Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World's Best (and Cheapest) Sous-Vide Hack
Note: For a quick primer on the basics of sous-vide cooking, read our previous article here.
Prepping a beer cooler for low-temp cooking [Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]
By this point, there is absolutely no question that the method of cooking foods at precise low-temperatures in vacuum-sealed pouches (commonly referred to as "sous-vide") has revolutionized fine-dining kitchens around the world. There is not a Michelin-starred chef who would part easily with their Polyscience circulators. But the question of when this technique will trickle down to home users—and it certainly is a question of when, and not if—remains to be answered.
The Sous-Vide Supreme, introduced last winter, and of which I am a big fan, is certainly a big step in the right direction. But at $450, for most people, it still remains prohibitively costly. In an effort to help those who'd like to experiment with sous-vide cookery without having to put in the capital, a couple weeks ago I devised a novel solution to the problem: Cook your food in a beer cooler.
Here's how it works: A beer cooler is designed to keep things cool. It accomplishes this with a two-walled plastic chamber with an air space in between. This airspace acts as an insulator, preventing thermal energy (a.k.a. heat) from outside to reach the cold food inside. Of course, insulators work both ways. Once you realize that a beer cooler is just as good at keeping hot things hot as it is at keeping cold things cold, then the rest is easy: Fill up your beer cooler with water just a couple degrees higher than the temperature you'd like to cook your food at (to account for temperature loss when you add cold food to it), seal your food in a plastic Ziplock bag*, drop it in, and close your beer cooler until your food is cooked. It's as simple as that.
*FYI: The air in a plastic bag can be removed by slowly dipping the open bag with your food in it into the water, sealing it just before the water starts to pour inside. It's not as air-free an environment as a vacuum-sealed bag, but it's enough to keep the food submerged, and in contact with the water, which is all that's really important.
At the time that article "went to print," I'd only actually tested the method on lamb racks, so I decided that some full-scale testing was in order. To cut to the chase: I wanted to put my cheap-o hack using a beer cooler and Ziplock bags head-to-head against a FoodSaver and a Sous-Vide Supreme.
To test it, I first jotted down what I perceive to be the main benefits of sous-vide cookery:
- 1. The ability to cook proteins to a precise temperature all the way from edge to center. With sous-vide cookery, you cook at precisely the temperature you want your food to finish at (say 125°F for a rare steak). No part of the meat can possibly overcook, giving you evenly cooked meat from edge to center.
- 2. The ability to hold cooked foods at serving temperature for several hours without any loss of quality. Low temperatures and a sealed bag prevent overcooking or loss of moisture from cooked foods. This is an invaluable asset, allowing a line cook (or a harried spouse) to serve hot food at a moment's notice, without the need to worry about precise timing. Those roasted potatoes in the oven taking a bit longer than expected? No problem—the steak will be exactly the same 30 minutes from now.
- 3. The ability to tenderize tough pieces of meat. Cooking a tough piece of meat like a chuck steak for extended periods of time—48 hours and above—helps enzymes naturally present in the meat to break down tough connective tissues, resulting in extraordinarily tender results.
- 4. The ability to cook vegetables without loss of flavor. Vegetables cooked in vacuum-sealed pouches naturally soften in their own juices. In some cases, this can be overpowering (ever try sous-vide celery root?), while in others, the results can be downright extraordinary. Sous-vide'd carrots taste more like a carrot than any carrot you've ever tasted (do you follow?)
Before I even began, I threw in the towel as far as parts 3 and 4 go. There's no way my beer cooler is staying warm for 48 hours. As for vegetables, even after 15 minutes, a beer cooler full of 183°F water cools down by several degrees—it won't maintain heat long enough to cook vegetables. So for the time being, it looks like if prolonged (2 hours +) or relatively hot (160°F +) cooking are part of your requirements for a sous-vide cooker, you're going to have to spring for the real deal.
On the other hand, I'd easily argue that parts 1 and 2 are in fact the primary use of a sous-vide cooker—particularly for home cooks. A quick search of the types of recipes home cooks have been playing around with confirms this.
Confident, I moved on to the field tests.
Staying Cool Under Pressure
First things first: Price difference. If budget isn't at least a partial concern of yours, then I probably don't like you, and you should probably go away. For the rest of you, you'd be happy to know that the beer cooler rig has the Sous-Vide Supreme beat by a factor of 26 to 1. Not only that, but unlike expensive FoodSaver bags, plastic ziplock bags are reusable. Score!
Next up, I cooked steak at 125°F for 1 hour and chicken at 140°F for 2.5 hours* in both the beer cooler, and in the Sous-Vide Supreme. The results?
*Follow the links for our recipes.
In both cases, the proteins were indistinguishable from one another.
Can you tell which steak was cooked in the $450 machine and which was cooked in the beer cooler? I certainly couldn't. Both were perfectly cooked from edge to edge, and both were as tender as you could wish.
I've catered plenty of parties in which I've relied on the Sous-Vide Supreme to streamline the process by keeping each course hot and ready to serve right when I need it. Could the beer cooler pull off the same feat? For the final test—holding foods at serving temperature—I decided to put my money where my mouth is and launch the beer cooler technique on an unsuspecting public. The 24 guinea pigs were each paying $50 a head for a wine tasting dinner organized by my good friend Lindsay Cohen at Gordon's Wine & Culinary Center in Waltham, MA.
The menu consisted of four courses, two of which were cooked sous-vide: salmon cooked to 115°F and hanger steaks cooked to 130°F. Both proteins were cooked via the beer cooler method one hour before the event started, and held in their respective beer coolers until ready to serve. Because this was an interactive event with discussions of both wine and food, there was no way for me to know exactly when I would be serving each dish—I relied solely on the heat-retention properties of the beer cooler to keep the food hot and ready-to-serve.
It worked like a charm. Both the salmon and steak were cooked perfectly, requiring only minimal work for me to complete the dishes, and allowing me to interact better with the audience through the whole process—something which is equally useful when entertaining guests at home in the kitchen or the backyard.
The best part? The beer cooler is more easily transportable, and doesn't require an electric outlet. That means that the other night, for example, I was able to start cooking a two-pound dry-aged ribeye in my kitchen, carry the whole beer cooler out to my deck two hours later, slap the beef on a blazing hot grill for 30 seconds just to mark them and brown the exterior, then enjoy the most perfectly cooked meat that's ever come off my Weber. I just can't wait to try this on a camping trip.
Now, is all this to say that a real high-quality low-temperature water oven like the Sous-Vide Supreme isn't worth owning? Certainly not. I wouldn't even consider giving mine up. Absolute precision and the ability to hold higher temperatures more steadily and for much longer periods of time comes in handy in many situations (particularly when you have friends and spouses who are late for dinner as often as mine are).
