How Do You Know What Temperature to Set Your Sous Vide to Cook

March 14, 2022 Post a Comment

In conventional cooking using a pan on the stove, the oven, or a barbecue grill, the cooking fourth dimension is the main variable yous have to decide upon. Nosotros all know easy rules like broil a turkey for xx minutes per pound. And even though such methods are non fool proof, we feel comfortable because we take grown up seeing others melt that way. Sous-vide is quite new, and it provides less visual and tactual clues to what is going on. With conventional cooking information technology is easier to encounter or feel if the food is cooked to your liking.

With sous-vide cooking it is not simply near time, just also near temperature. Information technology allows you lot to achieve a much higher level of precision, but this also means that you lot have higher expectations. Since y'all take two variables (time and temperature) to consider, information technology takes a longer time to gain experience. In this article I will explain how you lot can confidently cull the time and temperature to melt meat sous-vide. This will hopefully shorten your learning curve.

To make up one's mind upon the time and temperature, you will take to have the following factors into account:

Is it a tender cut of meat or a tough cut of meat? A tough cut of meat will require additional time and/or a higher temperature to get tender.
How tender do you like information technology? More time in the meat jacuzzi will make the meat more tender. But leave information technology in too long, and information technology will go mushy.
How thick is information technology (and what shape does it accept)? The time it takes for the cadre of the nutrient to reach the desired temperature in a sous-vide depends on the thickness, not on the weight. If information technology is twice equally thick, it will have four times every bit long to heat all the way through.
How 'washed' would you similar it? This is merely a matter of temperature: 55C/131F for medium rare ('red'), 60C/140F for medium ('pinkish'), 65C/149F for medium well, 70C/158F or above for well washed. One time the meat has reached a certain temperature (and thus doneness) there is not much use to continue cooking it at a lower temperature. This is similar to eggs: in one case it is hardboiled, you lot tin't turn it into a softboiled egg anymore.
Does it need to be pasteurized? This is a requirement for poultry, footing meat, and wild game. For beefiness, lamb, or pork, information technology is only a requirement if you are feeding people with a compromised immune system (similar elderly) or significant women. To pasteurize y'all will demand to add together more time. How much, depends on the cooking temperature. Pasteurization can be achieved at temperatures of 52C/126F and up, but information technology will take virtually 5 hours at such low temperatures. Click here for more data about food safety.
Is the meat frozen or refrigerated? If frozen, you can cook it directly from frozen and that will be faster than allowing it to thaw first, but yous need to add additional time (30 minutes for 2.5 cm/1 inch thickness, two hours for 5 cm/2 inch thickness).

The guidelines below take all of these factors into account.

Tender beef, lamb, or pork: heat through but

This category includes all intact muscle meat of farmed animals except for poultry. Examples are:

Beef: tenderloin, ribeye steak, strip steak, rump steak
Lamb: loin, rack, leg
Pork: tenderloin, loin

Considering it is tender and does not demand to be pasteurized, you just need to put it in the sous-vide long enough for the core temperature to accomplish the desired doneness. (Merely you practice demand to sear it before or later sous-vide cooking to kill whatever pathogens that may exist on the outside of the meat.) This means that the temperature is determined past how 'washed' you lot would like it, and the time by the thickness and shape. This too means that for this type of meat, it does not make sense to 'cook' information technology sous-vide and and then arctic (and possibly freeze), because reheating is the same as cooking!

Y'all can use a chart such as the one below to decide upon the temperature:

For the time y'all need to realize that if you lot put cold meat in the warm water of a sous-vide, it will have time for the heat to lengthened into the meat. It depends on the thickness and shape how long this volition take.

The graph above shows a typical design of how the cadre temperature of a piece of meat inside a sous-vide at 55C rises (temperature in Celcius on the vertical axis, time in minutes on the horizontal axis). Equally y'all can see, the temperature rises more rapidly at kickoff, because then the departure between the cold meat and the warm water is larger, and thus the oestrus diffusion is stronger. When the cadre of the meat has almost reached the temperature of the water, the cadre temperature rises only slowly. In the graph you can see that after 30 minutes it is already at 52 degrees, simply it volition take more than an hour to go higher up 54. This is skilful to proceed in listen when you are reheating food sous-vide, because then it doesn't matter if it doesn't heat up all the style. Another thing to go on in mind is that the heating fourth dimension is a quadratic role of the thickness. That ways if the meat is twice as thick, information technology will take four times as long to heat it through. For instance a slab of 2.5 cm (1″) will have 35 minutes to heat through, and a slab of five cm (2″) will take four times every bit long, 2 hours and 20 minutes.

