I have a 2 1/2 lb sirloin tip roast. I want to cook it a tad over medium rare and have no idea of the time to keep it in the water bath. It’s a small one. Thanks very much!
Sammy, welcome to your Anova Community. SV cooking is unlike any other cooking technique you’ve previously used. Lower cooking temperatures along with longer times are the most significant differences your are going to encounter, but there are others. Please excuse my overly long response to your very short question, but there’s a lot to tell you about SV cooking even with that small roast.
Another challenging difference you will encounter is using a product’s thickness to establish the minimum heating time required in the water bath. In SV cooking once you’ve paid for the meat it’s weight doesn’t matter any more, but that’s only for tender cuts of meat and poultry. So let’s move along.
The generally accepted internal cooked temperature for Medium-Rare meat is 130F / 55C. I’ll leave the adjustment of a tad up to you. FYI, Medium doneness is 140F / 60C. Your choice of temperature will be the temperature setting on your Anova. What you set is what you will get in the meat. Eventually.
For any cooking time in excess of 4 hours i use a minimum temperature of 132F / 55.5C for food safety reasons.
Your sirloin tip roast is cut from the top of the rear leg, a very well exercised muscle that is going to need a lot of cooking to become enjoyably tender. I use somewhere between 10 and 24 hours as a basic cooking time for tough meat. The longer time would be appropriate for the usual grocery store USDA Coice or Select beef. If you’ve gone upscale trust your best judgement as to how much shorter the time you use based on breed of cattle, grade, and aging.
One last item, do yourself a big favour and starting with this roast record the details of all your SV cooking.
Here’s what i use:
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.
If you are seriously interested in precision SV cooking the best guide i know of is the following site:
Do well.
As I recall, the last time I did a sirloin tip roast I cooked it for about 19 hours at 134 or 135F. It was excellent. More tender than a typical oven-roasted sirloin tip but with a little more chew than, say, a prime rib roast. I agree with le chat that keeping a sous vide journal is a big help. After your first attempt don’t be afraid to make adjustments to suit your personal taste.
Just a quick little addition to the responses already given. Time is quite a flexible and indefinite thing in sous vide processing. Most foods, with the notable exception of fish and seafood, are not time critical. So, @stevej’s recommendation of 19 hours can be adjusted if necessary to make it more convenient for you. The collagen to gelatin conversion which turns meat into tender nomminess happens very slowly at these low temperatures. There would be little noticeable difference if the roast was cooked for 18 hours or 20 hrs.
The other thing is that the longer you leave your roast in the bath the more tender it will get as there will be more of the meat’s collagen that will be converted to gelatin.
Indeed. I didn’t intend to imply that 19 hours was exactly what was needed. That was just the amount of time between putting it in the bath before bed and taking it out before dinnertime the next day. 
Of course. Just explaining the time flexibility of sous vide to the OP.
I think I have a roast similar to yours. My supermarket labeled it “Sirloin Rump Tips”. 2.25 lbs prime grade. Beautiful marbling. I plan to cook it for 10 hours at 131F, then sear it on the grill. It has been salted and air drying in the fridge for 1 ½ days. Here is a “before” photo:
Will report back later with the after results.
Here is the “after” photo.
Cooked at 132F for 10 hours and then a quick sear on the Weber kettle.
Excellent flavor and texture.
My mouth is watering just looking at it.
That looks phenomenal!
Also brand new at this. Have a very small, 1.7 pound sirloin tip roast, grass fed, high quality. Would I still want to go with 132F for 10 hours even though my cut is so small? Thanks!
Welcome Rocky, that’s a hard-working muscle you’re cooking, one that helps keep cattle from falling down. 10 hours can be considered a safe minimum time. Twice as long would not be too much.
After becoming more familiar with SV cooking you will understand weight only advises you of the potential number of portions you have. Cook times are based on thickness.
The information at the following site will provide you with all the knowledge you need to be successful with the SV technique.
Thank you for the information and the helpful link. I so appreciate your assistance!