Cooking For Engineers

[topherd]

I recently saw a short segment on foodtv ( 5 mins. ) where they showed someone cooking sous vide ( under vacuum ) using a foodsaver bag.

I tried it tonight. It didnt turn out to well, after about 30 minutes, the foodsaver bag started to build up air inside, I guess from the steam coming off the beef's marinade. After that I had to weigh down the bag with some utensils, otherwise the whole beef wouldnt be submerged in the water bath.

The thing is, watching the segment, I did not notice their bag filling with air.

Any suggestions? I havent found anything too informative on this topic on google. Any help would be appreciated.

Later,
Chris

[foodscigeek]

You probably didn't remove all the air, or had a poor seal on the bag. What temperature were you cooking at? It shouldn't really be hot enough to create steam. Sous Vide is meant to be a long slow cooking process.

[IndyRob]

I'm new to this site and am a little surprised that there isn't more discussion of this technique - given the audience. For a brief time I thought I might have invented something new when I put a steak in a ziplock bag, removed the air, and put it in a slow cooker set at the desired final temperature (135 degrees F). After a final sear, the results were promising, but, as I found out later, I was about 40 years too late to be innovative.

When I was given a FoodSaver, I noticed a paragraph concerning Sous Vide. Then I went on a Googling binge....

There's plenty of stuff out there, but these two links stuck with me...

Wikipedia Sous Vide Entry

25 page discussion of Sous Vide

I'm not about to invest in a thermal immersion circulator, but using a FoodSaver and a Presto Kitchen Kettle (now with several Sharpie marks added below the "Warm" dial setting), I've accomplished some interesting things. I'm still looking for the "Wow!" application though.