First of all, thank you all for your advice! I posted at the start of the weekend asking about guests who were coming Monday when I had been planning for Sunday. You were all generous and encouraging, and I appreciate it greatly.
The results were not what I had hoped for, but I’m certain the mistake was on my end.
Here’s my timeline.
Seasoned, put in fridge at 1:10 AM Saturday
Dry brined for 8.5 hours
Sous vide at 9:40 AM Saturday, 135°F
Pulled out, put in fridge at 5:50 PM Sunday (32 hours 10 minutes)
Refrigerated for 20 hours 15 minutes
Removed juices in the bag and put it back in the sous vide at 2:05 pm Sunday
Out at 6:20 pm (4 hours 15 minutes), seared immediately
Total time in sous vide: 36 hours 25 minutes
When I reached into the bag to remove it at the end, the meat did not feel nearly as soft as I expected. I took a bite before searing it, and immediately looked around for steak knives.
The brining worked well, but the texture was certainly nothing like an expensive steak. My guests had heard about sous vide but never tried it; I certainly don’t think that tonight converted them.
The meat was certainly edible, and my guests complimented the flavor, but I noticed them politely cutting it into small bites. (I wasn’t cutting big bites myself.)
Theory 1: I removed the juices in the bag before the final 4 hours in the sous vide; was that my mistake?
Theory 2: After cooking and searing, the meat was 1.25” thick. It was probably thicker before cooking. Was 36 hours too short? Is there a chart showing chuck steak thickness to cooking time that I should have consulted?
Theory 3: Is there some other mistake I’m overlooking?
Final question: the three pictured pieces are leftovers. Should I pop them back in the sous vide overnight?
by Intrepid-Antelope
12 Comments
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What cut was it?
Theory 1.
I typically do 137° for chuck, the magical fat rendering g point on this and other sous vide sites but I would be surprised if that made too much of a difference.
I have never removed the juices and I think that may be where you went wrong.
I would have pulled the bags, tossed them in and ice bath for 20 minutes, put in the fridge, pulled and put back in the sous vide to heat, quick ice bath again then sear. The 2nd ice bath is too cool the outside the allow a bit more time for the sear without affecting the overall temp.
Looks like you overcooked them.
I should note that the original post is [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/sousvide/s/8JWtG6cSrb).
There’s a lot that went wrong here, give me a few minutes to go through it all and edit
First: 32 hours was honestly too long for these, 24 hours would have been more than enough and probably still overkill.
Second: refrigerating was fine, but yeah obviously this would have worked out better if you didn’t have to refrigerate at all. I’ve found that any meat I sous vide and then refrigerate to the point it reaches 35F just turns out not as good.
Third: never remove juices from the bag before you’re ready for final sear/plating. And definitely don’t put it back in the SV after doing so.
Fourth: personally I think 4+ hours to reheat those small steaks was way too much, probably only needed 1 hour.
One final thought: you’re *never* going to get a premium steak feel with chuck, except maybe a high quality chuck eye cooked perfectly. The texture just isn’t the same, no matter how long you SV, as other standard beef cuts such as ribeye, strip, and filet.
What did the inside look like? What was your searing method? 1.25 inches is pretty thin. I think it’s some combination of poor quality meat, too long of a sear, and liquid loss. I’m no scientist, but I’m guessing there’s some science reason why liquid in the bag would prevent more liquid coming out of the meat. If it’s fairly lean, low quality piece of chuck, it’s also not going to get much rendered fat that makes up for some of the liquid loss.
The thickness doesn’t affect cook time that much. It only affects the amount of time it takes to bring it to temp, maybe an hour difference total from the thinnest to the thickest cut of chuck. I would lean toward too long instead of too short if anything. Thin cuts are much more likely to be affected by the sear.
135 was not high enough to render the fat and breakdown the collagen.
Chuck is always bad imo. Sous vide or not I’ve never had a cook of Chuck go well.
36 hours is too long. Too much liquid was expelled, and leave the juices in the bag and the bag sealed until you’re ready to finish and eat it.
I cook chuck roasts between 131-134 for about 28 hours and no more than 32 hours.
What cut was it? Some areas of the chuck are just pretty darn tough. I really doubt that the cooling and re-cooking caused it to be any worse but certainly not better than just leaving it in the whole time.