Sous vide

[growler_south]

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Brian has gone mad. He's ordered a bunch of parts and assembled them into a smart temperature controller capable of keeping a water bath at a VERY precise temperature for hours on end.

Perfect for sous vide cooking then. Tomorrow we shall have perfect eggs for breakfast. Or salmonella poisoning. (We've read the books, done the research, and are doing it properly, so not much chance of that happening.)

Speaking of reading the book: Douglas Baldwin has an excellent online guide to sous vide cooking here. Lots of geekery inside. Very excited.

(In the photo above we're testing it with the kettle as a water bath, but for reals will be using the deep fryer or the crock pot.)

Comments

[growler-south.livejournal.com]

Yay! LJ is back! Results are VERY good. with a tall pot (like a crock pot or our deep fryer) you don't need anything to pump the water around, convection seems to take care of it.

The controller cost Brian $100 in parts, and can be used with any water-heating device. You could even use it to control a plug-in single hotplate with a large saucepan or stock pot on top. It learns the pot's characteristics and keeps the temperature within +/- 0.1C

We did rump steak 8 hours @57C, seared with butane torch- nice, perfectly medium throughout, but not as tender as expected. Then we did the same rump steak 46 hours @ 55C.... INSANE. Looked like meat, cut like tender meat, melted in the mouth like paté. Crazy, And delicious- again, perfectly medium-rare throughout with a tasty crispy seared outer surface. (butane gas torch is the best!). Perhaps 46 hours is a little too long- the texture was a little odd, almost too soft, like eating steak-flavoured TVP. Next try will be 24 hours @53C.

Eggs 60min@64.4C are awesome. Like a perfect poached egg but still in the shell. Yum!

Get Brian to send you his shopping list for the controller parts- it's a heap of fun.