I tried doing beef cheeks at 57C for something like 24 hours. They came out tough and uneatable. Anyone have any idea why? Maybe meat that has been frozen and thawed is not ok for sous vide cooking?
You might have taken them out 2 days early based on Embers posts above…
Yeah. Way too soon. While your cheeks were cooked, there hadn’t been enough time for all that connective tissue to break down into luscious gelatin.
I cook cheeks from frozen about half the time. Other times they’re fresh from the butcher. There’s really no difference between the two. In fact, technically, freezing actually breaks some of the cell walls, so frozen meat will actually be more tender.
Hi, I cooked beef cheeks at 55 C, for 72 hours.
Meat was fresh from trusted butcher.
At the end of cooking the water and bags smelled strange.
When I cut the bag the smell was horrible. Couldn’t figure out if the meat was completely off or the smell of the fat on the cheeks which is not usually very pleasant intensified.
Had to throw it all out. Any ideas what might have gone wrong?
It’s a little difficult to be exact about what the issue was, because people describe smells differently. Life will be simpler when we can digitise and upload smell files. There are a few possibilities.
My best guess is that it’s as simple, and safe, as the breakdown of myoglobin contained in the meat. This often gives an odd, unpleasant aroma and a greenish grey coating on the surface. The green wipes away when you dry the meat and the smell vanishes completely when the meat is seared.
It may have been spoilage of the meat due to autolysis (enzymes in the meat breaking it down) or the reaction of bacteria on the meat surface.
On a long cook, I’ve taken to pre-searing if I can (and the meat is not frozen). This helps make sure there is no external bacteria that can cause problems in the cook. I still sear after the meat is cooked. Others have suggested blanching the meat with a quick dip in boiling water before it goes into the slow, warm bath for cooking.
You can increase the temperature to 58-60C/136-140F which is what I used for my very first cheek cook. It still gives the appearance of medium rare but will give you a slightly faster collagen conversion rate and a slightly bigger margin of error.
I know how disappointing it is losing a long cook like that. I recently lost a boned lamb shoulder that I had been looking forward to eating for a couple of days.
Ember - Would you mind sharing how you “lost” that boned lamb shoulder? I’m curious (and would like to avoid whatever issue you ran into for any future cooks of my own!)
It just suffered spoilage during its cook time. Same time and temp that I’ve used before, but admittedly, it was a shoulder I bought on ‘cheep chuckout,’ so of unknown freshness. In 24 hours I had a floatie. When I opened my frankencooler to check on progress, I was assailed by an ‘off’ smell and a ballooned bag floating atop the water. Opening the bag told me the lamb was definitely ‘not right.’ A definite case of loss by autolysis or by taint.
Note: This is not to be confused with the slightly cheesy smell caused by myoglobin breakdown. This green/grey funk and smell will wipe away and be totally gone when seared.
Thanks Ember! I’ve been doing some reading and found a discussion regarding just what you describe. They mentioned “lactobacillus type bacteria” that they “are more tolerant to higher temperatures and they convert sugars into lactic acid”, resulting in “a rancid smelling batch”.
I’m wondering if doing a short session over smoke on the Kamado grill, or maybe even a light sear on the meat prior to bagging it for the sous vide might lesson the chances by killing those bacteria,
goodness, I have always been cooking it closer to 70C, but will try this temp next time! thanks for sharing!
Thanks for this post. I am putting these on this afternoon! I’ll do a quick dip in boiling-ish water in the bag before I get cracking.
Personally, the blanching in boiling water makes no sense.
People suggest thus as a method of stopping loss due to lactobascillus bloom which is given as the reason for loss of some long cooks. However… Lactobacillus strains are rendered inactive at temperatures above 120°F and will be dead long before they can cause a bloom that will damage the meat.
The greyish green that is sometimes in evidence on the surface of a long cook is caused by myoglobin, not by bacteria. Wipe the meat dry before bagging for cooking and you are less likely to witness this phenomenon.
Bacterial bloom is also given as the cause of loss of meat during a long cook. The meat when released from the bag has an ‘off’ smell. Once again, the cause of this is not bacterial. The bacteria is rendered inactive long before it can create enough of a bloom to ‘turn’ the meat. What is actually happening is loss of product due to autolysis. This is the same natural process we make use of when aging meat. Enzymes contained within the meat commence the breaking down the meat. This process starts when the animal is dead. It is slowed by refrigeration, but not halted. At ambient temperatures, even in a 100% sterile environment, meat will ‘go off.’ At the temperatures used for sous vide cooking the process is sped up. Cooking low temps and long times is a balancing act to get the temperature low enough to produce desired results while cooking fast enough to beat the natural process of autolysis.
