Mike's Excellent Sous Vide Adventure šŸ„©

(Dirty Lazy Keto'er, Sucralose freak ;)) #13

Steve, yea ! Thatā€™s cool. I really need to get myself a medium sized icebox, for larger SV cooksā€¦ Plus, what the heck, I have two SV machines now, so maybe around Christmas or Thanksgiving, I might have my current setup, with the 12qt Rubbermaid container, and neoprene insulating cover / silicone lid going + my other SV machine going for a larger cook in the ice box, at the same time !

In retrospect, an icebox might be the smartest way to go, as they are insulated (even better than my insulating neoprene cover, iā€™m sure) and covered, to stop evaporation, and they are dirt cheap ! Maybe free. I see iceboxes laying on the side of the freeway all the time :slight_smile: lol

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #14

Thanks, guys, for all your input! I have seen the Anova ā€˜Beer Cooler Hackā€™. @Jamboribs I like your ā€˜noodle sealā€™, most excellent.

That China Directā„¢ food container I bought is a real dud. It lost just as much heat per hour buried in a bucket of sand as it did sitting on the kitchen counter! I suspect it doesnā€™t have much of a vacuum in the sides.

Iā€™m sure the Stanley I linked above or the Thermos equivalent would work much better. The question, of course, being: better enough? Unfortunately, it would cost me another $66 to find out, added to the $41 I already spent on the Chinese dud. Whereas, for $90 I could just bus to Canadian Tire and buy this. No lid on the pot, but I also like the idea of using a cooler. Although Iā€™d prefer something other than a plastic, foam insulated cooler. That said, I can get a decent Coleman cooler at Walmart with my 10% discount, so thatā€™s attractive.

(Steve) #15

Canadian Tire, $90 and you are ready to go, itā€™s on sale too. If anything happens to the sous vide stick, Canadian Tire will stand behind the product. It doesnā€™t come with the pot though.
As for the vessel that holds the water and sous vide stick, you can use a big Tupperware container with plastic wrap on the top to help with evaporation. I have used a small plastic garbage can, a big stock pot and even the kitchen sink as they all work. My favorite is the cooler with the lid because it is very efficient and quiet for long cooks.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #16

LOL! Love it. They could have thrown in a $5 pot and still make a decent profit. I guess they figure everyone has a pot so why bother.

(Dirty Lazy Keto'er, Sucralose freak ;)) #17

A couple of you have mentioned an insulated, covered contrainer to help keep your SV machine quiet ? Hmmm. My $60 1000wt SV machine is so quiet, itā€™s hard to hear in a quiet house, from 3ft away, yet it has great circulationā€¦

Iā€™m telling you guysā€¦

The price varies almost daily depending on what seller you get it from. My first one cost $73 and I felt like that was a steal ! My second one cost $58.85 !

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #18

I went to Canadian Tire and bought this one. $89.99 after a $40 discount from regular price. As noted, comes with a 1 year warranty. This sucker is huge!

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I looked at portable coolers while at Canadian Tire. There were a couple, but then I decided I donā€™t want to cook in plastic. So Iā€™ll visit my local Sally Anne to look for an aluminum pot or pressure cooker. It will be lots easier to drill a hole in an aluminum lid than a steel lid, especially stainless.

Sous vide?
Need fish cooking advice
Sous vide?
(Dirty Lazy Keto'er, Sucralose freak ;)) #19

I think my VPCOK is about that size. I saw a couple reviewers complain about this, but I donā€™t see any problem with it.
Yaā€™ know, regardless of what material your water vessel is made of, your meat pouch is going to be whatever type of plastic you choose. Iā€™ve heard that ā€œall plastic bagsā€, including Ziplocs are completely safe, because of the relatively low heat used for SV cooking. Of course personally speaking, cancer is the last thing I worry about anyway, in spite of the fact Iā€™m most likely to get it. (thatā€™s a whole other story)

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #20

That wasnā€™t my concern, Chris. I thought Iā€™m probably going to be cooking at 150-160ā„‰ and that might be too hot for the plastic. These coolers are designed to hold ice water not hot water. Maybe my concern is unfounded and the plastic in these things could hold boiling water with no problem. Iā€™ll research that a bit and see what I can find out.

