to a temperature for use as a dipping sauce.
15. Any leftover meat can be kept in the sauce and rezipped and returned to refrigerator for use in the next couple of days.
16. If reheating within a couple of days, bring the Sous Vide back up to 135 dF. Once at temperature has come to setpoint, place the bagged meat into Sous Vide and warm back up to desired temperature. Allow 1 hour or more for this step. Do not overlap meat or you will have to go for a longer time. You want to ensure all meat has come up to 135 dF before consuming. It is OK to return to the grill at this point or to a skillet if desired, but be careful of obtaining too much toasting as it may make it bitter.


Big Picture
1. DoneI'm going to purchase Skirt Steak. I don't know what the standard sizes are yet at the supermarket, so not sure how much I will be buying.
2. DoneI'm going to marinate the skirt steak in a marinate suitable for Carne Asada. TBD: how long to marinate, and what will the marinate be.
3. DoneI'm going to cook the skirt steak via Sous Vide Supreme. I'm going to target 135 dF. TBD: How long I will cook the skirt steak in the Sous Vide Supreme
4. Charcoal Method - DoneI'm going to brown the meat. I will split the meat into two (2) servings so I can brown one (1) piece in the skillet while browning the other on the grill.

4.1 Cast Iron Skillet browning. Important: Pat the meat dry with a paper towel prior to placing into the skillet. This is important because water and hot oil can cause serious burns from splatter when the water on the marinated skirt steak hits hot oil. When browning in a skillet, it is important for all of the meat to make contact with the skillet, and for heat to transfer from the skillet to the meat. It's also very important for the skillet to be very, very hot. Usually, you don't cook items in a pan on high heat because it is difficult to get the heat to transfer fast enough from the outer edges to the middle of the meat without over cooking the exterior, or under cooking the middle. However, since the meat has already been cooked to the proper temperature via Sous Vide method, this is not a worry. Instead, you now have the opposite worry - you want to brown the outside while not transferring any additional heat into the middle because the middle is already at the perfect temperature via the Sous Vide. Therefore, you want high heat to brown the outside fast for a short amount of time so the transfer of heat into the middle of the meat is at a minimum.

Several methods are commonly used to assist in transferring heat from the skillet to the meat. Since liquids are of higher density than air, the amount of energy that is contained within liquid at a specific temperature is higher than the amount of energy in air at the same temperature. Also, heat migrates, or transfers, faster in liquids than in air. This all means that cooking in liquids will result in the food being cooked faster in liquids than in air. The Sous Vide method makes use of a water bath for this reason, instead of being an air enclosing oven.
- Water: Since water boils at 212 dF (at sealevel, lower temperatures at higher altitudes), the maximum amount of heat that can be transfered
- Oil: The temperature of oil is limited only by its smoke point. Some common oils have smoke points from 200 - 500 dF. (see references below)

Oil to use: Because the food will not be absorbing much oil, the fat content of the oil is not an issue in this cooking method.

Maximum Flavor: Because I'm after the maximum flavor, if I can obtain it, I intend to use Lard. However, if that's not available, then I intend to use Crisco. I would prefer not to use this oil because it has been hydrogenated, which results in the type of fats that the USDA deems least desirable. Lard has a smoke point of about 370 dF.

4.2 Grill Method. I use a Weber grill. I will place enough Lump Charcoal (this is not briquettes) to provide an area bigger in diameter than the meat it will be cooking. Since the meat will not cover the whole surface of my grill, I will not place charcoal under the whole surface of the grill; only the area where the skirt steaks will cook. I start the fire (my Weber grill has a propane starting lighter), then allow about 20 - 30 minutes for the charcoal to get very hot. I place the grill over the charcoal during this time so it burns off any residue and sterilizes the grill surface. I use a wire brush to remove any carbonized material from the grill in the area that will be cooked. Once the charcoal has reached the desired cooking stage, I use the palm of my hand to quickly glide over and above the grill area to determine the hottest points of the grill. I place the meat directly onto the grill, directly over the hottest point of the grill.
I will leave the meat here, occasionally lifting to observe the amount of browning. When the desired amount of browning has taken place (for your desires), I flip the meat over and repeat for the other side. I do not flip other than the one time. Depending on how hot your charcoal is and the distance from the charcoal to the grill surface, the time can vary. However, expect anywhere from 2 - 8 minutes per side. Since the meat has already been cooked, the plate it was brought on to the grill should not have had any raw meat on it and can be used to place the meat on to bring it back inside. Note: since the meat has already been cooked via Sous Vide, you are NOT trying to cook the meat through - you are trying to brown the exterior only.


Recipe Steps
- Under development. Check back for updates.

Results
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Suggested Changes
- Under development. Check back for updates.


