I got my Anova today!

[zinfamous]

OK, I'll probably just get a book, but quick question while my head is on it:

Say I want to cook a few different items, say: chicken and vegetables, which means two separate bags of food.

say I decide to cook them both at the same temperature, to reduce complications (surely this is possible, right? It should just be a matter of time, no?)

OK, assuming that is all well and good--

Will the addition of an extra bag of food into the water bath effect the cooking time for each bag?^that chart shows type of ingredient and time/temp. But it doesn't show weight.

I spend most of my daily time in a molecular bio lab doing this kind of shit in eppendorf tubes...so I can't help but think that every time I add another reagent (food item) to the pot, then I'm going to have to adjust the protocol for each item.




Additional *slightly* drunken thoughts:
By the way, to prevent evaporation on the cheap, we always used hollow plastic beads that float on the surface of the lab water bath (basically, exactly what a sous vide circulator is/does). For the life of me, I cant' find these anywhere in our catalogues.

But, progress is awesome, and now there are these

Not sure if these beads are an equal non-water replacement for food prep, but they claim to do the same work of a real molecular water bath (a sous vide device), without the water.

Anyway, I've been looking to get those in the lab for some time now--finally ordered some free sample packs to try out in our bath and our heating blocks. I mean..you would just need to submerge your food bags in these beads, right, assuming they keep constant temp, as they damn well should. Jettisoning an expensive circulator that is necessary to keep a water bath at constant temp would be a good thing, imo...

:hmm:

 

[yhelothar]

No. The sous vide makes it more tender because it doesn't overcook the meat. The tenderness vs temp graph is like a bell curve, with maximal tenderness around 140 F for white chicken meat.

Yeah well you could cook it to 140F in the oven as well. If you cooked it at 140F in the oven, it'd take a couple of hours to get to temperature, but it'd be dry as Death Valley.

 

[Howard]

Yeah well you could cook it to 140F in the oven as well. If you cooked it at 140F in the oven, it'd take a couple of hours to get to temperature, but it'd be dry as Death Valley.

No, it wouldn't. The surface might be drier due to the evaporation (which you can slow down by putting a pan of water inside and/or aerosolizing water every now and then) but the inside would be just fine.

Just imagine a combi oven at 140 F with 100% relative humidity. The wet-bulb temp would match the dry-bulb temp, and there would be no surface evaporation.

 

[Howard]

OK, I'll probably just get a book, but quick question while my head is on it:

Say I want to cook a few different items, say: chicken and vegetables, which means two separate bags of food.

say I decide to cook them both at the same temperature, to reduce complications (surely this is possible, right? It should just be a matter of time, no?)

OK, assuming that is all well and good--

Will the addition of an extra bag of food into the water bath effect the cooking time for each bag?^that chart shows type of ingredient and time/temp. But it doesn't show weight.

I spend most of my daily time in a molecular bio lab doing this kind of shit in eppendorf tubes...so I can't help but think that every time I add another reagent (food item) to the pot, then I'm going to have to adjust the protocol for each item.




Additional *slightly* drunken thoughts:
By the way, to prevent evaporation on the cheap, we always used hollow plastic beads that float on the surface of the lab water bath (basically, exactly what a sous vide circulator is/does). For the life of me, I cant' find these anywhere in our catalogues.

But, progress is awesome, and now there are these

Not sure if these beads are an equal non-water replacement for food prep, but they claim to do the same work of a real molecular water bath (a sous vide device), without the water.

Anyway, I've been looking to get those in the lab for some time now--finally ordered some free sample packs to try out in our bath and our heating blocks. I mean..you would just need to submerge your food bags in these beads, right, assuming they keep constant temp, as they damn well should. Jettisoning an expensive circulator that is necessary to keep a water bath at constant temp would be a good thing, imo...

:hmm:

Not really. I answered the same questions in my reply to DrPizza's post.

 

[Murloc]

so where is the analysis of variance the thread title promised?

lol google gave me that result until I saw the third or so result.

The technique sounds interesting but I'm not sure if I'd trust it with pork and chicken, also there's a consumption of pricey plastic bags, not to mention equipment. It's probably a good way to make chicken breasts not dry like they often are.