But for those of you who have thought of playing around with sous-vide cookery (and I highly encourage that sort of behavior!) but have been thrown by the costs, this is a cheap, reliable, and pretty much foolproof way to do exactly what the more expensive machines do. Play away.
So tell me: how many of you would be willing to give home sous-vide cooking a try now?
Note: This technique will work with any of the sous-vide recipes we've published on the site including:
About the author: After graduating from MIT, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt spent many years as a chef, recipe developer, writer, and editor in Boston. He now lives in New York with his wife, where he runs a private chef business, KA Cuisine, and co-writes the blog GoodEater.org about sustainable food enjoyment. Become a fan of The Food Lab on Facebook for play-by-plays on future kitchen tests and recipe experiments.
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126 Comments:
Interesting. I have a few beer coolers sitting around in the garage so I might give this a try.
I've only tried this once, and I did so with a ziplock bag on the stove (kept the pot on a low flame and added a 1/2 cup of room-temp liquid whenever the heat raised by more than 3 degrees from where I wanted it).
BTW, if you stick a straw in the bag and suck all the air out, then seal it, you will have a fairly air-free bag.
Fernando at 12:55PM on 04/19/10
Yes!
rgolightly at 12:59PM on 04/19/10
Awesome. The keeping a huge pot of water over a super low flame method is dead! I'd be interested to know what the temp of the water was after the hour or so cooking time was up.
Now all we need is a test to see what's the most thermodynamically efficient cooler on the market.
deldredge at 1:01PM on 04/19/10
I'd give it a try. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that food can be cooked without high direct heat like traditional methods, but this sounds too good to pass up.
ByrdBrain at 1:11PM on 04/19/10
I will definitely try this - if for nothing other than the fun factor of trying something new and interesting!
arwenb at 1:12PM on 04/19/10
Awesome! Would this work with fish too?
gargupie at 1:14PM on 04/19/10
@Gargupie
Yes! Salmon cooked at 115 is great. Really really tender, but still semi-translucent like sushi. Other fish work well too. Look for regular sous-vide recipes online for temperature ranges (I'll be doing some fish recipes here in the future as well).
@ByrdBrain
Well, in most cases, you still end up finishing the meat over high heat using a traditional method (like a grill or a skillet) just to get the right level of browning (sous-vide doesn't brown meat), but the bulk of the cooking is done in a water bath.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 1:17PM on 04/19/10
Hey, foodsaver bags are reuseable... Just make them larger the first time and cut just under the seal when you open them.
My cooler has turned into the workhorse of the kitchen - it transports my raw milk every week, serves as the yogurt incubator (with the heating pad) and diy sous vide.
MoEats at 1:17PM on 04/19/10
I've done ribeyes with this method, but my cooler was a crappy styrofoam one (which insulates FAR worse than your plastic one evidently does!) As soon as I get some spare time, I'll be trying chicken breasts in my plastic ice chest. I'm gonna go one further though... I'll be tossing individually-frozen chicken breasts, frozen, in some marinade in the bag. They'll get trimmed before they get grilled. ;-) I'll be prepared to add some boiling water to the ice chest after about 20 minutes in order to make up for the frozen meat, if need be.
Rodney Sparks at 1:17PM on 04/19/10
I still prefer my crock pot + temperature controller. Considering I already owned a crockpot (and it's useful for other stuff) the temperature controller is really handy. I also use my food saver for tons of other uses.
arbeck at 1:38PM on 04/19/10
This looks like fun. I would like to try this, but my concern is w/ heating the food in plastic bags. I am sure I've eaten wonderful food prepared this way in amazing restaurants. I've read the books and articles, etc... It's probably totally safe, but I just can't go for it. The plastic is where I get stuck every time.
honeybea at 1:38PM on 04/19/10
Kenji, can you ballpark approximately how much heat the cooler loses per hour? Like if I started something at 140 degrees, where would it be 2 hours later? The reason I'm wondering is that it seems like it should be possible to still do extended cook-times... it might require some maintenance (I'm the type who would get up 3 times throughout the night to add some more hot water to a cooler full of beef tongue), but it seems like if it holds the heat at least near the desired temp for 3-4 hours, it would be doable.
And really, unless you actually let the water get room temperature, wouldn't it just slow down the cook time a bit? Like if I let the heat drop to 115 from 140 over 4 hours, that's not gonna kill me or poison me, it'll just take longer to get it back to temp and continue cooking when the new water is added... right?
Stumbleweed at 1:40PM on 04/19/10
love it.
jerkfaceirl at 1:42PM on 04/19/10
At what point do food safety issues come up? Some of these temps seem pretty close to the environment in an incubator for microbial cultures.
bab at 1:55PM on 04/19/10
Hey Kenji, another fine follow up to your sous vide series. It was your first post on this cooler hack that had me experimenting with crock pots. Not really sure why, but my mother owns at least half a dozen of them. From sizes large enough to hold 25 pound turkeys down to the little ones for making heated party dips. (Yeah, she's pretty much a hoarder, but won't admit it of course!)
The crock pots work but are a little tricky in that their temperature settings are across a pretty wide spectrum. What I did, though, was to simply fill one up with water, stick in a long meat thermometer and observe where the "warm", "low", and "high" settings eventually rose and held the water.
This took a while and usually didn't hit that lovely 125 to 135 range with any real precision. The way around this was to use the slow cooking feature of the crock pot and cold water additions to the warmed water to hone in on the temperature I was interested in attaining.
With a little practice I'm able to use the crock pot hack and make amazing steaks (the only thing I've tried to date). Plus I love the fact that the temperature will only move very slightly (if at all) for long periods of time which, as you've eloquently mentioned several times, is THE reason for using water immersion to begin with (one of them anyway!)
For Christmas I received a great little 12 in square cast iron skillet with raised ribs and use that to brown up the meat and get fantastic grill marks on it as well.
Just want to thank you for these articles on sous vide and water immersion cooking. I'd seen it on the cooking shows, but never considered hacking together my own solutions for super cheap sous vide (& thanks Mom! ;)
BoldlyGoing at 1:56PM on 04/19/10
I plan on doing some pretty extensive sous-vide cooking done in the near future. I'm pondering building a temp-controlled bath at some point too. A $43 "bucket heater" like this one:
http://tinyurl.com/y5x7s4z
an $52 temperature controller setup with programmable hysteresis:
http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/product_view.asp?sku=9352014 (they also have a $70 thermocouple-based system), a 5-gallon bucket (or even an oblong storage bin, ice chest, giant stock pot, etc.), and an aquarium bubbler should do the trick!
Rodney Sparks at 2:04PM on 04/19/10
@Stumbleweed
My set up loses less than 2 degrees per hour, depending on where I keep it. In a warm kitchen, it's down to about 1 per hour. It all depends on the size of the cooler, how well insulated it is, and where you keep it. You can improve times by draping it with some thick towels as well.
