My question starts with the Sous Vide method of cooking. I don't have a SV but my understanding of its function is to cook meat at constant temperature for as long as wanted. Is that a correct statement, at least in the broad terms?

I brew my own beer in the basement with a brew kettle made by Grainfather ( image below ). For those that are not familiar with brewing it is similar in some respects to the SV it holds water and ultimately my wort at a precise temperature for as long as needed.


Please watch this Video and let me know if you think it will work as easily as the author makes it sound?

We have everything on hand that is mentioned in the video, spice, beef eye of round, the Grainfather, meat slicer and Weston Pro vacuum sealer and a roll of vacuum bag material that will allow us to make a bag any length necessary.

Am I missing something ?


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After all the responses I decided to go ahead. The water was heated to 134, I checked it and it was running one degree high.

The first task was to smoke it for 2 hours on the pellet smoker.


Added it to the brew kettle suspended at about mid point and turned on the circulation pump.



I left it for 12.5 hours in the kettle at 134, removed and dried it off and did a quick sear on my Blackstone griddle, rested for 1 hour and put in the refrigerator for 1 hour then sliced it.



And the all important plated with protection and my home brew beer.



I would not use the brew kettle again, it is simply to expense to use for long cooks but a Sous Vide is on my near term shopping list.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sig229-SAS,

As long as you can get the water up to the temp you need for the item you're cooking, and it will hold it then I wouldn't see why it wouldn't work.

Get a good piece of beef and give it a shot.

I use a grainfather as well and have been considering dual use for Sous Vide. There are lots of message board postings about the practice, but I haven't been serious about it. If you try it, let me know how it turns out. Some folks leave the recirc pump on for the duration of the cooking, and others say it's a waste to do so.

I brew in a bag and I cook sous vide, I don't see why it wouldn't work. I'd leave the recirc pump on the whole time.

Does your brewing machine have a mechanism to circulate or stir up the liquid inside?

As you have discovered, the essential feature of the sous vide process is bringing foods to very precise temperatures and holding them there.

Sous vide machines do two things: heat the water to a very precise temperature and circulate it.

The really critical part is the precise temperature.

The circulation part is so that foods get brought up to the precise temperature more quickly. It's kind of the opposite of wind chill - when the water doesn't move, the cold food cools some of the water around itself, and then less heat goes from the water into the food. Keeping the water moving means there's always new water at the right temperature moving past the food.

Without circulation, it will still work, it will just take longer. I can only see that being an issue if you're cooking close to the temperature "danger zone" or cooking a large enough piece of something that it takes too long to heat up past the temperature "danger zone." I'm not an expert and don't take this as gospel but my understanding is that you want the temperature of the food to be above 135F within a couple of hours if you're going to cook it for more than a couple of hours.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:
Does your brewing machine have a mechanism to circulate or stir up the liquid inside?

Yes it does, that arm across the top with 90 bends has a piece of tubing just under the glass top that circulates the water. The pump is at the bottom of the GF unit.

Should work just fine... Not a brewer, but I know “a bit” about cooking liquids...

You're making me thirsty.

I have no input on Grainfather being a sous vide machine... just wanted to stare at beer.

In that case, I don't see any reason you couldn't use it as a giant sous vide machine.

All the modern, home-use sous vide machines are the "stick you put in a pot of water" type, but the original commercial restaurant sous vide machines were big, integrated units with a built-in water container (something like a big, deep chafing dish).



It sounds like your brewing machine is basically a tall, skinny commercial sous vide machine.

no reason why it wouldn't work

what's +/- variable it will hold temp to?

Seems like it would work. I recently tried a Chuck roast for 26hrs in SV machine (turns out like poor man's Prime Rib). Came out great, I will be making it again for sure, especially if I want to cook for a number of people cheaply. I've also considered making my own roast beef as well, but lack the slicer.

Since you have everything on hand minus a $15-$20 cut of meat. Give it a shot. The $12 Chuck roast I did was well worth the $12 risk. What do you got to lose. The important part is precise temp and keeping meat above 130°F the whole time.

Here's the roast I did.



Pics and write up afterwards please.

quote:

My question starts with the Sous Vide method of cooking. I don't have a SV but my understanding of its function is to cook meat at constant temperature for as long as wanted. Is that a correct statement, at least in the broad terms?

There are two main criteria for sous vide cooking: long time, and low temp (LTLT). The long time insures that the food is cooked evenly, and nothing is overcooked. The low temp avoids things like cell wall breakdown (leading to more succulence), and breakdown of proteins.

Updated see original post for images of the cook.

Wow! You guys are evil geniuses.

What cut of meat is that? Round?

ETA, Re-read, eye of round

DAMN that looks good. You should try making Pastrami with a brisket in it. Costco sells prime brisket by me cheap...….under $5 a pound for PRIME.

Excellent! I may have to try it myself one day. How are you preserving the meat to eat long term? There's just two of us and I know how we'd store that much meat.

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:
Wow! You guys are evil geniuses.

What cut of meat is that? Round?

ETA, Re-read, eye of round

Exactly, beef eye of round, on the small side, 2.5# but it worked perfect for the two of us

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Excellent! I may have to try it myself one day. How are you preserving the meat to eat long term? There's just two of us and I know how we'd store that much meat.

Two of us here also, this was only 2.5#, I expect we will freeze some of it, but using the meat slicer made it paper thin, great for sandwiches or a repeat meal. It was a beef eye of round from a local cattle rancher close to us.

That looks awesome. When you're looking, check out Anova sous vide. They're on sale for 99 bucks very often.

Exactly the site I was on, think I will hold out for a sale flyer!