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Whole Chicken

trev_teich

Is there a way to sous vide a whole chicken then deep fry or blast it in the oven?

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BlvCook_25591

I had been wondering what would happen if you butterflied/spatchcocked a whole chicken and sealed flat.

seijoed

I've done that to cornish hen, really tasty.

seijoed

The browning part is the hardest if skin is left on.

Brendan_Lee_56950

not if you deep fry it!

seijoed

I can't fit a chicken in my fryer

But I do have one of those burn down the house duck fryers.

Brendan_Lee_56950

all you need is a big pot and a lot of patience.

seijoed

Yeah, I know

I like my fryer because I don't need a lot of patience.

Mason_Perry_34060

Anyone tried to torch the sous vide skin to crisp it?

seijoed

Yeah, it curls up and you easily scorch it, especially around the legs.

Chris_Young_80640

@Trevor I like to cook a chicken sous vide at 62 °C / 144 °F for about 4 hours, then remove it and finish it in a wicked hot oven. But, if I'm honest, I prefer to a chicken that we:

(1) Hang by it's legs, upside down in the refrigerator for 3 days to start dehydrating the skin

(2) Hand upside down by its legs in a combi-oven at 65 °C / 149 °F at a %RH of 80% for about 4 hours

(3) Remove the bird and crank our combi-oven to 300 °C / 572 °F, turn the %RH to 0%, and then return the bird for 5 minutes of convection roasting.

The skin is like glass, the meat rocks. Sadly, not everyone has a Rational Combi-Oven (but, and this is really obnoxious of me, we do!)

trev_teich

I don't even have one at work.Darn you!

seijoed

Hahaha, I was dumb enough to look up the pricing on those, yes, Darn you.

Chris_Young_80640

We're not big fans of retail pricing, so we bought ours very used and then did a DIY repair—it helps to be friendly with a diverse group of engineers—and got ours up and running for a few thousand dollars. It's not so much the price of these beasts though, their install requirements are mind-blowing: 70 amp 3-phase power, water line, drain line, extraction hood are all needed. But it's a hell of an oven.

seijoed

Damn, 70 amp. I was already thinking that I want a commercial range and would be forced to do the extraction hood due to regulation - that is for when we move.

What about the CVAP ovens? Are they similar? I've seen that decently priced on ebay.

Chris_Young_80640

CVAP ovens won't do what a combi-oven does. On the otherhand, CVAP ovens are far more accurate in the temperature range 40–65 °C / 104–149 °F than a combi-oven. In tests I ran, even a freshly calibrated, top-of-the-line electric Rational would have temperature swings of more than 10% in this range.

I personally like CVAP ovens, but they don't replace a combi-oven.

eliaspontikos

Hi Chris,

What is the importance of the "%RH of 80%" in the 2nd step? Why would this not work in a convection oven at 65ºC at whatever %RH that is in the oven? Could you improvise by placing a large bowl of hot water in the oven at the same time you are cooking the chicken...obviously the %RH level would not be exactly 80%.

Chris_Young_80640

@Elias: This probably requires an entire course in itself, but you must realize that when cooking food there are at least two temperatures. The so-called dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures. Dry-bulb is the temperature you set your oven to, and it is the temperature a thermometer will register. Wet-bulb is the temperature of something that is wet. It will be lower than the dry-bulb temperature because of evaporation. Just like sweating cools you down, food sweats as it cooks and that cools it below the dry-bulb temperature.

In a sous vide bag, these two temperatures are the same because the bag acts as a waterproof skin that halts evaporation, and thus evaporative cooling.

I want our chicken to reach a core temperature of 60 °C / 140 °F, and I know that if I set the dry--bulb temperature at 65 °C / 150 °F and the %RH (relative humidity) to 80%, the wet-bulb temperature will be 60 °C / 140 °F.

An astute person would ask, why not just set the humidity to 100% so that the dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperature are the same. True, but now the skin won't start to dehydrate and I won't get perfectly crispy skin.

So what can you do in a home oven? Insert a thermocouple just beneath the surface of the chicken. Set the oven five to ten degrees hotter than you want the core temperature, and then adjust it up or down after about 30 minutes so that the temperature of the chicken is at your desired core temperature. The core of your chicken cannot, of course, get any hotter than the surface of the chicken. The oven will, however, be slightly hotter and this will help dry the skin.

I did exactly this for my Thanksgiving turkey in my smoker. It worked perfectly and is much easier to do in practice than it is to explain in writing.

This, by the way, is a preview of some of what we'll cover in module 4.

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Chris wow, sounds like module 4 is gonna be every bit as great as everything that has published so far! I'm really, really pleased to have found this site!

Mason_Perry_34060

Hmmm DIY combi-oven? I have 100Amp 3 phase for my TiG welder.....

jonny.d.hunter

a couple of questions about the birds. Can i split the chickens before i cook them? I wanna serve half a bird. Second, can i let the birds cool completely and then pick it up in an oven? Would a fryer work?

Chris_Young_80640

@jdhunter0324 — The two-step approach—a low-temperature cooks step and then a high-temperature sear step—would work perfect for split chickens. But don't expect the same result as we get with a whole chicken. Any nicks, punctures or tears in the skin get pulled open during cooking; so if you split the chickens, the skin will shrink up in an ugly way.

And, yes, you can use a deep fryer on the pick up for the high-temperature sear step.