Temperature and times

I got my Precision cooker last week and have been using it almost every night.  Steak, Salmon, Chicken, Poached eggs, Pork so far.  When I look at recipes on various sites, including here, the recommended temperatures and times vary quite a bit.  They also vary from recommended temperatures for non-sous vide preparations.  I even noticed an error in the Anova temperature chart with the quick soft egg being 1 hour.  I’m pretty sure its 13 minutes at that temp for a good poached egg.  Anyhow, I’ll use Salmon as an example. The recommended temp is 122 for 45 min.  I cooked my salmon at 133 for about an hour.  When I removed the salmon, I tested with a well calibrated Thermapen.  The temp was around 129.  It seemed somewhere just under medium rare.  Firstly I’m not sure why the temp did not match the water after cooking for an hour. Second, how could 122 for 45 mins produce better results?  I did test the water with the Themapen and the water is approximately 0.5 F cooler than the set temp.  No big deal there.  Anybody?

I would think that the temperature of the salmon after an hour would be pretty close to the temp of the water. I’m assuming the water was at 133 before you put the salmon in right? Was the salmon frozen before you started cooking? Was the salmon unusually thick?


I think the key to cooking things via sous vide is to figure out how you like it cooked. Some people like it rare so 122 for 45 minutes might be their ideal method. For you though it sounds like you wanted it more medium so I’m seeing that 133 is the temp to go for. 

I’m going to start keeping a log of what temps/times I like things cooked to the best. There are just too many places online that don’t always agree with each other on times/temps.