I would like and try to sous vide a bone-in pork butt in my APO.
All the recipes are calling for a 1 - 2 day sous vide bath.
How would I do that in the APO?
Should I still put the roast into a bag an vacuum seal it?
Should I use the food probe?
Any general advise on, how to sous vide meat longer than just a few hours, would be appreciated.
Hi TD, your questions indicate you are lacking experience and understanding in the use of your oven. Have you been cooking some less challenging items in your oven to gain experience and understanding, but just not sufficiently often enough yet?
Competent cooking requires either the use of accurate recipes from a trusted source, or your awareness of important details that will enable you to correctly cook your food. Some missing details in your questions include your desired degree of doneness, cooking temperature, and meat size.
There’s no “sous vide bath” technique in your oven although using the APO’s sous vide mode is considered an approximation to it. Steam assisted cooking in your oven improves heat transfer to food. However it’s not as effective as hot water being in contact with the food as in real SV. That’s the reason those water bath recipes don’t apply to oven cooked food. They are two different techniques. You wouldn’t use a recipe for deep fat frying a chicken cutlet if your were going to bake it in your oven, - would you?
Have you read the APO manual? Somewhere in the Anova APO literature it states that when using the APO sous vide mode a sealed bag is unnecessary.
The meat you are cooking is not bobbing around in a vessel of hot circulating water. Therefore the sous vide recipes you may discover and use do not directly apply to your oven’s use. Water and wet air are two different cooking environments.
Most of the APO sous vide cooking mode will require a higher oven temperature than your target internal temperature to improve heat transfer. That’s why you should always use the food probe. The benefit is that it monitors the meat’s internal temperature and prevents over cooking, a favourable benefit of your oven.
Generally, you SV cook meat longer than just a few hours to make it safe and enjoyable to eat. SV cooking implies significantly lower temperatures and longer cooking times than conventional cooking techniques.
Hello,
Thank you for your response. I’ve been cooking different things in my APO: Bread, rolls, Sous Vide etc.
However, I wanted to try for the first time, to sous vide a tougher kind of meat, which takes 1 - 2 days.
Yes, I am aware that you won’t drop the meat in a water bath inside the APO.
My question was just a general one to get a better understanding on how to use the sous vide mode properly for longer times than just a few hours, especially since the APO recipes seem to indicate, you should first braise the meat and then bag it, before putting it into the APO.
I thought, that’s what this forum was for. I didn’t realize, only accomplished chefs are welcomed.
If I were going to cook a pork butt in the oven I think I would start off trying a recipe from one of the many low and slow BBQ sites. You won’t get the smoky flavor but the meat will be pull apart tender and tasty if you season it well to form a bark. Another benefit here is that you will not need to wait so long for it to be done.
Hey TD, pardon me, i misunderstood the term sous vide bath recipes. In order to better support you i was attempting to understand the details of the methods and outcomes of the recipes being followed. The more details you reveal, the more helpful this Community can be for you.
In my culinary world sous vide is precise water bath cooking. Anova has developed your oven that uses the term sous vide for cooking with precise temperature monitoring in a steam assisted cooking mode. They are different techniques requiring different recipes.
First, It’s always worthwhile to follow a recipe as written all the way.
Why not? You will have the experience of properly using your APO as recommended. If the result isn’t wonderful, please share the cooking details on this forum and we will work with you to make improvements. That’s what this forum is for.
And what about that probe? If the recipe requires it, use it. The information it provides may be useful.
When following the APO recipe you might consider cooking for 24 hours and then test for doneness using the bone test or the fork test. For pulled pork doneness grab the exposed bone and twist. If it comes out, the meat is done. If it resists, cook about 2 hours more and test again.
Alternatively, take a carving fork, or a large fork with sharp tines, insert the fork deeply into the meat and twist. The meat’s resistance will help you judge its doneness. It takes practice to develop familiarity with the fork test.
For SV pulled pork i find an internal temperature of 165F over 24 hours is sufficient. For sliced pork i SV cook at 145F for 18 to 24 hours. The Anova recipes are likely different. You should follow them.
To finish, if you want the meat to have the appearance of BBQ Pork as John suggests apply an appropriate BBQ spice mixture and roast at 300F, no steam, for up to 90 minutes for a rich dark brown bark surface.
Back on February 15 we had a discussion on braising a piece of brisket in the APO comparing it to one water bath SV cooked. You might find some some useful information there on longer cooking times in the APO.
Personally, I would use a water bath for something that has to cook one or two days. I think that you will find that even in the APO steam setting the item will lose moisture and somewhat dry out. Good luck. Cheers, Peter
It is common practice to bag, seal, and run with 100% humidity at no more than the long term temperature capacity of the bag (say max of 90’C to be safe) in commercial Combi Ovens.
The same would apply for the APO. The caveat would be that the oven must have no risk of exceeding the bag temperature tolerance - if one is confident with their APO - go for it.
One bag of 2 Chicken breasts rolled together with aromatics in a water bath at 61’c takes essentially the same same time as a couple of shelves of the same in a Combi oven at 61’ with full moisture.
In both cases the use of a fine needle probe (inserted through a piece of closed cell foam tape) is the only way to accurately know the temperature - or one could guess based on previous experience, reading authoritative literature and then adding a bit as a safety margin.
Sous vide in an oven is not about low temperature dry air cooking, nor is it about water condensing and continuously washing over the product for the duration of cooking time.
One of the features of bagged sous vide is the retention of flavour. For example - sous vide good quality potatoes - peeled with minimal further washing - cut into 1.5 cm cubes, seasoned with a bit of salt, fresh thyme leaves and about a tbsp of butter per 500gms - bagged/sealed in a single layer then in the water bath for about 2 to 2.5 hours at 85’c - finally riced through a press and whisked with a bit of whole milk - is a flavour revelation.
There may be different opinions about this, but are there times where it would make sense to use a silicone bag that isn’t perfectly sealed, so that the probe can be used, but minimizing the amount of direct steam or vapor contact?
Other than the convenience of not using a bag, are there other advantages to not using a bag when cooking with steam or vapor?
Thanks.
When your food is in a bag it is experiencing the same level of humidity as in the oven if its set at 100%. If you want less steam/vapor contact simply set the oven to a lower relative humidity! But yes, you can use a bag if you would like, but using a bag will result in 100% RH