The thermal diffusion mathematics to calculate how much time it will take for the core of the nutrient to go shut to the water temperature are quite complicated, and then information technology is best to use a chart for this purpose, such as the one below.

I've adjusted this chart from the huge tables in Modernist Cuisine. The time depends on the thickness and the shape: slab (like a steak), cylinder (similar a sausage) or sphere (like a ball or cube). The times are starting from refrigerated meat. Frozen will take longer. You may note that these times are shorter than in some other sources. That is considering Modernist Cuisine has calculated the time needed to reach a temperature of 1C/2F below the temperature of the water, rather than 0.5C/1F as another sources, and I accept used the heating times from refrigerator temperature to 60C/140F rather than 80C/175F. Together that makes quite a deviation.

If you put the meat in the water for a shorter time than indicated in this table, then the core of the meat volition be libation than 1C/2F beneath the water temperature and the meat may not be already as washed as you wanted information technology to be. If you get out it in longer, the meat will slowly become more tender. This tenderizing happens more quickly at 60C/140F than at 55C/131F. You tin can usually go out it in for hours before information technology becomes as well tender (mushy). For very tender types of meat similar tenderloin additional tenderization is non beneficial, but I like to give rack of lamb or ribeye steak a few hours extra to make it more tender.

Tender poultry or wild game, or ground meat: pasteurize

If in that location is a risk that the meat has been contaminated with pathogens, information technology should be pasteurized. This means that subsequently heating all the fashion through, it should be kept longer at that temperature for pasteurization to occur. This adventure is generally present with poultry and wild game, or with basis meat. The most mutual examples for tender poultry are chicken breast, turkey breast and duck breast. My preferred temperatures are 60C/140F for chicken breast, 56C/133F for turkey breast, and 55C/131F for duck breast. I like to keep duck breast a fleck longer than needed to heat through and pasteurize, to tenderize it a scrap more. With sous-vide you tin can cook a hamburger medium rare (pink inside) and still pasteurize it, so information technology will be safe to eat. Burgers are great cooked sous-vide at 55C/131F and so finished on a very hot grill. For wild game the best temperature for tender meat is normally between 53C/127F and 55C/131F. Examples are venison loin, pigeon breast, pheasant breast, partridge breast.

To find the total cooking time, add the pasteurization time to the fourth dimension to heat through from the previous tabular array (this is a bourgeois approach, as pasteurization starts already as soon every bit parts of the meat achieve a temperature of 52C/126F or higher). Taking into account that the heating time is for 1C/2F less than the sous-vide temperature, you should apply the pasteurization time for 1C/2F lower than the sous-vide temperature.

Hither are a few pop examples:

turkey breast that is 5 cm (2″) thick, cook at 56C/133F for three hours and 51 minutes (2:20 to rut through + one:31 to pasteurize)
craven chest that is two.5 cm (one″) thick, cook at 60C/140F for 53 minutes (35 minutes to heat through + 18 minutes to pasteurize)
chicken breast roulade with a diameter of 7.5 cm (three″), cook at 60C/140F for 3 hours and eight minutes (2:50 to heat through + 18 minutes to pasteurize)
duck breast that is 2.5 cm (1″) thick, melt at 55C/131F for ii hours and 52 minutes (35 minutes to heat through + 2:17 to pasteurize)
pigeon breast that is ane cm (iii/8″) thick, melt at 55C/131F for 2 hours and 23 minutes (6 minutes to oestrus through + 2:17 to pasteurize)
hamburger that is 1.5 cm (five/eight″) thick, cook at 55C/131F for 2 hours and 30 minutes (thirteen minutes to rut through + 2:17 to pasteurize)
venison steak that is 1 cm (1″) thick, cook at 53C/127F for 5 hours and 49 minutes (35 minutes to estrus through + five:14 to pasteurize)

Equally mentioned before, it is fine to keep it in the sous vide some hours longer than the fourth dimension indicated. Only afterwards a lot more fourth dimension the meat volition become too tender.

For convenience, I have calculated the total time for pasteurization for some mutual temperatures and sizes.

