Sous Vide Creme Brulee

Mason_Perry_34060

Made another batch of Creme Brulee again today, again very very good but it still seems a TINY bit grainy when it first hits my mouth (the custard part) I followed a Douglas Baldwin recipe that I halved as I don't need a gallon of creme brulee.

I used:
240g of heavy cream
130g of sugar
6 egg yolks
8ml vanilla extract
5g kosher salt

I mixed everything well, vaccum sealed and then placed it in 182F for approx 30 min.

My guess is 2 things, I can reduce temp by a degree or two or pull earlier at like 20 minutes.

The problem is that it doesn't seem to set up as hard as other creme brulee I have had, my custard seems runnier than it should be, it also has a grainy mouth feel and I think that it is caused by bits of eggs that have basically scrambled, I tried to agitate the bag every 10 min or so but I am afraid that where the bag floats on top of the water bath with a thin thin layer of custard the eggs are cooking faster than the big blob of custard at the bottom of the bath.

Any help would be greatly appreciated I would love to make this an easy go to recipe for dessert as i can make it well in advance.

ejf12009

Okay, full disclaimers: I'm not a professional and I've not done sous vide creme brulee before. That said, a few things strike me as odd about the Douglas Baldwin recipe:



1) Cooking to 182f is pretty hot. I thought I recalled that yolks set around 170. You can have a look at Dave Arnold's egg chart:

http://www.cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/eggchart2.jpg

Notice that 182f is hotter than the highest temperature there



2) In traditional creme brulee, you cook twice: once on the stove, and once with the custard in the ramekins. I suspect cooking the custard in the serving vessel allows a more thorough cooking so the custard can set fully. In this one-stage sous vide method, the custard must be fully liquid after cooking so that it can be poured into the ramekins.



So I suspect that the recipe above may have too much liquid relative to egg but be cooked at a too-high temperature.

Edit: I just checked joepastry, and his formula actually has way less egg than what you posted above. So I'm at a loss.



If you're determined to stick to a one-stage sous vide method, the only thing I can suggest is that you could strain the custard after it comes out of the bath.