 

[yhelothar]

No, it wouldn't. The surface might be drier due to the evaporation (which you can slow down by putting a pan of water inside and/or aerosolizing water every now and then) but the inside would be just fine.

Just imagine a combi oven at 140 F with 100% relative humidity. The wet-bulb temp would match the dry-bulb temp, and there would be no surface evaporation.

Hmmm so you could just use the oven instead of sous vide to get a perfect temperature then? I'd imagine it'd take a lot longer since air conducts a lot slower than water, but if you had the patience, it'd work fine?

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Hmmm so you could just use the oven instead of sous vide to get a perfect temperature then? I'd imagine it'd take a lot longer since air conducts a lot slower than water, but if you had the patience, it'd work fine?

You would probably run into a couple of problems.

One - finding an oven that has a setting of 140. The lowest my electric will do is 170.

Two - Ovens work by switching the heat source on and off. That creates a temperature range that varies 10 or 20 degrees on either side of the desired setting. The advantage to sous vide is that it maintains temperature within 0.1 to 0.2 degrees, some thing an oven can't do.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Say I want to cook a few different items, say: chicken and vegetables, which means two separate bags of food.

say I decide to cook them both at the same temperature, to reduce complications (surely this is possible, right? It should just be a matter of time, no?)

Let's take the meal I prepared. The temp I used for brussel sprouts would ruin the chicken. The solution is to get the water to 180F and cook the veggies first. When they are ready set the unit to a lower temp for the chicken and changed some hot water for cold water with some ice. When the temp is right I added the chicken, but I left the vegetable in the bath. That way it stays hot but it doesn't cook further. That's a key concept, that it's temperature which determines if a food if is finished cooking. It doesn't get overdone while the chicken is in the water and other factors like enzymatic action aren't a factor for the few hours were talking.

To make best use of time I pulled the sprouts and finished them by roasting in a hot skillet under the broiler so everything was done at once.

The solution is a matter of order. Food with the highest temperature requirements are cooked first, and go down from there.

 

[Rakehellion]

Yeah well you could cook it to 140F in the oven as well. If you cooked it at 140F in the oven, it'd take a couple of hours to get to temperature, but it'd be dry as Death Valley.

Not if you braise it.

 

[Howard]

You would probably run into a couple of problems.

One - finding an oven that has a setting of 140. The lowest my electric will do is 170.

Two - Ovens work by switching the heat source on and off. That creates a temperature range that varies 10 or 20 degrees on either side of the desired setting. The advantage to sous vide is that it maintains temperature within 0.1 to 0.2 degrees, some thing an oven can't do.

An oven isn't a complete replacement for sous vide, and you've pointed out a few reasons why, but for items with a large thermal mass and fairly large room for error (such as hams and roasts), it works fairly well. The "edge-to-edge pink" effect suffers a little bit but you can still get miles ahead of your holiday brethren with subpar knowledge and bone-dry meats.

An oven even has an advantage of being able to dry out skin, whereas you need additional skin treatment for sous vide.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

An oven isn't a complete replacement for sous vide, and you've pointed out a few reasons why, but for items with a large thermal mass and fairly large room for error (such as hams and roasts), it works fairly well. The "edge-to-edge pink" effect suffers a little bit but you can still get miles ahead of your holiday brethren with subpar knowledge and bone-dry meats.

Absolutely. An oven won't be able to reproduce sous vide results though. With sous vide whatever you are cooking ends up at a uniform temp throughout. In an oven whatever you are cooking will be subject to temperature gradients.

One alternative for certain items, like chicken breasts, is poaching. With the proper temperature control the result can be very similar to sous vide. Actually, if you sous vide something with a liquid sealed in the bag you are essentially poaching it.

An oven even has an advantage of being able to dry out skin, whereas you need additional skin treatment for sous vide.

I did a sous vide duck breast earlier this week. Cooked it to 134F and then crisped the skin in a hot pan.

Came out well but next time I'm going to drop it down to 132F since I like duck a bit more on the rare side.

 

[Howard]

Absolutely. An oven won't be able to reproduce sous vide results though. With sous vide whatever you are cooking ends up at a uniform temp throughout. In an oven whatever you are cooking will be subject to temperature gradients.