PS [edit]: An aluminum or stainless pot can be heated on the stove.

(Dirty Lazy Keto'er, Sucralose freak ;)) #21

Their used to be this old skit, way back in the day on Santurday Night Live with Gilda Radner, where she would get off onto some big, crazy rantā€¦ and they would finally stop her, and tell her, OK, but thatā€™s not what this is aboutā€¦ To which she would reply, ā€œNevermindā€ :slight_smile: lol

But anyway, as far as bags melting goes, unless you want to SV something really hot (vegetables maybe ?) you wont have any problemā€¦

(Central Florida Bob ) #22

When I first saw this, I thought, ā€œIā€™ve never heard of that!ā€, so I spent the last half hour and some change looking for user reports or other evidence of the plastic in a cooler melting. I didnā€™t find anything. I found several people asking if their cooler could hold hot drinks, but those were mostly about those drink containers places like Igloo sells.

Plastics used in commercial products ordinarily melt well above the boiling point of water, like 300F or above, and the only things I came across were concerns about chemicals coming out of the plastic and ending up in the hot beverage. If your sous vide meal contacts the hot water, things have gone very wrong - that happened to me once.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #23

@CFLBob I investigated as well. About all I could find pretty much matches what you said. Except the melt temp, which apparently can vary a lot depending on the specific plastic. Some plastics can lose structural integrity not much above the boiling point of water. I should mention, however, that one guy reported interior layer distortion in a Coleman cooler with 180ā„‰ water. I looked mostly at folks using the beer coolers to make beer. Since theyā€™re actually dumping boiling or near-boiling beer wort into the coolers, the major concern is chemical leaching from the plastic into the beer. But no one has heard a single report of anyone getting poisoned by contaminated home brew from a Coleman or Igloo beer cooler. The guy who managed to deform his cooler might simply have had a cooler outlier.

I bought one of these at Walmart today for $2.98, plus another $1.53 for a matching lid:

I have used these hard plastic pails for many purposes for years, including filling them with very hot water with no apparent damage. The 2-gallon bucket looks to be about the right size for the sous vide cooker I just purchased. I also like it being round rather than rectangular as I think the water circulation will be better.

Anyway, Iā€™m going to drill a hole in the lid for the sous vide cooker as soon as I get a chance.

Considering a Sous Vide machine
Sous vide?
Sous vide?
Need fish cooking advice
(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #24

I removed the spring clip from the cooker without damaging anything. This required removing a slightly counter sunk ā€˜tri wingā€™ screw of all things. I managed to extract it without having to purchase the dedicated screw driver. I then drilled out the bucket lid. This puppy is ready to hunt!

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Considering a Sous Vide machine
Sous vide?
Sous vide?
Need fish cooking advice
(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #25

What is unique about sous vide? From what Iā€™ve learned so far, itā€™s not the slow cooking because other methods utilize slow cooking. Itā€™s not low temps because other methods utilize low temps. Itā€™s not even the water bath because if you ever hard boiled or poached an egg you utilized a water bath. No, whatā€™s truly unique about sous vide is just what its name says: under vacuum. Itā€™s the vacuum sealing to remove as much air as possible that makes sous vide unique.

(Raj Seth) #26

I understand that sous vide means ā€œunder vacuumā€. However, I have never vacuum packed my stuff. The true value that cooking sous vide delivers for me is that the controller can maintain the temperature so precisely for an indefinite period, and that the water can transfer heat to the item being cooked uniformly.

(Steve) #27

Nice and welcome to the wild world of sous vide!
What do you have planned for your first few cooks?

