3

I have just started cooking steaks in my sous vide machine.

I am getting results when cooking sous vide that do not agree with the theory and instructions I have read.

For my experiments I have cooked “rostas,” which is a beef part close to the filet (see link). I cooked two pieces for 1½ hours. One at 59°C and one at 56.5°C.

  • Result at 59°C: enter image description here
  • Result at 56.5°C: enter image description here

The white balance is off, but there was only a slight hint of red meat inside the piece cooked at 56.5°C.

What could be wrong? I get very different results from e.g. this page. I have checked the temperature of my sous vide machine and it seems correct.

Community
  • 1
Petter
  • 133
  • 4
  • 1
    What was your entire process? Did you marinate your meat? – Ming Jan 27 '16 at 04:41
  • 1
    I cook most of my steaks to 50, let the meat rest 10 minutes (to lower the temperature slightly) and then finish on a very hot carbon steel pan. I think you overcook it. Only exceptions are well aged entrecôte which I cook to 53 and tougher cuts, which get around 54.5. – Max Jan 27 '16 at 06:47
  • For this experiment, I added nothing to the bags. No salt, spices, nor marinade. – Petter Jan 27 '16 at 15:10

1 Answers1

4

If your sous vide machine is cooking to the right temperature then your steak is not overdone. That's the beauty of the process, your meat will go up to the temperature you set and no higher. You need to take the temperature of the center of the meat when you take it out. If the temperature of the meat is higher than you set the machine to then something is wrong with your machine. If the temperature is right then that is how the meat looks when cooked, unless you have marinated it or it's getting coloring from something in the bag. Maybe it's old, or hasn't been aged at all.

Different cuts of beef have different textures and colors before and after cooking, and depending on whether the meat has been aged or not, how it was aged if it was, and if it's close to spoilage. It's very hard to say in this case, what you need is data.

GdD
  • 74,019
  • 3
  • 128
  • 240
  • Thanks. I am pretty sure my machine cooked to the right temperature. (The meat tasted good as well). I suppose this is how this meat looks when cooked, then. – Petter Jan 27 '16 at 15:04
  • Also consider that sous-vide cooks the entire steak to about the same temperature. When you traditionally cook a steak, the outside ends up darker than the inside. This gives us a nice contrast between the dark outside and the red/pink inside. When it looks the same throughout, it's perceived as overcooked because the inside looks the same as the outside. However, when a steak cooked sous-vide has the same color throughout, it should be seen as *the outside is the same color as the inside*, rather than the traditional *the inside is the same color as the outside*. –  Jan 19 '17 at 22:54