Cooking steak well done andmedium rare

My husband like his steak well done and I like mine on the rare side. How is this done with one Anova?

It’d be much better in the long run to just get a new husband. :wink:

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Answer: Get a new husband. (Just kidding) I’m new to this too but I believe you would throw his in first at 150 for an hour if its a 1-1 1/2" steak. then I’d add ice to bring temp down to 130. Then cook yours for an hour with his still in the bath and eat. Good-Luck! It’s really hard to screw it up IMHO.

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I tire somewhat of that sort of joke. Personal preference is just that, personal. There is no shame in someone having a preference that is different to yours. Let us have no ‘myoglobin shaming’ here.

@Louise_Giguere, there is no reason at all why you can’t achieve your desire of medium rare for you and well done for your husband with one Anova. All it takes is a bit of planning.

There are a couple of ways it can be achieved:

Option 1: Cook your husband’s steak for an hour at the higher temperature. You’ll then need to cool off the water bath with some ice to bring the temperature rapidly down to what is required for your own steak. When the temperature is low enough, drop your steak into the bath and cook for your desired time which is most commonly 2 hours. When you are ready to finish the steaks dry well and sear and serve.

Option 2: Cook both steaks to the medium rare for the full duration. When time comes for finishing dry both steaks and work on his steak first. It will require a bit more cooking during the searing process to bring it up to his desired done-ness. Yours can be seared and served as normal.

Here is a very interesting post from one of our members who has A LOT of professional kitchen experience. While, in this post, he is talking about finishing a roast to various degrees of done-ness a lot of the information will apply to you during your sous vide cooking journey.

Good luck.

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Thank you for these info. Really interesting. I will report back after some experiences.

@Ember and @chatnoir please correct me if I’m in error here. Based on all the posts I’ve been reading on this site I’d defer to advice from either of you in a heartbeat!

It seems to me that you could cook both steaks to medium-rare, then take your steak out of the bath and raise the bath temperature up to well done temp (around 148 F ?), leaving your husbands steak in for an additional 15 minutes or so…whatever it takes to bring it up to well done throughout. Both steaks could then be seared and served as usual.

By using the sous vide to create the desired “doneness” for each steak you wouldn’t need to manually “adjust” your husbands doneness to well done in the pan - which would give the steak a perhaps overly “well done” doneness, shading to the desired well done in the center like standard cooking always does. That “done all the way through just the way you want it” is what I love about sous vide.

This way the steaks are both just what you want, just in a shorter overall time span than Option 1 outlined by Ember.

(Had to correct this post as I first was thinking your husband wanted “medium” - my bad for typing this while holding on a conversation! :slight_smile: )

Jeez I’m too distracted to be posting! lol You said “on the rare side” - I just always think “medium rare” for steak as that’s what I love! :slight_smile:

Cook both to rare - take yours out and up bath temp to well done and leave your husbands steak in until “well done” - then finish both and eat! I’ll shut up now! :slight_smile:

This way around gets a technical ‘yes’ from me, but a practical ‘no’ although @chatnoir with his years of restaurant service may disagree.

I’m really not sure how long the well done steak will take for the extra degrees of done-ness to reach the centre. I have a gut feeling that it is more than the 15 minutes, but will probably less than the 1 hour. The extra few degrees has to take the same journey from the edge of the steak to the centre.

While the well done steak is having its time in the jacuzzi the lesser done one is cooling. It will require bringing back up to temperature. While this could be achieved during the sear it’s a bit hit and miss for my liking. Why should our Original Poster’s beautifully cooked steak suffer any maltreatment because of her Other Half’s preferences. It would probably be better to crash chill the rarer steak so that it is working from a known starting point. Again, Frank will have more experience on this side of things than I do.

Anyway, that is my reasoning behind not offering this option as a number 3, although it possibly seems more logical.

And I tire of people who are so humorless and uptight that they feel the need to climb their soapbox and condescendingly finger-wag at others for not being similarly uptight and humorless. “Shaming”? Are you for real? Jokes about these sorts of thing are good-natured ribbing that most people easily recognize as such. Much like beans vs no beans in chili. “Shaming” has nothing to do with it.

Get over yourslf.

When you have heard the same joke at least 3 times a day for 18 months straight, @DParker, you may well feel the same way.

In fact, upon 1 post by someone requesting assistance with a problem variations of the same ever-so-clever joke were made no less than 37 times in a 24 hour period. Weigh that against the 8 people that were actually offering assistance to the individual in need of help.

So hilariously funny and soooooooooo fiendishly original. Tee bloody hee. My side positively ache with laughter.

Perhaps someday you’ll figure out that you not enjoying something yourself for whatever reason doesn’t require that you condescendingly lecture others on what you think they should be doing/saying/enjoying…not to mention doing so on the basis of inane mischaracterizations (“shaming!”).

It’s not all about you and your delicate sensibilities. You might note that OP (who the comment was for, as opposed to you) as well as a few others got the spirit of the joke.

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I don’t understand the humour about something as serious as the epidemic of failed relationships that are increasingly destabilizing families and our society.

It’s sad and potentially hurtful to others, definitely not funny to me.

Let’s stick with the steaks folks.

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Oh, good lord. Some of you are wound way too tightly and are far too emotionally fragile for this world. I guess a comedy bit about the Black Plague would have you curled up in the corner weeping like a baby.

Hey folks, let’s remember we have guidelines in here. Violating guidelines may result to action. Debates are fine and healthy, personal attacks are not. We’ve done a great job respecting each other, let’s continue to do that.

-Alyssa

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It wasn’t the black plague humor that curled me up in the fetal position, DParker. It was the feline abuse that was going on in the background. It is NEVER OK to swing a cat by its tail.

Just kidding. I laughed at your first joke about getting a new spouse too.

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BTW @Louise_Giguere I will pull the steak that my wife wants well done out early and cooking for an additional 10 minutes or so is the way to go.

Ember: Just because you are tired of the joke does not mean I am. I am a new user, and this is the 1st post I have read. With your baby attitude about a harmless joke is very disturbing and a big turn of this board. If you don’t like the joke, then find a new board or just go grow a pair(if you have them). I think there are safe rooms where you can now go, that will help you with your issues.
Beyond the above issue, I thank all others for the great information. Just made the purchase and I am planning to use this weekend.:slight_smile: