Hello…first time poster here. Has anyone done a smoked ham shank or butt in the Precision Oven?
I’ve done many in water sous vide, but am hoping someone has some ideas as to what might work best in the APO.
Ken
Hey Ken!
Complete noob myself – about a six weeks in. There was a thread on which someone asked about doing a spiral ham and I offered a guess as an answer. The original poster (a.k.a., OP) was kind enough to follow my suggestion and then get back to me to tell me how wrong I had been. Maybe that thread will help with your ham shank. And maybe your sous-vide-proper experience will help us, too. The thread is here: APO: Heating Spiral Ham
Good luck!
Joe
Thank you Joe! I’m going to give it a go tomorrow. I realize that air is a less efficient conductor of heat than water, so I’m sure it will take longer to reach proper temp than using a water bath. Using water, I just left it in the cyrovac bag and tossed it. With the oven, I want to do a more traditional cook using seasonings and cloves.
Ken
In theory, steam is a less efficient conductor of heat; in practice, it seems to be as much as twice as fast on 100% steam vs. a regular oven (if you’re using non-sous-vide temps), and may also be almost as quick as regular sous vide, depending on your vacuum sealing skills when using water. It’s a surprisingly efficient way to cook, especially if your a non-sous vide guy like me and are just looking for new ways to do things. My advice is to make liberal use of the probe, especially early on.
Top secret hint: Leftovers taste like first cooks if you do them right. Beef at 5 degrees over your target temp for 20 minutes at 100% steam followed by 5 minutes on the broil at 0% will feel and taste like a fresh cook.
…oh – and if the ham works out, I’ll expect a slice in the mail.
(Do let us know what you did and how it worked out).
OK…did the cook yesterday. It was a “semi-success.” Placed a 9 pound ham in with the probe and temp set to 140 and 50% steam. After 2 hours, the probe was registering well below 100 degrees. I bumped the temp to 160 and after another hour, it was just a bit over 100. One last bump to 175 helped, but I ended up removing the ham, slicing it and finishing it in the microwave as it was getting way past our lunch time.
I think next time, I’ll start off with a higher temp. BTW, the higher temps did help render the fat on the outside of the ham.
Hi Ken, in my experience Joe’s earlier recommendation of 275F is about the optimum for the even reheating of large cold items like that ham.
As you discovered 140F just doesn’t have enough energy to diffuse throughout the product in an acceptable length of time. That would be under a day.
I missed seeing that temp suggestion. Oh well…a rookie mistake.
Now, on to other experimentation!