Newbie alert!!! Need some help on the amount of time it should be cooked? Is there a good lbs/time guideline?
1 Like
With sous vide you need to change the way you think. The weight of a roast doesn’t matter with regard to how long it takes. It is the thickness and cut that will impact how long you need the meat to be in the water bath.
We are all used to quoting weights (or volumes) because this is an accurate way of detailing a recipe. However, when it comes to actually cooking anything the physical dimension of an item has always had much more impact than how much damage it would do if you drop it. The heat from the external application has to travel to the interior.
This is more obvious in sous vide, because of the efficiency of water as a heat transfer medium. The warmth from your water bath has to travel to the centre of your piece of meat to achieve temperature equilibrium. A good rule of thumb when working how long this will take to achieve is approximately 1 hour per inch of thickness. So… If your roast is 6 inches at its thickest point, then it will take approximately 6 hours to reach temperature equilibrium.
You also have to decide what texture you desire from your finished piece of meat. Would you like the chewy mouthfeel of a steak or would you like the fall apart tenderness of a BBQ brisket? (I’m guessing on the BBQ’d brisket here because I’ve not had it) Or perhaps you want something somewhere in between. This textural change is the result of collagen breakdown/conversion. This process takes time (more time at lower temperatures).
With a naturally tender piece of meat, like a tenderloin, temperature equilibrium may be all that is required for you to achieve your desired texture.
Strip comes from a muscle group that has had slightly more work, but is still quite naturally tender. Without knowing what your desired finish is I’ll stick to generalisations. For a Strip Roast you may want to add up to 6 hours extra time to the equilibrium time for collagen breakdown.
So, with out example 6" thick strip at 54C/130F you could cook it for anything between 6 and 12 hours.
3 Likes
Ember, you are the supreme Princess of Patience, well said.
1 Like
Thank you so much!