Hi SV community, i recently experienced excessive cooking fluids in the SV bag after cooking.
One time with a 450gr Pork Loin (Cooked at 62C 3hrs) and another time with a 800gr Tbone steak (Cooked at 57C 2hrs). Both according to anova recipes.
The pork loin lost 15% in weight and had a full cup of cooking fluid in the bag after SV cooking.
The Tbone steak had about 3 cups or 24oz or 0.7 litres in the bag after SV Cooking, and was also still not cooked/very rare.
The SV Bag was not leaking. The meat was not frozen
The amount of fluid looked excessive, it was like broth. It looked like i was cooking in a soup rather than SV-ing a steak or loin.
Something is not correct here.
What could be the reason for the excessive fluid and how can we prevent this to normal small fluids.
Can anybody shine their light on this?
Robert, the loss of 15% is not particularly excessive at your cooking temperature, particularly if your purchased a “seasonned pork” product, aka pumped with brine which many packers are doing. I suspect you have not yet abandoned conventional cooking thinking.
That’s a somewhat thin T-bone steak at 800g. Are you certain you measured accurately? The steak’s loss of 700g is impossible as all you would have remaining was a 100g bone and totally dessicated tissue. It appears to this cook you had an undetected leak as meat juices are darker than broth.
One suggestion, to successfully convert to the SV cooking technique it is critical that you think in terms of thickness not weight.
Hi Chatnoir, for the Tbone 2 inch / 800gr i did see and measured a liquid loss of 24oz or 0.7litre. It was too much… like cooking soup.
Maybe as you say the stake was pumped or previously frozen?
Not possible Robert, it wasn’t the steak. There’s not that much liquid in meat. That volume of liquid had to come from an external source. Water is getting in there somehow.
If you are using freezer bags buy the best quality with the double zipper and never use plastic “storage bags”. I suggest you consider double-bagging for your next few cooks. If you are using a vacuum packaging machine always form a double seal at each end.
Before adding food to any bag fold the opening well back to form a cuff to keep the area where the seal will be perfectly clean and dry.