As for letting it get down to 115, there's a problem there, which I'll address below:
@bab
Food safety issues are a function of time and temperature. Take a look at the graf on this page to get an idea.
Basically, most bacteria will cease growing around 125 degrees F, and will start being actively killed at 130 degrees F. Below this temperature, they are multiplying, so you don't want foods to sit below 125 for very long (the 15-30 minutes it takes to cook a piece of salmon is totally fine as long as the salmon is fresh).
With dangerous things like raw chicken, it's best to follow that graph. around an hour and a half at 135 degrees, or 35 minutes or so at 140 (that's after the chicken has come all the way up to temp, by the way). As long as you are careful with monitoring your temperatures, there's no real issues as far as food safety is concerned.
Kenji
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 2:22PM on 04/19/10
Kenji, first off, I love your posts and look forward to trying sous-vide cooking very soon. My one question is what temperature is the meat when you put it into the water bath? I imagine that you would want to keep the meat refrigerated until you drop it into the bath (especially with the chicken) for health reasons. Are you typically dropping the food in right from the refrigerator, or are you letting foods like steak come to room temperature?
Nick P at 2:25PM on 04/19/10
@Nick P
I'm dropping it from the fridge. I make sure the cooler is slightly warmer than it needs to be in order to compensate for heat loss when the cold food is added to it. I usually overshoot by 3-5 degrees, depending on how much food, and how long I'm going to cook it for.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 2:29PM on 04/19/10
Thanks! I'm definitely gonna try this sometime :)
Chocolatesa at 2:35PM on 04/19/10
I was actually inspired by your post on lamb to try a low-cost sous-vide hack for cooking some ribeyes that were on sale at a local grocery store. They turned out great. Probably the most perfectly cooked pieces of meat I've ever made.
velcerick at 2:36PM on 04/19/10
Awesome news... I could definitely handle 2 degrees per hour... putting it in a warmish part of the house and wrapping it in a blanket or something should also help get it where I can add hot water every 4 hours or so. I'll pull a beef tongue all-nighter soon and will let you know how it goes.
Stumbleweed at 2:38PM on 04/19/10
Thanks Kenji...going cooler shopping soon :)
Nick P at 2:39PM on 04/19/10
Okay, I was thinking about this and although the cooler is cheaper, this seems like it might take less babysitting over longer periods of time. From inside to outside, it would be the meat in a foodsaver bag (I've got the foodsaver, so it's not an extra expense) in a cast iron dutch oven filled with water to the correct temp, and covered. Maybe five degrees above the target to make up for initial heat loss. And probably the dutch oven rinsed a few times in hot water to get it warm so the cast iron doesn't leach the heat.
Dutch oven goes into oven set for whatever temp. Let's say 115 for fish, or 140 for chicken. Remote thermometer in the water in the dutch oven to watch what the temp is doing. If there's too much intitial heat loss because of the cool food, I could add hot water as needed at the beginning.
And then just let it go. With the oven temp set at the correct end target, you wouldn't get any heat loss. The cast iron and water would hold the heat and keep it from fluctuating, even if the oven temp rose or fell by 5 degrees.
When the time's up or if the oven is needed, the pot could come out of the oven and sit for a while longer with little heat loss, since the cast iron and the water would hold the heat. Or for a longer hold, wrap the pot in a couple big towels until I'm ready for the meat.
Obviously, this isn't portable, but I don't need portability. So besides the fact that the oven is using a bit of power that the cooler isn't, do you see any reason this wouldn't work?
Upside is that if this works, I could cook the chuck steak for 48 hours with this method and not need any babysitting.
dbcurrie at 2:43PM on 04/19/10
@dbcurrie
I don't see any reason why it should work other than that most ovens are really unreliable under 200 degrees or so, but if you've got a really good oven, definitely give it a shot. With my gas oven, the temp inside fluctuates by more than 50 degrees between cycles, which is too big, even for a large volume of water and a pot.
Also bear in mind that where you put the pot in the oven will make a difference. For instance, if I put a pizza stone on the bottom shelf of my oven, it reaches around 700 degrees even if the oven is set to 500 and the air above the stone is at 500. If the bottom of your pot gets too hot, it can get too hot inside even if the oven is set at a lower temp.
Let me know how it goes!
Kenji
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 2:48PM on 04/19/10
as for keeping food hot for extended periods of time, this is just a thought, but what about getting some river stones and putting them in the oven at like 400-450 degrees? then when the temp in the cooler starts to drop, just swap in in a fresh stone or two from time to time?
mr guy at 2:51PM on 04/19/10
For those techie enough to be inclined to do some calculations, here's a useful link that goes into the specific heat capacities of various foods:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-capacity-food-d_295.html
For reference, water is 1 Kcal/(kg*degC). This variable is normally referred to as "c".
Using this equation:
mass(meat) * c(meat) * delta T(meat) = mass(H2O) * c(H2O) * delta T(H2O)
Mass of meat: known
c of meat: look at the link above
delta T of meat: Final desired temp minus cold temp
mass of water: Measure it on a bathroom scale when you fill the ice chest
c of water: 1.0
delta T of water: This is the unknown, and is how much hotter the initial water temp must be in order to settle on the final desired bath temperature. You'll want to overshoot by the ~2-3 degrees of drop that Kenji has observed
Rodney Sparks at 2:56PM on 04/19/10
Accidentally hit the "post" button, but that's basically it... for the calculations. If anyone sees any errors here, please comment! Just thought I'd toss it out there. ;-)
Rodney Sparks at 2:57PM on 04/19/10
@Kenji, my oven has proofing and food-drying and settings, so it's built to handle the low-warm temps. I've made yogurt in there in quart bottles, and the first few times I was checking the temps frequently and it stayed stable.
I might have to give this a shot.
Hmmm....I've also got one of those corning glass dutch ovens...I wonder if that would be better. They're slower to heat up, but then they hold heat pretty well, so that might be better insurance against the pot grabbing heat from the metal racks. Any thoughts on that?
dbcurrie at 3:23PM on 04/19/10
@dbcurrie
I'd just use the post with the biggest thermal mass (i.e. the one that takes the longest to heat up and cool down). That should keep you the most stable.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 3:46PM on 04/19/10
I can tell you that a good cooler (I added "great stuff" foam insulation to the hollow lid of mine) will keep things at a fairly even tempurature for longer than you would think. I have been making my own beer for 4 years now using a cooler to mash the grains and I lose less than 1 degree for the hour that it takes.
