Joule chicken breast’s dry and stringy

bodell1989

My wife and I have had our Joule for about a year, and we just can’t seem to master chicken with it. We go off of the “Our Favorite” temperature in the Joule App (149F), but it tends to turn out dry.

Most recently we purchase 30 lbs of the biggest Chicken breast’s I’ve ever seen from Zaycon Foods. We bagged, vacuum-sealed, and froze them and have been cooking from frozen.

I’ve considered that we may be over cooking them (149F for 4.5-5.0 hours). I was unsure of how long they needed to cook since they’re probably 2-2.5 inches thick, and the thickest option in the Joule App is 1.5 inches for 3 hours from frozen.

This is how we’ve been cooking our chicken lately, but we’ve had similar results cooking chicken of a different brand that wasn’t vacuum-sealed.

Also, could vacuum sealing it affect it in that way?

Thanks!

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Comments

pd3ski_278514

Edge sealer or cvac? Cvac can toughen meat. You might try defrosting beforehand then wet brine for at least 45min before doing your cook. I’ve been cooking at 151 lately and like the results. Then give them a high temp sear post cook.

ipreferale

We used to vac seal but now just use zip's, not a fan of the compression. We typically cook below 140F for 3h with a tad bit of oil, no salt or seasoning, no brining, Chill in an ice bath, we then slice for sandwiches or dice for salads.

tshewman

You can vacuum seal no problem, but no need to pull full vacuum. Personally I prefer to brine and my temp will depend on the amount of time I have and size of breast. For less than an hour, I tend to prefer 60-62C. For a morning to evening cook, 55C. Same with Turkey. See recent/next post as an example.

bodell1989

We use a Chamber Vac. We vacuum seal for freezing, but liked the idea of just being able to cook from frozen if we could get it to work out right.

bodell1989

Any recommendations for determining the safe time needed for fresh/frozen at different thicknesses? Like I said, our chicken breasts are probably 0.5-1.0 thicker than the thickest preset option in the Joule app. I may have been cooking quite a bit longer than need-be to ensure it was cooked thoroughly.

pd3ski_278514

Sorry bit of a quick comment above. I never cook from a frozen state but many people do with good results. Before I got the cvac I would always freeze the meat in the freezer before the vac process to avoid juices getting in the way of the seal if I was buying something that was bulk packaged. I didn’t know at the time but this helps mitigate the compression issues. I learned this because using the cvac I could seal without freezing and noticed the toughening of product. So now I just put whatever in the pouch and freeze before it gets vac'd or dial the vac time way down. Then I pull what I need and defrost in fridge or a bowl of water (pour this water into cambro for cook so as not to waste down drain). I like to brine them cause I think it helps with flavor and moistness. I use the same bag, open ended, with a tiny bit of oil and the herbs etc from the brine (everything patted dry before bagging) to cook. If the breasts were already individually packaged like those chicken breast bandoliers at Costco I just throw into freezer as is and use a ziplock freezer bag like @RED.

tshewman

Doug Baldwin covers the majority of these here - http://douglasbaldwin.com/Baldwin-IJGFS-Preprint.pdf Don't recall if he covers frozen, but the difference is not that great.

Steve_Dunham_145440

I usually run my chicken breasts at 60-62 C for a couple of hours. I typically pre-season with salt/pepper and throw a sprig of rosemary and/or thyme in the bag. I've been pretty pleased with the results. (For legs, to be honest, I'm happy with pan-roasting - sear, basting with butter, then chuck in an oven for a while.)