Autolysis is also the reason why pasteurised food will not last indefinitely under refrigeration. Pasteurisation and refrigeration have rendered bacteria within the product dead or inactive but the product can still go off over time. Autolysis is the reason why.
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I’d read your earlier posts with interest. It seems to be a common problem but without a lot of definitive answers (or perhaps a lot of fallacious ones). I read plenty of opinions that they haven’t had the problem since they started blanching so I figured it couldn’t hurt.
I’m not really looking forward to explaining the green/grey to my wife if it occurs. I’m a bit worried I might not know the difference between the “off” smell and the normal, not awesome, smell. I’d hate to err on the side of caution and end up ditching a perfectly good bit of meat.
What, in your opinion, is the mechanism, myoglobin binding with…? I haven’t experienced it yet but doesn’t it have the cheesy smell of lactobacillus? I’m interested to find out what I end up with! 
I can point you toward someone who had the grey/green on a 36 hr Chuck roast after blanching in the AnovaFoodnerd Facebook group.
The myoglobin isn’t bonding with anything. It is simply breaking down… denaturing, if you will. Consider the colour of the outside of meat cooked sous vide. That is caused by myoglobin which is contained within the cellular matrix of the meat. The grey/green is from juice that wept from the meat, so it is sitting free upon the meat surface and frequently thickened due to coagulation or evaporation.
It can have a slight smell, if you are very sensitive. But if you wipe it off and sear the meat there is no longer a smell. Nor is the flavour of the meat tainted in any way.
Everyone wants to jump up and down and blame lactobascillus for many things witnessed in sous vide. But lactobascillus, whilst plentiful, are really quite fragile bacteria. They do not bloom fast enough to cause the issues for which they are blamed. Consider, it takes around 6-8 hours to produce yoghurt at the optimum temperatures for growth of the culture. It takes only 8 degrees F higher for the bacteria to be rendered inactive. Another 5 degrees higher and it dies.
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Fresh meat from reputable butcher. Temperature set to 54C. Allowed to cook for 72 hours.
I noticed some green tinge showing up on the top of the liquid coming out as the meat cooked, but crossed my fingers and hoped it was just Ember’s explanation. When I opened up the vacuum pouches though there was a palpable cheesy smell. I patted the meat dry, and with fingers now double crossed reduced the meat with some celery and carrots.
No luck whatsoever. The smell from the reducing liquid was gag inducing, and I rushed the entire collection to an outside bin. Then I checked the now dry meat out…and it was also undeniably tainted, to the extent I’m now sitting in a house with every window open hoping the smell will pass soon. Persisting though, I thought I’d at least try the meat for tenderness. Reader, tender it was not. A sharp knife was required, and even then it was definitely firm to cut.
So all in, I’m going to have to say I’m not convinced by this one.
You lost your beef cheeks to autolysis.
Low slow cooking like this is a balance between processes. The natural process of autolysis starts as soon as the animal dies. Enzymes within the muscle cells start breaking it down. We make use of this process when ageing meat. At around 43C the process ramps up and it becomes a race between getting it cooked and the breakdown.
In your instance it sounds like autolysis won.
I’ve done this cook many times now with great success. But, you could try higher temperature for shorter time if you prefer.
Well, I have to say I had the same experience as Ember. It was my first really long cook and though I was apprehensive, for the reasons explained above, I needn’t have been. I cooked mine at 56°C (maybe I’ll try 54 next time) and it couldn’t have turned out any better! I’d upload a photo but it looks just like Ember’s only not as well photographed, so I won’t.
Just an aside, I did get more grey/green stuff on the pork shoulder I did for 36 hours but, again, nothing I’d consider offensive and, as suggested, it just wiped off and no trace after chucking it in the BBQ to finish. If that’s the worse it gets, I’m good with it. 
If you dry the meat well before you pack it for the bath, the grey green funk is less likely to occur as it’s caused by the ‘free’ myoglobin in the juice sitting on the surface.
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I just tried beef cheeks for the first time ever. Rather than going low temperature, I followed other sous vide recipes I found on the web. I did 8 hours at 80 ºC (176 ºF). The beef cheeks came out with a melt-in-the-mouth texture, absolutely amazing.
I seared them before sous vide, and made a red wine glaze with some shallots, carrot, celery, garlic, beef stock, red wine, and madeira. Seasoned with salt and pepper to taste and cooked the beef cheeks with the glaze added to the bag.
Made for a truly superb meal!
It really doesn’t matter how you cook them, they’re delicious.
Now someone needs to try beef cheeks stuffed with beef tongue.
I’ll take my bad pun and any responses off the air now.
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