Knowing that I did this method to cook two 3 1/2 lb Kobe tenderloins for New Years Eve. I added them to a 50qt cooler filled 3/4 of the way up with 133 water and 2 1/2 hours later when it was time to cook it had dropped to 128. They were absolutely perfect, rare/medium rare end to end, side to side and infused with the black truffle and butter that I added to the bags
nique jim at 3:48PM on 04/19/10
biggest post...hehe... ;-)
dbcurrie at 3:49PM on 04/19/10
This is absolutely brilliant. Can't wait to give it a try.
jwalz at 4:03PM on 04/19/10
For calculating the required water bath temperature to compensate for a given amount of thawed *or frozen* meat in a given amount of heated water, I've put together a spreadsheet that people can try if they'd like to:
http://www.rsparks.com/sous-vide_calc.xls (Excel '97 format)
Probably the most valuable aspect of this that I found is that you can play with the numbers and see whether or not you need to bother with a huge ice chest full of water if all you're doing is a steak, or if you're trying to work with so much meat that you need a larger ice chest than you currently have. It should be reasonably accurate, especially on thawed meat.
Kenji, if you find this to be useful and accurate enough, do with it as you please. No credit needed. If anyone has any questions or comments for me, I'm at bbq@rsparks.com. (I do not sell anything, I'm just a hobbyist)
Rodney Sparks at 5:26PM on 04/19/10
What if you put your small(er) cooler into your large(er) cooler, which had warm water in it? It seems that would provide an extra layer of (free) insulation that can be temperature controlled. And yes, I have beer coolers ranging in size from six-pack to medium coffin (4ftl x 2ftd x 2.5ft tall). We rarely run short of beer in these parts, so every ones got more coolers than a reasonable person needs. (I'm still trying to justify buying the full coffin size cooler, but I don't have my pickup truck anymore, thus no way to transport the darn thing.)
beersnob at 5:40PM on 04/19/10
there's another way to sous vide cheaply. i didnt spend any extra money and most people can do it for the cost of a crock pot and it can allow you to cook for a longer period of time then in a cooler. here it is!:
http://sousvidedeeds.blogspot.com/2010/02/sous-vide-cooking-at-home-on-cheap.html
mrines at 5:44PM on 04/19/10
@beersnob
The only problem I'd foresee is that you'd have to weigh down the smaller cooler. The airspace in the wall makes it very buoyant, even when filled with water. You'd have to add lead weight to the bottom of it or something.
@Rodney
That's awesome! I can't believe you put that together so fast!
There's only two things I can see to improve it: because of dissolved solids in the water in meats, most meats actually freeze below 32 degrees (I'm not sure by how much), so the compensation for latent heat of fusion is a little off. Not really a problem, since most people probably won't be using frozen meat anyhow.
Second, there has to be an addition to the assumptions that meat is thin enough (i.e. has a large enough surface to volume ratio) that all of it will heat at a reasonable rate and the deltaT between the center and the edges will never be more than a few degrees.
That's a really great calculator though, and don't worry - you get full credit if (and probably when) I point people to it in the future.
Thanks!
Kenji
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 5:48PM on 04/19/10
Glad you like it, and thanks for the feedback! I made the two changes you mentioned. I did some research, and it turns out that the freezing point of beef is 28 and most other meats are within a degree of that, so I just hard-wired it at 28 degrees. I've updated the file on my site.
Not a problem at all... glad I could contribute to the hobby. After my original post on the subject, I felt I had to put together a much more usable tool. I just wish I knew how to build it into a web page. ;-) FYI, If people don't have MS Office, it's compatible with Google Docs and OpenOffice.
Rodney Sparks at 6:16PM on 04/19/10
Kenji, I cannot express how big of a hero you are.
Both my brother and I tried on our own method for steaks this past week (after your lamb post). I do not know exactly his method but I know he used a few NY Strip steaks. He and I have both been wanting to play around with anything sous vide, but not up for an investment in a machine yet. Your post came at the perfect time.
I work on a food truck and realized I would be working through dinner saturday night. I ran to the store and grabbed a 16qt cooler along with some rib eyes (about 3/4 an inch thick). They marinated all day until I threw them in the cooler around 8pm and they were perfect for searing at 10. Best steaks I've ever had. They were just so beautiful and juicy!
Brother raved about his steak efforts as well. Soon he and I will be trying to convince our mother it's just how we should cook steak at home.
Thanks Kenji!
nicochi at 6:30PM on 04/19/10
This is definitely something I will try while camping. It also got me to thinking about my brother-in-law talking about making an "omelet" in a heavy duty ziploc bag tossed into simmering water when camping. Hmm, I wonder if it would come out more tender if done at a lower temp. in a cooler?
dhorst at 6:36PM on 04/19/10
@nicochi
Awesome - I'm glad it worked so well for you! It's really the easiest, fool-proofiest way I've seen to cook meat.
Kenji
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 6:36PM on 04/19/10
Ooooh... An omelet (or a "scramble", actually)... That sounds interesting, especially while camping! I'm a big fan of not making dirty dishes. ;-p
Rodney Sparks at 6:46PM on 04/19/10
@ Mr Guy
River stones from the river are water logged and may crack/explode when heated that high (girl guide cookbook warns of this). They may crack when dropped in the water as well. This may well work if the temperature of the rocks is kept below 212 degrees F. The mass of the stones will hold more heat than an equal volume of water.
Some N.A natives cooked in birch bark vessels using hot rocks to cook the stews.
porchetta at 7:25PM on 04/19/10
When I was using a really poor styrofoam ice chest to do my ribeyes, I just used a tea kettle. I dumped in boiling water while stirring to reach my target bath temp, refilled the kettle, and put it on the stove to boil. When the temp dropped, I used a pitcher to take some water out of the ice chest and replaced it with boiling water, slowly, while monitoring the resulting water temp. I had to repeat that about 3 times. The styrofoam was very low-density and porous, and was actually weeping water through it. ;-)
Rodney Sparks at 8:01PM on 04/19/10
very smart. love it.
why not use a vacuum thermal cooker as an upgrade. it's just a really big vacuum thermos. my mother has one and does essentially all her "slow cooking" in one. no plug needed.
starflyer at 9:03PM on 04/19/10
One the Hudson's on the Bend Cookbooks (published a few years ago) describes a beer cooler method similar to this one. Chef Jeff Blank suggests submerging a vacuum sealed grilled or smoked piece of meat in heated oil stored in a beer cooler. He describes it as the best method for pre-cooking and storing meat because like sous vide, the oil keeps the meat at a constant temperature, which prevents overcooking.
Sweet E at 11:33PM on 04/19/10
Why must it be a beer cooler? What about a carbonated non alcoholic beverage cooler?
Aya Kristen Alt at 11:41PM on 04/19/10
If your budget is _slightly_ larger and you've got more demanding needs, check out this DIY heating immersion circulator. Several people have built these units following the plans and they work comparably well to a PolyScience circulator - they will hold temperature to .1C indefinitely.
Seattle Food Geek at 11:52PM on 04/19/10
@Aya
because "beer cooler" is way better for search engine optimization, duh!
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 12:30AM on 04/20/10
I threw in my Kenji-inspired, success story in his previous sous-vide post, but thought I'd add in a quick tip here. For smaller cooks, ie, 1 steak, fish, etc, I used a large Bubba Keg insulated "mug" wrapped in a towel. Basically, any large thermos can work as well, so it might be good for the camping crowd. I tried it on a 1lb ribeye and it was amazing.
cooksultant at 1:49AM on 04/20/10
Dear Kenji,
Your beer cooler method turned two horrifically cheap, really ugly pieces of flank steak into some of the most perfect bites of food I have ever had. I will now be throwing a party for my friends and family with this method. Thank you so much.
Phil Dy at 6:08AM on 04/20/10
Can this same method be applied for burgers?
Phil Dy at 9:09AM on 04/20/10
@Phil Dy
I'm glad it worked for you! It certainly works with burgers. Same method. Bag the burgers, cook them in the cooler, finish them on the grill, or in a really hot pan to color the exterior.
Kenji
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 9:34AM on 04/20/10
@Kenji
Good to know! When do you add salt to the patties, though?
Phil Dy at 9:43AM on 04/20/10
@Phil Dy
I haven't thoroughly tested that actually. I usually season just before I put the bag in the cooler, then taste the exterior (yes, stick my finger on it and lick my finger), and add a little more if it needs it before searing, since a lot of the salt is left behind in the liquid that exudes in the bag.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 9:55AM on 04/20/10
i cant tell yall enough how much i love your site. EVERY single day i learn something new from yalls posts. i follow yall in my google reader but still come to the site every day to read stuff. THANKS!
vertigoxcured at 10:48AM on 04/20/10
So is there an optimal size cooler to use, or, even better, a ratio of cooler size/water to food?
snyderico at 1:36PM on 04/20/10
As starflyer, I'm also wondering the same:
"...why not use a vacuum thermal cooker as an upgrade. it's just a really big vacuum thermos...."
Truffle 18 at 1:46PM on 04/20/10
@snyderico
You could play around with my spreadsheet and see what you discover:
http://www.rsparks.com/sous-vide_calc.xls
It makes sense that the bigger the water-to-meat ratio you have, the cooler the water can be and still get the meat to the right final temperature.
For example, according to the spreadsheet, if you had 2 pounds of ribeye at 37 F and put them in a 5-gallon water bath to reach a final temperature of 130 F, you'd need a water bath that starts out at 136 F (assuming 3 degrees of drop due to heat leaving the ice chest). If you only used 1 gallon of water, it'd have to start out at 148 degrees in order to end up at 130 when the meat warmed completely. I would think that the 148 F water would cook the outer layer of meat beyond what you'd want it to. Kenji, does this sound correct to you?
Rodney Sparks at 3:25PM on 04/20/10
@Rodney Sparks. Yes, sounds right to me. Although I don't think 148 degrees is too bad for the outer layers. You might see a tiny gray band, but nothing compared to what you'd get in a hot oven.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 3:29PM on 04/20/10
Oh, so I did a couple of tri-tips in my cooler last night. I always put a wireless thermometer probe in the piece of meat so I know when I can pull it from the water and cook it. I just leave the corner of the bag open and make sure it doesn't submerge. We like our tri-tip at about 155-160 and sliced thin, so I had the water at 160. I needed a lot of water, and putting that much water that is that hot into an ice chest isn't a simple matter. I had to boil about 3 big pots of water and add about half a pot of cold water to get there. I was in a hurry, so I had to pull the meat out of there at about 145 and put it on the grill to finish it off, but based on what I saw, it was going to work out well. I have a couple more tri-tips that I'm going to take the time to do right probably tomorrow night. ;-)
Rodney Sparks at 3:38PM on 04/20/10
@Kenji. Good to know! So, based on that, maybe I'll do my next tri-tip (~2 lbs) in my 6-pack cooler. It'd be much easier to deal with than filling up a large cooler with hot water.
Rodney Sparks at 3:41PM on 04/20/10
Hey all --
So excited to try this! I'm just wondering -- everyone here talks about cooking first then grilling to finish... Is there any reason not to grill first and then sous vide?
Emily
fearlessem at 5:29PM on 04/20/10
It turns out I'm a 135 man. That's where I like my beef. Tonight, I cooked the best piece of beef I've ever cooked, and I owe it to Kenji, my beer cooler, and my Maverick ET-7 digital thermometer.
Oh, and I started a blog, mainly so my food pr0n can exist in a medium other than Facebook photos. ;-) Tonight's adventure is covered here:
http://rodneysparks.blogspot.com/2010/04/sous-vide-tri-tip.html
Rodney Sparks at 2:19AM on 04/21/10
@Emily - It seems to me that the crusty, grilled surface would end up soaked with juices and would lose much of its texture.
Rodney Sparks at 2:54PM on 04/21/10
as a homebrewer, i cook grains in beer coolers all the time. i can't believe this didn't occur to me, it makes so much sense. thanks.
jonagerlach at 11:17PM on 04/21/10
I love the idea of cooking Sous-Vide in a cooler. Is there a recipe you use for the salmon. I would love to do both steak and salmon to wow friends. Thanks!
MaryLiz at 1:12AM on 04/22/10
@maryliz
I'll have a recipe up here in two weeks, but for now, all yo have to do is pack the salmon in a bag (with a little olive oil if you'd like), and cook it at 115 degrees for around 30-45 minutes. At that point, it's starting to turn opaque, but not flaky or tough in anyway - almost like a custard in texture. Halfway between sashimi and poached salmon, if you will. Serve it with whatever sauce you'd like. A vinaigrette, or just a squeeze of lemon works quite well.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 1:30AM on 04/22/10
As Jonagerlach said we homebrewers have been using coolers for a long time and as such we have some tricks. I suggest that you insulate the lid or cover with a blanket to keep better temps especially with cheaper coolers. The lids are typically not insulated (because they are keeping things cool not warm and heat rises) so some of us drill a couple small holes and fill the lid with expanding foam from the home center. Careful - if you put too much it will warp the lid...
Also, I suggest you put your water in for about 15 minutes with the lid closed (to stabilize the temp after the thermal shock of adding the water to a cold cooler) before you start adjusting water to the correct temp.
Thanks for this - my beer mash techniques have found a new use!
Craig D at 10:25AM on 04/22/10
@Craig D
Good call on insulating the lid. After doing my tri-tip the night before last, I noticed a big difference between my actual temperature drop and the drop predicted by my spreadsheet... I think much of it was through the lid. I'll fill it with foam and then do a calorimeter experiment by filling my ice chest with hot water and seeing how quickly the temp drops over time. At least then I can put that temp drop in my spreadsheet and validate whether it correctly predicts temp drop of the bath due to warming of the food.
