Hi,
Im planning to cook two parts of striploin in my Anova about medium rare.
The parts are about 1 kg (2,2 pounds) and 800 g ((1,7 punds each). Do you guys have any recommendations on time and temperature?
I’ve been looking around and found recommendations about 55-58 celsius (131F - 136,4F) in for about 3-4 hrs, but I am a bit uncertain about the time
Thanks in advance!
You’d do better with a bit lower… Around 54.4C. As far as time goes, how thick is it? With sous vide the thickness of the item rather than the weight. Rule of thumb for how long it will take to achieve temperature equilibrium with the water bath is 1 hour per inch of thickness of the thickest part.
Atop the time to reach equilibrium you will probably want to add a little bit of time for tenderisation (the conversion of collagen into gelatin). As a relatively low use muscle group you won’t need to add a lot of extra time. Probably up to 6 hours.
With sous vide things happen quite slowly. So, there’ll not be a great deal of difference between cooking it for 4 hours and 6 hours.
Hi Lukas,
The first question you’re going to get is “What is the thickest part of the meat that you are cooking?”. Using thickness along with the desired “doneness” the minimum length of time it will need to be cooked can be determined. Additional time you let it cook will be how you get it to the desired texture (tenderness).
Weight of what you are cooking is unimportant with Sous Vide cooking. What you are concerned with is how long will it take to heat what you are cooking all the way through until it is the same temperature as the water bath. Once it reaches that temperature it will be cooked. After that it just depends on how tender you want it - the longer you leave it in the more tender it will get.
Here’s a link to a page showing the different temperatures for “doneness” along with some pictures to give you an idea of what you’ll get!
Good luck, and feel free to post more questions if anything is unclear. There are people far more knowledgeable than me on these forums that would be happy to help.
Lucas, you’ll achieve excellent results following Ember’s and Mirozen’s advice. Also, on December 27th Ember gave Brooksey a more detailed response on your subject that i think you will also find useful.
You ought to vacuum-package, or use the water displacement method, to eliminate most air from two cooking packages. These are relatively small pieces of meat so they will cook simultaneously very nicely. The 50% weight difference doesn’t matter as they are likely about the same thickness.
Equilibrium is SV code-speak for achieving the even end-point cooking temperature throughout the meat.
Be sure to follow the finishing steps described in The Food Lab’s item. It’s an essential step in SV cookery to achieve rich steak and roast meat flavours. You will find it useful to bookmark that item for future reference.
If you’re not new to all of this, please excuse my invalid assumption.
Thank you so much for the advice. I am very grateful!
I will measure the thickness as soon as possible, and maybe I will get back to you then
Im not totally new to SV, I’ve been using it for some time now, but I was in a bit of a hurry when I wrote the post. However, this amount of food is a bit new to me as well as the strip loin, hence the uncertainty regarding time.
Slow down to go fast, Lucas.
You have a lot of money invested so review these responses and your meat will be just fine.
Hi again!
Just posting some additional info if you want to add something else to your recommendations. Thanks again.
The two parts are about 1.8-2 inches. Posting a few pictures for reference. I think the beef parts are called strip loin, but the English words for the different cuts are a bit confusing to me.
What do you think about 54-55 degrees for 2-3 hours? It’s quite thin, so maybe 2 hours would be enough. I checked amazingfoodmadeeasy.com’s charts for sous vide cooking time by thickness. Unfortunately
I can’t cook very rare to rare due to a lot of guests preferring medium.
Thank you Ember. About 1.8-2 inches, so quite thin. I guess 6 hours would be too much then. Maybe three is more reasonable?
Yeah, I reckon 3 to 4 hours will be fine.
Looks like you might have 2 pieces of Top Sirloin to me from the picture. It’s hard to say as the exposure is off and it’s hard to see any interior detail of the meat.
Look at your pictures again.
When taking pictures of dark subjects you will find that you get the best results when you eliminate white or light coloured items from the background and use more light from behind you than overhead. Many automatic cameras average the exposure setting for the entire scene and not the subject. My preferred food base is slate or old teak, - dark and without glare.
If it is Top sirloin, i’d go longer, 51C @ 6 to 24 hours. 24 hours will be ideal medium rare if it is what i think it is and you dare.
Yes, sorry for the pictures chatnoir, I did not have the meat at my place at the time, and my mom is not the best photographer. Im quite sure that it is not top sirloin, since that is called “Rostbiff” in Swedish, while the packages says “Ryggbiff”, which would be. Sirloin or Strip Loin. Its part of the “Short Loin”, and the part would then be called strip loin in Englis to my best guess.
Here is a better picture of the part that I know that I have since it is the same name in Swedish. However, I unfortunately have a part without the fat.
Perfect result and all guests were very happy! Thank you Ember, Mirozen and Chatnoir and happy new year!
We love a happy ending.
Lucas, congratulations on your success.
The added details are always helpful. Thank you.
You can’t do any better than perfect.
In North America we do not get strip loin without its fat cap.
