Sous vide roast: Two levels of doneness out of one bath?

Continuing experiments in sous vide: I asked myself whether a roast can be divided and cooked to two precise levels of doneness in one hot water bath? Yes you can. Here’s how … 

Experiments in “maillard-ing” or browning sous vide meat …

This post asks the question: How best to brown fish and chicken after poaching them sous vide? Then follows an experiment with chicken. 

Culturing yoghurt en sous vide …

Perfect steaks and juicy ribs are my favourite outcomes dabbling in sous vide. Shrimp, fish, chicken, turkey and eggs are not much improved by my palette when cooked this way. So what to try next? Yoghurt!

I’m lactose intolerant so a well cultured yoghurt will digest most of the lactose and leave me with something I can dollop onto my All Bran Flakes or a fruit salad for breakfast in the morning.

Using the same starter, organic milk, culturing temperature and times yields surprisingly different results, from a pouring yoghurt to a thick cream cheese.

Experiments in Sous Vide: 66 Hour Ribs …

This started out as a 48 hour experiment but I wasn’t hungry last night, even though this is a pretty small rack of ribs. So I left them in the hot water bath for another 18 hours until lunch today! This speaks to a benefit of sous vide: With most foods, when you’re cooking up near the safety of 60˚C, you have a wide window in which to finish off and serve up a meal — still cooked to perfection.

Build: Sous Vide Circulating Hot Water Bath …

Cooking en sous vide requires a hot water bath with precisely controlled temperatures and a method of vacuum sealing food in bags. Accurate timing isn’t required but a digital thermometer is a good idea to ensure food safety and doneness.

My own bath is a piece of old lab equipment which I refurbished using an STC-1000 temperature controller. It’s not typically where you would start out experimenting but the volume of water it holds and the circulating pump is ideal for cooking larger family meals.

The key piece of hardware I used is an STC-1000 temperature controller which is typically used in tropical aquariums, beer brewing and now also sous vide.

Experiments in Sous Vide: Circulating immersion heater with temperature controller …

Assembled and under test: What lay flat and precariously wired up on my workbench has been neatly bundled up. A piece of lab equipment brought back to life, it’s original temperature controller replaced with an inexpensive STC-1000 controller typically used as a thermostat in tropical aquariums, beer brewing — and, most recently, in sous vide.

Experiments in Sous Vide: Steak #4 Juicy, tender, pink and tasty flank steak …

Flank steak is a tough cut, sold locally by the name London Broil. It’s tenderised, marinated and broiled and then cut into thin slices across the grain — all in an effort to deal with a sinewy slab of meat.

Experiments in Sous Vide: Steak #3 Almost Perfect!

Juicy and tasty!

Experiments in Sous Vide: Steak #2 Yum!

Nearly ideal: Aiming for a medium rare steak, evenly pink between the surface crusts. This steak was cooked in a hot water bath ala sous vide: The intention is to cook the item evenly, not to overcook the outside, keeping the inside at an even doneness … resulting in a steak that is tender and juicy.

First Experiment in Sous Vide …

I’m trying to cook the perfect steak, evenly pink throughout with a thin brown crust — and almost no grey in between. I think the way to get there is via sous vide: To poach a steak medium rare and then to sear on a tasty crust using a propane torch.

My experiments in sous vide starts with a prototype hot water bath in the workshop. I replaced a non-working thermostat in this piece of old lab equipment with the temperature controller for a tropical aquarium. More on the build in a later post, when I’ve worked out all the kinks and housed all the pieces safely.