FYI: http://www.rsparks.com/sous-vide_calc.xls
Rodney Sparks at 12:25PM on 04/22/10
Being a home brewer this technique sounds like doing a all grain mash. You do need to remember that all coolers are different. Most have insulated walls, but the cover is usually not. The way around this is to drill a hole in the cover and spray insulating foam in. That way you will get minimal heat loss. With grain in my large cooler I will usually heat the water 5-10 degrees hotter than my desired temp. The cooler is usually preheated with hot water for 10-15 min, to stop the cool walls of the cooler absorbing the heat. With just water you might need to pump it up to 10-15 degrees hotter. You will only know after you try it in your own cooler. Can't wait to give this a try. Why have I not thought about this sooner.
skawars1 at 1:13PM on 04/22/10
Exactly what I was thinking, skawars - We should come up with some combo brewing/cooking recipes for mash tun/sous vide!
wongadon at 1:18PM on 04/22/10
wongadon-Your totally right. I might have to try this next week during my brew session.Time to do a red ale for the World Cup red, white and blue brew series. A 60 min mash at 150 should definitely be able to cook something nicely.
skawars1 at 1:23PM on 04/22/10
For those unaware, Zip-Lock does also make a vacuum seal freezer bag kit as well as quart and gallon sized vacuum the sealer is a small hand pump and the kit was under $10, Additionally Food saver makes similar zip top vac bags they're a bit more expensive but not outrageous, and they make a hand held vacuum for them somewhere in the range of $20 - either of these solutions should provide a much better vacuum seal and still keep the overall cost under $100
CrossDraw at 2:58PM on 04/22/10
Arbeck, what temp controller do you use? I have a pretty good sized roaster that would be perfect for doing big roasts, etc...
brrbtr at 7:22PM on 04/22/10
Hey folks!
Just tried this tonight! Did two strip steaks (total weight of about 1.4 pounds) in a very small cooler -- 13 x 8.5 x 8.5. I started the water at 147, aiming for a finished temp of 140. Left them in for an hour, and water was right around 141 when I took them out.
And the results? Definitely a success. Meat was *perfectly* cooked -- completely evenly pink from edge to edge. It was almost a little surreal, since I've never seen a sous vide steak in person! I did the browning with a propane torch, and that's the piece I'll change next time... It just didn't get as browned as I'd like, and what browning I did get took what felt like forever with the torch. I think putting it very close to the broiler element would be better.
The one thing I missed was the really charred fat -- I wonder if even just a short trip under the broiler will be able to deliver that... But looking forward to trying chicken!
fearlessem at 8:27PM on 04/22/10
I don't have a suggestion on temp controllers, but I use this product to monitor the temperature (link below). It is rather accurate as it is meant for the medical and other industries that need pretty specific info, but I got it used from a company selling old equipment. This is obviously overkill, but it is fun and I am a nerd. Fits well.
I think mine is an older model, but here is the link to what I pretty much have: http://www.dicksondata.com/product/model_SM325.php.
This one is expensive, so you may want to look for new ones. There are a number of other companies who make these things, but I cannot speak to anything else.
mmcnama4 at 1:32AM on 04/23/10
Tried this last night and -- success! Cooked two strip steaks, about 1.4 pounds total, in a small cooler -- 13 x 8.5 x 8.5. I wanted a finished temp at 140, so I started the water around 147, and when I took it out an hour later, that's around where it was... Steak was cooked the perfect shade of pink from edge to edge. Since I've never seen a sous-vide steak before, it was almost surreal looking to me.
I did my browning with a torch, and I won't do that again next time. It took a really long time, and still didn't get them as dark as I'd like. In the future I'll try putting them as close as I can to the broiler element, and maybe cooking them a few degrees cooler to make up for the fact that they'll take on some heat in the broiler.
All and all though, amazing. I can't wait to try chicken...
fearlessem at 9:53AM on 04/23/10
Anyone know if cooking meat in plastic bags can be toxic?
notsky at 10:57AM on 04/23/10
Is there any material with a low enough specific heat that it will release enough energy to counteract the heat loss from the near perfect insulation of the cooler? something to maintain the cooking temperature that much better.
stannnn at 1:36PM on 04/23/10
@stannn
You actually want materials with high specific heats - these are materials that can expend lots of energy without seeing a very big change in temperature, which is the idea here - transfer energy to the meat without changing temperature. As far at that goes, water has one of the highest specific heats around - I don't think you're going to find anything practical that works much better.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 1:55PM on 04/23/10
@Kenji
In terms of food safety, what's a good time and temp to shoot for for (medium-rare) burgers?
Oliver at 3:55PM on 04/23/10
@ Kenji
ah, my mistake. thanks for the clarification! time to go digging back into those old chemistry books. hah
stannnn at 1:23AM on 04/24/10
I don't understand -- I posted two comments yesterday, detailing how I tried this, that it worked, and what I'd do differently next time, and neither one appeared. Moderator -- what gives?
fearlessem at 12:09PM on 04/24/10
A question, Kenji. Why even bother with a pouch. For instance, why not just use a heated brine for "cooking."
have to go. Have to fine tune after fifteen minutes as the brewmaster above suggested.
Pietr at 2:55PM on 04/24/10
wow. brilliant.
cybercita at 6:57PM on 04/24/10
@Pietr I'm not Kenji but I don't want to put my fine ribeyes directly into the water while they are cooking - let the plastic bag seperate the meat from the water
rich_l at 9:50PM on 04/24/10
@ Rich @ cybercita
I should have been more specific. I was talking about supermarket chicken thighs, not prime ribs!
BTW, the chicken came out fine. I went ahead and drilled holes and filled it with aerosol foam. Now I have to figure out how to get the foam off my sweater. I am not a jack of all trades.
I am impressed by the quality of the posts here at serious eats. Everybody so friendly.
Pietr at 10:11PM on 04/24/10
wow. going to try this for GardenFork.TV i love low-tech food.
and @Pietr and all who are going to spray foam their coolers: wear latex gloves and clothes you don't care about. spray foam will not come off your favorite sweater.
i speak from experience...
GardenForkTV at 10:33PM on 04/25/10
Tried this method over the weekend with two beautiful prime dry-aged ribeyes with great success. Water out of my tap was 120f, put in the bagged steaks, wrapped the cooler in a snuggie, and let them do their thing while I worked on the side dishes. Roughly an hour later seared them on a screaming hot grill. Results = couldn't have asked for a better cooked steak. The temperature and texture was great. This will be my go to method for cooking steaks from now on.
I can't wait to use this method for a dinner party or a backyard get together. No stress of making sure temps are right and expensive meat is getting cooked into oblivion. Your meat is ready to eat, just sear off the steaks when you're ready to plate and everyone is happy.
