Polyscience Sous Vide iPhone App

robert.c.brown15

Hello All,

What is the general consensus on the Polyscience app? I recently got it and have been playing around with it. The cooking times don't seem to correspond to Modernist Cuisine charts or any other cooking times. The Polyscience times all seem to run long. And yes, I made sure I have it set at "time to temperature" and not any of the pastuerization settings.

Appreciate the opinions!

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Comments

Brendan_Lee_56950

I've found it helpful for odd shaped items or really big items. You gotta make sure you try your best to punch in the size and shape of the item to be cooked too.

Chris_Young_80640

I've always found the times to be inaccurate.

Josh_Mervis_68279

I have played with it, tried it, and find it useless and confusing. They need a do-over.

robert.c.brown15

Yeah it might turn into an expensive Celsius to Fahrenheit converter as I want to keep my Thermapen in Fahrenheit so want to try to use my sous vide in Fahrenheit, but a lot of recipes are in Celsius. But yeah, it doesn't seem that amazing.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

The very first iteration which I think is called Sous-Vide, it is just a listing of temps, meats and medium/rare/preferred

by Mr Baldwin is way better. It is like a nice excel sheet (Which I already have) with all his testing.

It basically doesn't care about form/shape, more about protein/veg and possibly size and bone/in/out.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

On that note, I suggest you keep a notebook or a database with temp/cut/where you got it/fat cap/content/smell/time.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Hey mr. programmer, write an app for that on your next lunch bread would ya.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

I probably should

Johan_Edstrom_5586

This is the app I ment.

http://www.cookingsousvide.com/sous-vide-iphone-app.html

Handy reference chart type app, gives ballparkish indications and comments.

robert.c.brown15

@Johan, thanks for the app! I got it. I like it in its simplicity and definitely works better I think for sous vide as it allows me to make notes, etc.

But, how does the size and shape of meat (or at least size) not make a huge difference? I like to buy 2 inch thick dry aged porterhouses. It says 2 to 3 hours. The porterhouses I buy are massive though. Same thing goes for small meats. I understand that nothing is perfect, but wouldn't being able to adjust thickness, etc. be very helpful too?

I understand the maximum and the minimum and as long as it is in between it is "done" but that range would change with the size of meat right?

Should I also get the sous vide thickness ruler app?

Johan_Edstrom_5586

I've actually been just butchering down larger cuts to "suits our dinner" size for a long time.

That way I can stock the freezer and I kinda know that if I turn on the circulator at 2 pm and

drop things in around 2:30-3, I'm fine, can stretch it until 4 if I want, then eat at 6-7.

I have the polyscience app too, I usually correlate them - haven't used the ruler app.

robert.c.brown15

I got rid of the Polyscience app. I appreciated how thorough it was, but the cooking times were just so long.

com-chefsteps

I dig the Polyscience app (or in my case, the original "Sous Vide Dash" which the author sold to PolyScience). I credit it with teaching me the massive difference between cooking a 134° steak in a 134°F bath (takes forever) and a 134°+1°=135°F bath (much much quicker).

robert.c.brown15

So that 134F bath gets you to 133 quickly. So basically every recipe that says to cook something SV at a certain degree (lets say 57C), it is really giving me a quick 56C temperature. I cooked a steak at 57C/134.6 today for 2 hours, but checked it at the 1 hour mark and it was basically at 134.6 (I think 133F). I also realized that I didn't need to leave it in for a full 2 hours as it was that close to the target temperature. That's close enough for me to pull it and eat it. I never understood that +1 degree thing. How do I know when a recipe is giving me the +1 temperature or not. But again, why does it matter so much?

Johan_Edstrom_5586

It depends on protein, size, your preference, if you are preventing botulism, cooking to core and or pasteurizing. Something you'd eat tartare - who cares? Where it starts mattering is if you chill and re-heat,

Cook proteins that you cannot eat raw or if you really want to long cook and break things down,

Like shortribs or brisket perhaps.

If you cook and finish, that'll also play in.

Many times are give to both accommodate laws and regulations

as well as guaranteeing a predictable result.