Not impressed with first attempt at SV cooking: Cooked 1" thick top sirloin @ 129 for 90 min. then seared briefly on gas grill. Seasoned in bag with mixture of salt, pepper and garlic powder, bay leaf and olive oil; finished on grill with truffle oil. Result: internal color (doneness) was right on, but not particularly tender and not very flavorful. I think I could have done better grilling it.
Suggestions?
That’s a cut that isn’t gonna be too tender, regardless of preparation. You can try a longer cook, I’ve gone up to 12 hours with sirloin and it’s nice. Sous vide simply cooks to temp, the rest it up to you!
Low temp and slow cook, plus the leaner the cut the more fat you will need to add to the cooking bag (olive oil, beef fat, duck fat, bacon drippings, etc). You mentioned olive oil, so let’s say you have that one covered (bacon sirloin though… yum).
I would say just experiment more with the length of the cook. A longer cook time will give you better results and something like 2 days on a sirloin roast will yield amazing results.
Be aware that as you go longer on the cook time you will need to increase your temp above 130F (lets say 131.5F+ to be safe) to kill off any bacteria. Check to make sure your PC is calibrated correctly (make sure the temp it shows is close to the actual temp of the water) and that your cooking bag is fully immersed with water able to circulate around all parts. When you cut the bag open it should smell delicious- anything else and you don’t want to serve it.
And don’t worry- once you have confidence in your setup and methods then you will see consistently great results.