As far as cooking burgers this way.. would the texture be effected in a negative way? When I make burgers I gently form the patties so they are not compressed and pretty "loose." I figure sealing them up in a bag will compress and would be bummed if they came out more like sausage than a proper burger.
Burger365 at 1:59PM on 04/26/10
@Burger365
I'm glad it worked out for you!
As far as burgers go, it works great. I haven't tried it with a full strength chamber vac, which I'd guess would compress the meat more than you'd like, but just using ziplocks and a cool they don't get compressed at all. Just perfectly cooked, and easy.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 2:02PM on 04/26/10
Hi there,
I have spent the last four days researching the whole plastic bag issue thing, and have discovered the following possible solutions for those concerned with putting these bags into hot water:
1. Vacuum sealed jars. Use a combo of the the alvin vacuum with a DIY pump-n-seal diy valve. I'm not sure how well this will work, because there will be space in the jar between the meat and the glass on at least one side. Will the heat make it's way through? It could increase time by a few hours? *shrug* Perhaps shoving the meat into a really small jar or adding some additional filler material like oil or other marinading liquid? I may try this for laughs.
2. Mylar bags. These are used by survivalist type people for long term storage. They come in zip-varieties, and I believe will work with the home systems like food saver. I called some people and it is polyester based. I spoke with someone who told me these would not be good for long term storage, but if your use is like mine (couple hours in the water), then they should be fine. There are numerous vendors and sources for obtaining these.
3. Nylon based bags. These seem to be used commercially in restaurants and can also be bought for home use. Typically can withstand up to 400F. One such company is Pan Saver, and they even have a product specific for sous vide. There's another product called Unichef food service bags, but I think there may be some relation to Pan Saver. One could further search for "oven bags" or "boiling bags" to find sources for sale.
4. Reynolds has a couple possible contenders, including oven bags and slow cooker liners. I think these may be nylon based, too.
5. Silicon based material. Still researching this one, haven't found anything useful. I'm thinking it could be combined with some stuff in #1, for example.
I've not really known plastic to be an issue until a couple years ago with all those various emails and rumors spreading on the internet. It's never been a concern to me, because it hadn't ever applied and one of the retorts came from a professor of my alma matter. I don't like bottled water and I don't cook with plastic and rarely store anything in the freezer but ice cream or Trader Joe's chicken Gyoza. But some comments here piqued my interest enough to do a little homework. I don't have a beer cooler, but planning on picking one up soon and will try the zip lock method compared to a few others for laughs (once shouldn't hurt me, after all, it's probably more like saliva where a little ingested daily over a long period of time will contribute to cancer..)
I was surprised to find very few such solutions offered anywhere on the internet - MANY (possibly uninformed) comments about the potential dangers of plastic, but few alternatives. Discussions on these dangers are obviously out of scope of this great idea, so hopefully the above helps point those concerned in the right direction.
Thanks again for this great idea!! Can't wait to try science!
jedovaty at 5:55PM on 04/27/10
One more thing - I think the nylon-based bags offer the most interesting and adaptable solution. I do hope the jar thing works, though, because one could then avoid plastics all together.
jedovaty at 6:02PM on 04/27/10
I found myself with a bit of spare time today, and was inspired by Rodney's spreadsheet, so I put together a little web-based calculator:
http://www.yawniton.com/yawnitonAssets/sousVideCoolerAssets/simpleVersion/main.html
Isn't it remarkable the weird things we'll do to avoid work? No idea if anybody will click on/use that thing, but I'm happy to provide links/source code to anybody who's like me, and spends time on such things.
Now all I have to do is try out the Souse-Vide in a cooler! Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to take the ice chest for a spin....
(That link is a better version that I took from it's original context here:
http://www.yawniton.com/content/projects/Entries/2010/4/28_Sous-Vide_on_the_Cheap.html )
PR hungry at 6:35PM on 04/28/10
More and more fun. It is too bad that the Igloo beer cooler leaks Kelvins all over the place. I cooked my second strip steak and found that if I just pour in hot water when I can tolerate more than 5 seconds I end up with a medium rare steak.
This is the same technique I use on the grill when I utilize MISSISSIPPIX3 to tell me that the grill is not hot enough.
Another thing. Should you reach a core temperature in what you are cooking, forgetaboutit, the meat is cooked, all you need to do is make it pretty. See also Maillard reaction.
Pietr at 7:25PM on 04/28/10
when in college I owned an immersion heater that I used to dip in a coffee cup to boil water for instant coffee. It seems that the low thermal load of a igloo cooler could be maintained by plugging something like that in for a few seconds periodically. I'd like to know whether it's reasonable to try to maintain an igloo cooler at temperature manually by this means.
StevePoling at 1:49AM on 04/29/10
great will try this coming weekend
sachxn at 3:45AM on 04/29/10
The frozen fish I have in my freezer comes prepackaged in vacuum sealed bags. I think I'll try that first to get a feel for how well it comes out when perfectly sealed. Downside: One can't season or marinate these pre-sealed foods.
Pong Sirioput at 4:13AM on 04/29/10
Kenji Alt... I LOVE YOU! amazing idea!
joelhblog at 8:33AM on 04/29/10
Kenji,
Which would a better cooler for this technique:
1. A larger, but much better insulated cooler, which would be 1/4 full of water, or
2. A smaller, but not as well insulated cooler, which could be more easily filled with water?
Thanks!
jlowery at 9:47AM on 04/29/10
Suggestion: place two large stock pots of water in the cooler, one at the target temperature and one at a higher temperature, which extends the time in the desired temperature range in the first pot.
Heat will transfer from the higher temperature pot to the other and replace lost heat. Some trial and error is required to find the right temperature and water volume to start with, depending on the cooler used and how fast it loses heat, ambient temp, etc. The second pot can be also be removed and reheated for longer runs
I've only used this technique when making yogurt, but I'm looking forward to trying out cooking meat in the cooler.
keydon at 10:00AM on 04/29/10
Coleman makes a line of coolers called "Xtreme" that are much better insulated than standard coolers. They are a little more expensive up front, but they claim to keep ice up to FIVE DAYS at 90*F external temperatures. It seems that they may provide a solution for your higher temp or longer time foods.
sillyputty at 2:38PM on 04/29/10
Has anyone had success using sous vide to cook steaks that have been frozen and then defrosted?? Mahalo!
Coolinfo01 at 11:39PM on 05/02/10
Any thoughts on how this will work with prepackaged marinated pork tenderloins - i.e just drop in the vacuum seal package as it comes from the store?
windhunde at 2:24PM on 05/03/10
This will never be able to maintain a proper temperature in the way that an immersion heater and circulator will. Not only can this cause inferior results, but is setting people up to get food poisoning if the food doesn't come to temp in the middle.
Check out the post by Seattle Food Geek above for a more accurate and reliable method.
Also, I spoke with Ziploc, and they indicated that, while their products don't contain any known harmful compounds and are food safe, they are meant for STORAGE and are not meant to be used in hot water.
