Thursday, March 25, 2010

Sous vide short ribs

I recently built a temperature control unit for cooking sous vide. For those unfamiliar with sous vide, it is characterized by cooking food in a vacuum sealed bag for (usually) relatively long periods of time in a temperature controlled bath. An excellent and beautiful book on this is Thomas Keller's Under Pressure.

For details on the construction process, I generally followed the instructions for a temperature controller that enthusiasts have made to control the smoking temperatures for smoking food. The only difference is that I purchased this PID temperature controller from Auber Instruments, as well as an immersible probe accurate to 0.1 °C. I also added a power switch and a fuse to protect the PID controller. Total cost of this project was $110 including taxes and shipping. This is dirt cheap compared to the $450 Sous Vide Supreme or any of the medical grade immersion circulators.

Once the temperature controller is setup, it's as simple as plugging it in and connecting it to a rice cooker, slow cooker, or in my case, a 1300W electric burner. I found that it kept a stock pot at a pretty stable temperature (generally within .2 °C of the target).

I've read about and heard about sous vide short ribs and wanted to try it out. After reading Under Pressure and some other online sources, I decided on 57.2 °C for 48 hours. The temperature would give me medium rare doneness, and the long cooking time would make sure the connective tissues had time to dissolve and become tender.

Since I don't have a real vacuum packer, I used ziplock bags and a straw to suck the air out. Ghetto, yes, but does the job. Sort of. I packed three different bags: 1) plain salt and pepper, 2) salt, pepper, and a sprig of thyme, and 3) salt, pepper, and about 1/2 cup beef stock. The third option would be the closest to a traditional braise. The beef I used was from Morris Grassfed Beef.

I labeled the bags, zipped them up, and dropped them into the water. How did it turn out? Tune in next time to find out!

4 comments:

thranos said...

i would be careful eating those ribs, they have the potential for dangerous levels of bacteria.

according to baldwin's practical guide to sous vide, located at:
http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html

bacteria multiply up to 53 deg C, which is why the US Food Code requires < 4 hours in that temperature range. and unless it's a typo, you plan to cook your ribs for 48 hours at 52.7 deg C = 127 deg F (rare).

most of the other sous vide recipes i've seen that cook meat to rare bring it up to temperature and then serve it in < 4 hours.

LOG ME IN said...

My sous vide short ribs were an unexpected disaster, I think because the cuts contained tons of fat. I hope that yours turn out well!

FYI, I recently launched a mailing list and blog carnival on sous vide cooking. Details are here: http://www.modernpaleo.com/sousvide.html

Jason said...

@thranos - thanks for your concern. It indeed was a typo! I have corrected it to 57.2°C which will pasteurize beef in 36 min. Good catch--I would hate to cause someone to cook it at the wrong temperature and get food poisoning.

thranos said...

@jason - that's good about the typo! i did pork ribs a little while back at 136 deg F for 72 hours and they turned out quite well! altho there was a odd slightly greenish tint to the outside of the meat pre-searing. too bad i didn't get any pictures ...

can't wait to see yours!