References and Useful Links
Banjo's Recipe for Adobo for this Carne Asada
Commercial Adobo
A good web site.

An excellent web site for Sous Vide cooking

Reference: Oil Smoke Points

Reference: Oil Smoke Points

Briquettes

Lump Charcoal

More Sous Vide Cooking

I originally built my own equipment for controlling the inlet-air dampers on a smoker (a Big Green Egg [BGE]). This worked really well, and was very consistent in the smoking temperatures it provided. I sometimes still use it today, but generally now just forgo that approach, as on low-wind days I find the BGE is close enough without the extra controls.

Sometime back, I became aware of Sous Vide cooking via the book 'Cooking for Geeks'. Given my BBQ background and slow smoking BBQ, I grasped this was the approach I first came across via Harold McGee's book 'On Food and Cooking'. This was too big to pass up now that I was retired!

So I gave it a try. Rather then buying any of the expensive commercial Sous Vide equipment, or even any of the other DIY less-expensive approaches, I adapted my thermocouple controller, which had built to control my BGE, to control a hotplate where I placed a large iron Dutch Oven (Lodge) and filled 3/4 with water. My first attempt was cooking 2.5# of Brisket. It worked out great! But the Dutch Oven was a little small for the larger Briskets, so another approach was needed, and it was sort of kludgey using my controller in the kitchen.

When my wife wasn't looking, I grabbed her electric 'Roaster Oven', a 20 quart beast that operates on 110 AC household electricity. My wife had lost confidence in this roaster when her Turkey came out way-under-cooked one Thanksgiving, but I hadn't been ready to throw the roaster out yet. Fortunately we had tested the temperature of the turkey with an internal probe and found it very low, so we moved the turkey to our main oven to finish.

For the Roaster Test, I filled the roaster 3/4 full with water, then inserted a remote sensing temperature probe (Taylor's Gourmet Stainless Steel Thermometer with Probe from Target) into the water. Setting the temperature to 150 dF as indicated on the dial of the Roaster, I waited patiently for the temperature to come up to 150 dF. It never did. I checked the temperature with the Taylor probe, and it was low, really low, around 100 or so instead of 150. That pretty much explained the turkey fiasco of a previous year! The printed temperatures on the roaster were way, way off! Using the Taylor, I spent the next day finding the proper dial position to obtain 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350 and 400 degree placements and marked those with a Sharpie perm pen.

I tested the markings for 2 days - they held consistent, so while the markings were way off, the Roaster's thermostat was capable of holding a temperature +/- 1 dF, which for me was more then adequate for doing slow cooking of Brisket.

So using my new markings along with the Taylor to monitor, I set a temperature of 142 dF for a new trial run of Brisket Sous Vide. I refilled the Roaster 3/4 full of water (about 4 gallons), and brought it up to temperature over a couple of hours to ensure it stayed there.

Meanwhile, I browned both sides of a 5# Brisket in an large iron skillet. It was too big to place into a single 1 Gallon Ziplock storage bag, so I sliced it into 2 equal portions, cutting with the grain, and inserted each half into a seperate Ziplock, then carefully submerged while leaving a vent for air to escape. This is important, as you don't want any air pockets to separate the Brisket from the surrounding water bath, as then it won't cook evenly. When the water level came up to the Ziplock opening, I sealed off the Ziplock, and let it sink to the bottom of the Roaster.

On one Bricket, I placed a whole bottle of A-1 brand meat marinade; on the other Brisket, I left it unchanged. Both were then closed off and placed into the water bath.

BTW - the Ziplock company has stated (per Cooking for Geeks) that their bags are good up to 170 dF, although they don't recommend using them.

That was yesterday evening. I've checked every couple of hours or so, and the temperature is holding constant between 141 and 143 dF.

Tomorrow night will be the test! That will be 48 hours at ~142 dF Brisket!

Sous Vide Cooking - Harold McGee

Smoking BBQ is all about slow cooking.

When first researching how to make BBQ (pre Internet days), information was hard to come by (hard to believe now, right!). However, persistence paid off when I came across Harold McGee's book 'On Food and Cooking'. This book, which is still quoted today and more-than worth the buy, gave detailed information about how collagen (the tough proteins that makes cheap cuts of meat tough)breaks down with heat. He went on to describe cooking meat at a low temperature, and all the benefits realized from this approach. Since meat can never exceed the temperature of the cooking environment, providing a cooking environment that does not exceed 145 deg F will, given enough time, provide meat at 145 deg F.

This is the basis of Sous Vide cooking! Brought to you by Harold McGee's book in 1984! I note that the French chef was credited with this approach in the 1970's, but McGee's book was my personal beginning on slow cooking.