(Dirty Lazy Keto'er, Sucralose freak ;)) #28

I dunnoā€™ Michael. NO other method offers such precision control of temps. A Crock Pot is not even close to the same thing. You have to add water (dilute) your recipe, just to keep everything under liquids.
Poaching an egg is a different thing, as the shell keeps everything inside, with no diluting of the egg.

I know there are some guys who think that vacuum sealing with a machine is important, but honestly, I just donā€™t see it. There is no way you could make meat any more tender (heck, I can turn it into mush if I wanted toā€¦ or should I say, by accident) or any more juicyā€¦ Iā€™ve actually made beef that I wish was just a touch drier, as it would not even soak up any Au Jus sauceā€¦

Now, I do kind of pride myself at using a straw to vacuum my freezer Ziplocs quite well. Not as super vacuumed as a machine would do, Iā€™m sure. But certainly 95+% as well. Put it this way, my bags never try to float.
In fact, I keep straws around, and even when putting away leftovers and such, I always vacuum my Ziplocsā€¦ Have to be careful with my Keto bread though, as I can easily crush it into a wad :slight_smile: lol

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #29

@Jamboribs Steve, unfortunately I just finished day 3 of 7 consecutive so not conducive to learning exactly how to use my new cooker. I have some of this still frozen. I might take a piece out of the freezer tomorrow evening to let it thaw overnight in the fridge. Then I could bag and start to cook it after I get home from work around 1pm Sunday for supper.

@FishChris Chris, a lot of folks seem to agree with you about the vacuum. But my feeling is the French didnā€™t name it ā€˜under vacuumā€™ for nothing much. Since I already have the vacuum bagger and know how to use the thing, Iā€™m going to try it. I do know how to get the air out of a Ziplock bag, although I didnā€™t use your straw method which I bet probably works better than simply letting water compress the bag. I have plenty of Ziplocks so the next time I use one Iā€™ll try the straw method. I think that would be way safer with a very wet piece of meat rather than the vacuum bagger. Donā€™t want to suck any liquid into it!

Also, I think youā€™re right about temperature control. I think itā€™s much easier to control the temp of a water bath than circulating air, for example. Even so, I still think the vacuum is what makes sous vide unique. And ā€˜vacuumā€™ does not necessitate a machine. If the object of the exercise is simply to remove as much air as possible so the meat is exposed uniformly to the water bath, a machine will do a better job, but your straw method is adequate as is simply letting the water bath force out the air. I think itā€™s probably more important to make sure no wrinkles form in the bag directly over the meat.

(Dirty Lazy Keto'er, Sucralose freak ;)) #30

ā€¦and you know Michael, you could actually submerge your Ziploc with meat, bottom first, AND use the straw method at the same time, and that might work better yet.

But anyway, the way I see it, there are really only three parameters to consider when cooking SVā€¦ 1) how well done 2) how tender and 3) how evenly cookedā€¦
And so if you can nail all 3 of these things consistently (which I am starting to now) using Ziplocs, I just canā€™t see any advantage to vacuum sealing.

Like I say, at this point, Iā€™m starting to play around with different marinades and seasonings, because I have most of my meats completely dialed in for doneness and tenderness. and so on that front, results might still vary :slightly_smiling_face:

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #31

First test run tonight with empty bucket of water. It was pretty easy to set the temp and time. I only set the temp to 130ā„‰ but I can smell the plastic bucket. Hopefully, it will degas and that will be the end of it. Not overwhelming or anything, just noticeable.

Nice touch, the timer didnā€™t start until the water reached 130. Took about 15 minutes to get there.

(Steve) #32

Nice AAA Angus rib steaks. If you like a medium steak try a sprinkle of salt & pepper, sous vide at 134* for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. You can simply eat it when it is finished or give it a quick sear to add some colour. Sous vide is very forgiving. I am a huge fan of the Foodsaver vacuum bags so that is how I seal my meats. I ruined a nice piece of meat once using the Ziploc bag method, never again.
Enjoy!