As far as using a cooler to store hot liquids in, you might want to check with your manufacturer to see if you should even put hot liquids in it uncontained.
brads at 4:46PM on 05/05/10
@windhunde - I was considering that too.
wisnij at 5:36PM on 05/06/10
@windhunde and wisnij
I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work on those. Other than the fact that the prepackaged stuff isn't usually that great, so you're starting with an inferior product to begin with. As far as cooking them goes though, should be no problem at all.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 5:39PM on 05/06/10
Did this today with some 2" porkchops from Costco. I ended up using higher temps (140s range) due to the particularity of the lady in my life re: pork doneness. Calculated the specific heat (M x C x dT) as described above, found out that for my 2 chops I needed a differential of 3 degrees.
Delta-T of Cooler was ~1.5 degrees/hr. So I set out at 146 planning on being 2-3 hours to stay above my comfort level of 135 degrees for pasteurization issues. After pan searing, I would say they got closer to 150 degrees, and were a little too done.. but this turned out perfectly for her as it was the slightest tinge of pink.
So, with our different tastes in doneness.. should I start the water temp lower and then just finish her portion longer in the pan/grill? Alternatively, I could just use beef (which she will eat rare).. but like I said above, we got the chops at costco, which means we will be eating them for the next year or so... help!
mhebbard at 8:41PM on 05/06/10
May I suggest you start with a cold slightly oiled pan with only her chop, warm at high 2-4 minutes flipping 1 or twice then add yours for 1 minute on each side until beautiful.
I find that letting the meat still briefly rest still advisable. Anybody disagree?
Pietr at 9:03PM on 05/06/10
I tried the marinated pork loin - pan searing it in after pulling from the cooler. The technique worked great, but as Kenji suggests, it wasn't very good overall. I'd never had them before and hadn't expected them to be so ridiculously salty, but apparently they're typically like that.
windhunde at 8:54AM on 05/07/10
I'm rather late to this conversation, but I'd like to add another calculator for using this method of low-temperature cooking. Select the last tool in the list: “Passive low-temperature cooking calculator”. The math is based on the standard thermal equilibrium calculations and assumes a closed system, which of course a beer cooler isn’t.
Bouland at 5:42PM on 05/08/10
I did two ribeye's last night and finished on a grill. I used a pretty cheap, small cooler that I filled with water and adjusted unitl it hit 125....almost three hours and then grill. I did not temp at the end but it sure cooked up great...
Jeremy Hulley at 12:45PM on 05/10/10
I like the trick. I'll have to get together with my friends to try it out. One thing that I would like to try is making ice cream base in it. I read in a Thomas Keller book that they make ice cream base using sous vide. Wonder if it can work in a beer cooler just as well?
MAC's Ice Cream at 11:45AM on 05/11/10
So for burgers, should you salt before they go in the bag? or before you sear them off at the end? or both?
Burger365 at 5:09PM on 05/13/10
I did this with two boneless rib eyes purchased at Costco. It turned out absolutely amazing! Thanks so much for the article.
nothopelessyet at 1:12PM on 05/18/10
Can anyone think of a way to use a low-power heater to prevent the heat loss from the cooler? Could say, a coffee cup immersion coil be used to bump up the temp just a couple degrees over a long period of time?
RedHeadKevin at 6:17PM on 05/25/10
What about using those coolers that are plug in? Like the ones that also have car adapter plugs? The ones that also work as warmers when you reverse them?
I wonder if you could just fill one of those with water and check the range of temperature it has...(just a thought someone might want to play with)
tyronebcookin at 1:22PM on 06/05/10
OMG, thanks! I'm going to experiment with my beer cooler ASAP. Chicken breasts might never be the same around here... (thank goodness!)
jrome at 3:01PM on 06/10/10
I know I am late to the game here, but did a 16oz ribeye in the cooler tonight...Perfect.
Filled with hot tap water (120 deg F), then adjusted using a stockpot of simmering water to bring it to 132 degrees.
After an hour, water temp was 127 and steak temp was 123.5 (BTW, the thermapen is fully worth it). Added 2 cups of boiling water twice over the next hour to get the steak up to 126, then seared on a really hot grill for about 1 minute/side.
Color was great, and my finicky family was willing to try my "experiment steak" and loved it. In fact, the girls are downstairs fighting over the last bit now.
Bring on the chicken breast...can't wait to try. @Kenji, you are a genius!!!
DaveRef at 9:34PM on 06/12/10
Dave,
Perhaps "the girls" are still hungry! 16 Oz. at least 4 ways? I would suggest you have more than 1 chicken breast at the next cookout.
Agree about thermopen.
Pietr at 9:42AM on 06/13/10
Mmmmmm food cooked in hot plastic... Enjoy your cancer!
chiaroscuro at 5:24PM on 06/13/10
What about placing a brick or other heat sink in the 'cooler'? Wouldn't that help hold temps?
Calvinator at 4:16PM on 06/16/10
My husband and I finally tried this method of cooking last night for the first time. We seasoned two pork tenderloins with fresh garlic, thyme, parsley, rosemary and salt/pepper before placing them in the ziplock bags.
The initial temperature of the water was about 155 and at its coolest got to about 147. We kept the tenderloins in the cooler for about an hour. Then, we seared them on a cast iron skillet at a very high temperature using grapeseed oil. FORK TENDER and the BEST TASTING PORK either of us have EVER tasted. I can't wait to cook this for guests!
(Next time, we're going to try starting with a higher temp and cooking for less amount of time.)
Next up, burgers!
Randi Lynne at 9:04AM on 06/20/10
All went well with my first attempt using small cooler (which seems to be a little misshapen afterwards). Lost a full tablespoon of pure meat juices from my burger; ouch. Doing this solo for one person makes absolutely no sense, however. A Double-double at In-and-Out makes it silly to even warm the water. I'm impressed that my cheap little cooler will hold its temperature... after losing six to eight degrees it settles down and will stay at 133 for forty-plus minutes. Maybe for a couple of steaks... hmm. Maybe.
Calvinator at 10:32PM on 06/23/10
Why don't you just add a small thermostatically controlled tank heater from the pet store. then you could set the temperature and walk away.
Austin Design Shop at 3:24PM on 07/24/10
@J. Kenji Lopez-Alt
i love this, and it makes me wonder:
i just bought a gargantuan dry-aged bone-in ribeye and i want to try this out; what are your thoughts on seasoning and adding aromatics only just before the sear? i.e. after it's "cooked.
the reason i ask is that the butcher vacuum-packed it for me quite well and i'm wondering if i could just pop the whole thing in, then cut it out of the bag, season well, and finish it in a cast-iron pan plus aromatics for two minutes per side. thoughts?
three_em at 8:09PM on 08/20/10