I would love any input on whether I am on a perilous path with my current plan for the prime ribeye steaks I’m bringing to our family friend’s vacation.
The steaks are boneless and are a little over a pound each.
I would like to avoid bringing my sous vide and the container, or running the risk of the selection of pots at the rental being unsuitable.
My plan is to sous vide the steak tomorrow for 3 hours at 137, that seems high but I have had it work wonders in ribeyes.
The steaks are boneless and are a little over a pound each. Going to throw some butter and thyme in the bags, salt pepper.
Then I was going to throw the bags in an ice bath to chill, rest in the fridge, and then switch them over to new bags wrapped in paper towels so it is easier to dry them later to sear.
The steaks won’t get seared until the next evening on Saturday. The rental has a decent looking gas grill. I would like to pan sear but I don’t want to smoke out the rental, and it will just be easier to coordinate.
Am I going to run into problems with the longer delay between cooking in the sous vide and then cooking? The drive is only an hour and they will be in a cooler.
I have cooked tougher cuts over night, chilled before I left for work, then seared in the evening. But that was only a 12 hour delay.
by Freefall_Doug
15 Comments
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When you sear thick cut cold meat, you get nicely seared cold meat.
Better to just cook them on the grill.
It should be fine. I assume the steaks will stay in the unopened sous vide bags until just before you sear
Better not put the butter in the bag pal…
Search the sub for butter and feast your eyes on the hundreds and hundreds of answers. I ain’t typing it all out again for the 10th time myself.
Honestly I would just do them on the grill. It’s a lot less complicated and they’ll still turn out great. Just have a meat thermometer handy and it’ll be hard to mess up.
In my personal opinion, you’re overthinking it.
I love SV, and my cooker gets put to use three times a week most weeks, but you need to understand that it’s a hammer, and not ever meal is a nail.
Ribeye is not that hard to cook, and if you can achieve a good cook by other means, SV doesn’t add that much. So I think what’s going on here is that you’re adding many layers of complexity to what should be a simple thing. Prime ribeye will speak for itself no matter the cooking method.
A SV for three hours, followed by a cool down to food-safe temps, followed by a rise back to room temp, followed by a sear won’t bring anything to the party that you can’t achieve with a reverse-sear on a rental gas grill and whatever oven they have.
Or to put it another way, your plan will work if it comes off without a hitch, but it has five or six points of failure and won’t be noticeably better than a plan with only two points of failure.
But, all that said, if it is your goal to show off a SV steak, and make the method the star of the show, that’s a valid plan too, but this is not the way to approach it. If that is your goal, just bring your SV equipment, including an appropriate cooking vessel, with you and do it that way. Again, you minimize points of failure.
Ditch the butter. I can wait a week before searing. I pull them out of the bath, chill them and refrigerate.
When I want to cook, I set the bath back up for big steaks like these and bring back to temp then ice bath dry and sear.
Personally, I’d just grill the steak.
However, if you’re going to jump off this bridge, I definitely would not switch bags – you haven’t sterilized it at those temps, but it’s halfway home and I see no reason to potentially introduce bacteria by opening it.
I’ve concluded that long hold times in the fridge between the sous vide and searing aren’t ideal. I have found even searing a minute per side just is not long enough and the center is not warm. I like my meat medium rare but also want it hot as possible when eating which is very difficult if fridge is over 30 minutes. For cases where I really need to minimize time on day of cook I would plan to put back in the sous vide for an hour and bring temp to something like 110-115 before going directly onto the grill for searing.
These are great comments. Thanks for talking some sense into me. I will bring the sous vide!
Don’t take them out of their bags, that exposes them to bacteria or whatever from the air and hands/utensils.
3 hours at 137 is cool, herbs are good but no butter or garlic in the bag. After three hours ice bath the bags to chill quickly.
Then just throw the bags straight in the fridge without opening. It’s probably fine for at least a week like that, if not longer. I can’t give medical advice of course but I’ve had no problem doing SV and fridge for a few days before re-warming and/or searing.
I think the thing to do when you want to cook is to warm up the bags enough to re-liquify all the juices. Then you can collect all the juice as you open the bags, pat the steaks dry and maybe rest them on a wire rack for a few minutes.
Just do a reverse sear instead.
Why not bring your sous vide with you?
So, as soon as they hit 130 internal they are pasteurized. You can leave them out on the counter sealed in the bag for hours, maybe even days and not have to worry about spoilage. Any bad bacteria is dead and none can get in. Just make sure it’s a really good bag and vac sealer. You should be fine keeping them cold then throwing them back out on the counter to sit for a few hours before searing. Or just bring your circulator, since you will have a cooler there anyway. Fill the cooler with water throw in the circulator and give the steaks another bath to bring them back up to temp. Then sear them off. Also, don’t put butter in the bag. It makes the steaks less flavorful. Melt the butter on the steaks immediately after the sear.
Edit: didn’t see that you want to take them out of the bag. Big no no! Leave them in the bag until you are ready to take them out and sear. Opening them up will expose them to bacteria again. You just killed all the bacteria, and have nice long lasting steaks.