Tough meat: tender and medium rare to medium

Tough meat has a lot of connective tissue and is traditionally used in stews and braises. With sous-vide you can choose whether you lot'd similar to plough tough meat into something with the texture of a medium rare steak, or if you'd similar a stewed/braised/pulled texture (see the next section).

To cook tough meat such that volition become tender but still be medium rare or medium is something that is merely possible with sous-vide. The advantage is that the meat will be more than flavorful and less expensive than buying tender meat. It can accept a long time in the sous-vide, merely equally meat does non require any attention while it sits in the sous-vide that is not really an issue. Information technology just requires some planning, and you can cook it in advance and then refrigerate or freeze it, so reheat when needed (for reheating times, come across the instructions for tender meat).

The temperature to achieve this is between 55C/131F and 62C/144F, depending on the type of meat. The time ranges from 8 hours to iv days, again depending on the type of meat. Here are some examples:

beef: oxtail (4 days at 60C/140F), flank steak or skirt steak (24-48 hours at 55C/131F), flat fe steak or blade steak (12 hours at 55C/131F), chuck (3 days at 55C/131F or 62C/144F for slightly flaky), short ribs (ii days at 57C/135F), brisket (2 days at 57C/135F)
veal: osso buco (shank) iii days at 62C/144F for slightly flaky
lamb: shoulder, neck or breast (24 hours at 57C/135F), shank (2 days at 62C/144F)
pork: shoulder, neck, ham hock, shank or cheeks, all 2 days at 57C/135F
wild boar: shoulder or neck 2 days at 57C/135F, cheeks two days at 62C/144F
venison: shoulder (8 hours at 55C/131F), shank (2 days at 62C/144F)
duck legs: 24 hours at 64.C/148F

Because the cooking times are so long, the meat is always pasteurized. The cooking times are not very precise, a couple of hours more or less does not make a lot of divergence. This also means that the size (thickness) doesn't matter (unless it is a huge roast that requires very long to come to temperature).

Tough meat: flaky and 'pullable'

The culling for tough meat is to cook it sous-vide such that information technology becomes flaky and tin be 'pulled'. This is more like a stewed or braised texture, but compared to traditional stove-top or oven methods with sous-vide the results are more consistent and more juicy. My favorite temperature for this is 74C/165F, which works for many unlike types of meat. The meat volition crave 18 to 24 hours to become pullable. This is great for:

beef: chuck, short ribs, flank steak, skirt steak, short ribs, brisket
pork: shoulder, neck, cheeks
lamb: shoulder, neck, or breast
venison: shoulder or neck
wild boar: shoulder, cervix or cheeks

Y'all can increase the temperature to shorten the cooking time and make the texture fifty-fifty more flaky, but at the cost of the loss of juices. Beef chuck tin can then be done in v hours at 88C/190F for example, but I adopt 24 hours at 74C/165F. The exception is duck confit, for which I adopt viii hours at 82C/180F to obtain the traditional texture. To make upwards for the loss of juices, some melted duck fat is mixed with the strands of meat.

Because the cooking times are so long, the meat is always pasteurized. The cooking times are not very precise, a couple of hours more or less does not brand a lot of difference. This besides means that the size (thickness) doesn't matter.

Trouble shooting

If you cooked some blazon of meat sous-vide and you are not happy with the outcome, this is how you adjust the cooking time or temperature the next time you fix that same type of meat.

First double-check whether the cooking time was appropriate for the thickness of the meat, using the tabular array higher up. Otherwise y'all might come up to the incorrect decision.
If the meat is too tough or chewy, next fourth dimension increase the time. Increase it a bit if it is slightly chewy, or increase it by a lot if still very tough.
If the meat is too soft or mushy, side by side time decrease the fourth dimension. Decrease past a flake if information technology is a bit too soft, or by a lot if it is mushy.
If the meat is less done (too cherry/bloody) than y'all prefer, adjacent time increase the temperature.
If the meat is more done (too greyness) than y'all adopt, next time decrease the temperature.

I recommend to change simply variable at a time, as otherwise you won't know what made the difference.

For further reading, check out these blogs about juiciness, tenderness, and succulence, appearance, and flavor of meat.

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Source: https://stefangourmet.com/2018/04/01/how-to-choose-time-and-temperature-to-cook-meat-sous-vide/

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