One alternative for certain items, like chicken breasts, is poaching. With the proper temperature control the result can be very similar to sous vide. Actually, if you sous vide something with a liquid sealed in the bag you are essentially poaching it.


I did a sous vide duck breast earlier this week. Cooked it to 134F and then crisped the skin in a hot pan.

Came out well but next time I'm going to drop it down to 132F since I like duck a bit more on the rare side.

Even though you didn't do a whole bird, you should try the Peking duck treatment next time. Kenji has a good article on it but I think the multiple boiling water blanches are critical to skin crisping.

 

[linuxboy]

Anova, eh? make a simple double boiler setup and you'd have a great vat for making cheese.

 

[torpid]

Anova got hit pretty hard over the holidays. I ordered on Dec 27 and it will be at least another week due to the volume of orders!

 

[ponyo]

I cooked pork loin for dinner tonight. 140 F for about 4 hours. It was fabulous. The pork was so moist and tender. If I cook nothing but pork tenderloin with this gadget, it's worth it.

 

[Kaido]

I cooked pork loin for dinner tonight. 140 F for about 4 hours. It was fabulous. The pork was so moist and tender. If I cook nothing but pork tenderloin with this gadget, it's worth it.

I think that's one of the draws for me. I've never had any major cut of pork that I really enjoyed (outside of bacon, haha).

 

[BladeVenom]

I think that's one of the draws for me. I've never had any major cut of pork that I really enjoyed (outside of bacon, haha).

People overcook pork because of Trichinosis, but no one gets Trichinosis from pork anymore in this country.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

I cooked pork loin for dinner tonight. 140 F for about 4 hours. It was fabulous. The pork was so moist and tender. If I cook nothing but pork tenderloin with this gadget, it's worth it.

Did you sear it afterwards (or before)? I'm not a huge fan of pork loin because it is so lean (I much prefer the pig version of a porterhouse) but I'll have to give it a shot.

Tried pork ribs earlier this week for 24 hours at 138 F, then finished with BBQ sauce under the broiler. Turned out OK. Was edible. But I'd rather use other methods for ribs.

 

[ponyo]

Did you sear it afterwards (or before)? I'm not a huge fan of pork loin because it is so lean (I much prefer the pig version of a porterhouse) but I'll have to give it a shot.

Tried pork ribs earlier this week for 24 hours at 138 F, then finished with BBQ sauce under the broiler. Turned out OK. Was edible. But I'd rather use other methods for ribs.

I seared it after. It tasted lot like really tender thick cut of ham. We always cooked pork to extremely well done due to the fear so I think we were all surprised at the soft texture at medium/medium well. It was relatively new experience for us so we really enjoyed it.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Anova, eh? make a simple double boiler setup and you'd have a great vat for making cheese.

And a spiffy yogurt machine.

For tonight it's prime strip steaks jaccarded and sous vide at 133 F for 8 hours and finished with a compound butter, Brussel sprouts as before, wild rice with chestnuts, and a simple tossed salad. Bring the lass and yourself over.

 

[torpid]

Got my Anova and made steak twice and carrots once. All came out great.

I'm somewhat worried that the Anova is not properly calibrated because my thermapen does not agree on the temperature. The temperature read on the pen is the same each time at the same Anova set temp and yet the thermapen registers properly on icewater. And as the temp gets higher, the pen differential is higher. At 58 celsius, it was off by 0.5. At 83 celsius, it was off by 1.2 or so.

It hasn't been anything that would make a difference yet. Really, it's not a big deal unless I try eggs (which I might). The rest have plenty of tolerance. Still, I am not sure what to do / which device to believe. I am glad that it doesn't fluctuate for either.

Minor fail: my foodsaver bag roll was taped when we bought it. I removed the tape but didn't think to account for the sticky parts that remained on the bag from the tape. After cooking with this bag, the tape residue was throughout the water and on the circulator. It was easy to clean but still embarrassing.

 

[radtechtips]

I don't know why I read these, all they do is make me hungry as fuck.

 

[Kyle]

Man I shouldn't have started looking in to these- very close to ordering an Anova- will probably also pick up a vacuum sealer.

 

[zinfamous]

well, after 33 days of "shipping" my Anova finally arrived today.

Hooray!

time to go ruin some food!

 

[Ns1]

Need moar pics