How can I sou vide a steak medium well or well and juiceness. I sou vide one for 1 hour at 139.5 and the result was a tough steake. Woul you help me.
Hey @Dami can you walk us more into the process? How was your sear? How long did you sear? Did you pat the meats prior to searing? What kind of steak/cut? How thick was the steak?
A medium well or well is always going to be a firmer, drier steak than a medium rare or rare, but sous vide will give you the best chance of the steak being the best it can be at any given done-ness.
As @AlyssaWOAH says, a little more information about how you went about preparing it can help us to work out where things went wrong.
It was a rib eye of one inch max. I sear it for 2 min /side.
Starting off with the steak cooked to medium, if you went straight from the sous vide bath to a 2 minute sear for each side I think it’s possible the temp of the steak was raised pretty high. The additional heat from the sear may have overcooked it.
Yup. The searing is most likely where the error lies. A 1 inch thick steak needs good searing technique.
Dry your meat well, making sure there is no free moisture on the surface. Moisture is the enemy of searing. Heat your pan to get it good and hot before going anywhere near oil. You don’t need much oil, your searing not frying. In fact, you’re probably better off putting a little oil on the meat than putting it in the pan. Lightly brush the meat with a high smoke point oil (avocado and rice bran are great, nut oils are really good). Salt the meat and put it into the hot pan. 30 seconds one side and flip. 30 seconds on the other side and you should really be right to go.
You’ll hear a lot of people talking about searing at ridiculous temperatures. Note, the Maillard reaction does not require these massive temperatures. You’re chasing a sear not a char.
Strongly agree. In my first attempts at searing steak in a cast iron pan I preheated the pan to “screaming hot” as advocated by others on the list. The result was a house full of smoke as the pan temperature was well above the smoke point of the oil in the pan. I also ended up with burnt material in the pan which contributed an unpleasant flavour.
Instead I would recommend heating the pan just to the point where your oil begins to smoke. With high smoke point oils like those suggested by Ember this temp will be higher and will produce a better sear. I’ve become a big fan of clarified butter for searing as it has a high smoke point around 450F (compared to around 350F for regular butter) and adds a nice buttery flavour to the meat. It’s easy to make from regular unsalted butter.
I’ve also found that a little pressure put on the meat as you wear helps. I have a cast iron lid that works very well for me when searing.
1 Like