Hello,
I have a larger beef roast that I am planning to sous vide x 10-12 hours, Planned eating time is 6pm so I wish to have it ready for oven searing at, say 5pm.
How would you do this?
I don’t relish the idea of getting up at 5 or 6am in the morning to start cooking. Could this be started the night before and then quick chilled and reheated? Problem that this, from what I’ve read is that it will take almost as long to reheat it.
Your thoughts are appreciated. I am not new to sous vide. Thanks.
I do not have any experience with altering the cooking times like you are asking. I get up early anyway so it has not been a problem for me. Smoking meats in the warmer months I am faced with the early morning start quite often. A cup of coffee at sunrise is a good way to start. Most of my long cooks are 24-48 hours so I can easily adjust the start time.
I wonder if it might be possible to divide the roast into smaller sections that would reheat faster using the method you describe above. If it is quite thick you are right that it will take quite a while for the center to reach temperature.
Rx, it’s hard to understand why folks ask for thoughts on a proposed cook without disclosing pertinent details of the subject roast. Do you just want a guess? Since you are a seasoned SV cook you already know the importance of both thickness and cut of meat in determining cook times. You plan to cook for about 10 hours to 5 PM, but if starting to cook at 7 AM is unacceptable. how would an 8 AM start suit you? An hour less cooking time won’t likely make much difference to your meat, but might make your day more tolerable. You already decided a length of cook time which should be ample for most thawed quality roasts. That would even be far too much for a tenderloin or rib-eye roast, so you might even get to enjoy more sleep. It all depends on what you’ve got there. The alternative overnight cook doesn’t make much sense unless your meat is of a more solid persuasion that will hold up to a long holding time before oven searing.
This kind of response I don’t need. I’m done and out of this forum. I gave what I thought were all the details you needed. Apparently this didn’t work for you. If you’re not going to give a proper response, maybe you should not respond on all.
Rx, i regret we have diverse opinions on how to best assist you. Please consider the following details i have been using to competently SV cook over many decades. I usually record these details for every cook. They may assist you improve in the future.
Specific type or cut of meat.
Desired degree of doneness / cook temperature.
Product thickness.
Thawed or frozen?
Planned / actual cook time.
Finishing method.
Cook-serve / cook-chill / cook freeze?
Comments on outcome.
What cut is it? A roast of beef could be anything from tenderloin or rib-eye to a lump of sirloin, rump or anything. ‘Roast’ tells little more than that is a lump of meat.
You’re working on 10-12 hour cook… hmmm… that could be a standing rib roast. If so, it really doesn’t need much more than time to come up to temperature. If it is a bone in roast you could remove the bone to speed the cooking process.
Depending on the cut, an extra 8 hours cooking time won’t make a detrimental amount of difference to the outcome. You could potentially put it in to cook before retiring. But, as you don’t tell us the cut it is difficult to know.
Another option is dividing the roast as suggested earlier. This would abbreviate the cook some.
I’v noticed that people seem to plant the menu and then try to avoid the requirements for cooking it. A more sensible option would be to select the menu according to the cooking time you have available. Work your time backwards and then select a cut that will enjoy an 18 -24 hour bath time. This would allow you to relax and enjoy the cooking process.
You didn’t give any details though. All you have were times that you wanted to avoid. You give no details on the cut, the thickness, etc. You’re have a hissy fur that people aren’t giving you exactly what you’re looking for. How about you take a deep breath and give folks a bit of useful information.
Sorry you guys, but RXman had a valid question… I say this because I have the SAME question. I would like to try a rack of ribs. The ANOVA recipe via the app says (just assume the size of the rack requires it) 12 hours. How do you do it without having to get up at 3 am? You can’t… Seems to be the answer. At least until ANOVA adds scheduling to the app. Is this correct?
No one has said that his question was not valid, just that he didn’t give us enough information to be able to provide him with an answer.
When it comes to ribs… they’re the same thickness, essentially, and thickness is what matters when calculating the time required to bring your cook up to thermal equilibrium. From there cut comes into play.
12 hours or 15 hours or 18 hours will give you very little difference when talking ribs. Time, when cooking sous vide, is a flexible thing.
I feel the same misgivings about your answer as Rxman seems to have had with the others. If you simply assume a use case with a 12 hour cooking time. Without scheduling in the app, the ANOVA system cannot do it unless the user wakes up about 3:30AM. The app cannot currently do it, is the answer… not… “It depends”!
The app can be set without a recipe and the circulator can be set without the app.
As I said earlier, in the case of your 12 hour ribs, you do not have to get up at 3:30 to put them on. You can put them on at midnight and cook them 15.5 hours without any negative impact if that is more suitable for you. You can put them on at 22:00 and cook for 18 hours with little or no detrimental impact to your ribs.
If you are absolutely determined to have them at your cooking temperature for only 12 hours, put them in to cook before you go to bed and when the 12 hours is up use the remote control ability to turn the temperature down to about 135F and leave them sit until you are home and ready.
The problem is that you are thinking in terms of absolutes and traditional cooking methods rather than in terms of sous vide flexibility.
I think the bottom line in this scenario is that you can always just let the roast cook longer than the 12 hours originally planned.
Start your cook the night before rather than early in the morning. The longer cook will not negatively impact the end result. Who would complain that their roast is a bit more tender!
Seriously dude, at the moment the question is “How long is a piece of string?”
or
“What’s the difference between a duck?”
Can you answer them? Because at the moment that is the kind of question being asked.
The OP has an unknown lump of beef of indeterminate size and age that he was planning to cook for 10 hours but doesn’t want to get up at 5am to do so. The answers given have been suggestions to cook it for a longer or shorter time. That pretty much covers the complete gamut of possibilities. Without the complete information there can’t be a more accurate answer.