Wondering what everyone’s thoughts are with this. I don’t have a vacuum sealer at home, but found the immersion method works just fine (so far) for me.
I’ve also heard that if you’re cooking with marinade, it’s better to use the immersion method, since it’s easy for the marinade to pour out. Although, I know there’s some advice on this in an old thread.
I think the only time the immersion method has been a pain in the boot, is when I am cooking vegetables. I’d imagine a vacuum sealer can get the air out better.
Which method do you find more helpful, and for which sorts of food.
Other than doing small cooks, when I use the reusable silicon bags, I vacuum seal. It’s mainly because I can. I’ve had the sealer for ages so I use it.
But some vegetables are still a pain. Doesn’t matter what you do they’re going to float. Even if you vacuum pack them with a house brick they’re still going to hang out at the top of the bath.
I vacuum seal most things. I also have a silicone bags that I use when cooking smaller things for one.
Alyssa - When you want to use marinade and vacuum seal just put it in a zip lock bag and lay it flat in the freezer. right before sealing pull it out and put it in with the other food and seal the entire thing.
I do a lot of long cooks and I do not trust resealable bags even the freezer ones.
For short cooks of one to two hours for one or two servings, it’s a grab out of the zipper freezer bag box with immersion. For long cooks and larger quantities, vacuum sealed bags only.
Lately I’ve been doing more vacuum sealed bags as I’m following the recommendations in a recent blog post and other community posts of buying in quantity, vacuum sealing and freezing most of the food for later.
With marinades that’s poured out before cooking, when using vacuum sealed bags, just add a little extra length when creating the bag from a roll. Cut the bag right at the seam, pour out, reseal with the extra length.
I vacuum seal. I feel that even the inexpensive vacuum bags when heat sealed are superior to ziplocs. I’m not against ziplocs, I just think the vacuum bag is better. The cost of entry for a basic machine and bags from amazon isn’t even that much anymore.
Marinades aren’t a problem, just put the meat and marinade in the bag and then put the whole thing in the freezer for a bit, enough to partially freeze the marinade.
Do you have any methods that for sure weighs down vegetables? Sometimes I use a butterknife at the bottom of the bag. But some veggies can just be finicky. Especially airy + light veggies, like greens. @Ember
If you used a vacuum sealer, you could drop the weight all the way to the bottom of the bag and vacuum seal right above it, creating a separate chamber. Drop your vegetables in above that and seal again normally. Since there is no contact between the food and the weight, you could use whatever you wanted to as a weight.
Not found anything that I really like yet. Not keen on the spoon or knife in the bag, for no real reason other than I just don’t like adding ‘foreign matter’ to the cooking bag. Silly, I know. I’m looking for a reasonably priced rack that I can use in my small tank.
No. Just looking for something affordable that I can get locally (well, domestically because I’ll never get anything like that in town) because O/S shipping would make anything really expensive.
Use anything Sterling Silver or better (i.e. Sterling 92.5% or better… to 0.9999 pure silver ‘rounds’ ‘bars’ ‘coins’ etc. Silver is an anti-microbial / anti-bacterial. Google ‘silver antimicrobial’ ‘silver medical’ ‘silver anti-bacterial’ etc. I keep a 1 oz silver coin in my water jug… keeps the water free of bugs for days…
Is the vacuum just to allow proper immersion? Or is there some other factor involved? I often get air in my bags, but they are immersed easily with a pan holding them down…
@cnoden it’s about removal of air more than it is about vacuum. If you can squeeze all the air out with the immersion method, it’s about equally effective. The removal of air is to promote better and more even heat transfer. Large air pockets can leave you with unevenly cooked foods. Vacuum sealers are just often easier to work with than immersion methods.
Although trying to impress me with your internet Latin skills is a major fail Bucky. Seriously, any 11 year old can do that. I don’t care how many times you PM me with offers of “pics”, I’m totally not going to give you that secret family McRib clone recipe. I’m taking the secret sauce to my grave.
