Water bath odor during long sous vide cooks?

Hey everyone!

I bought an Anova last year and I've noticed that whenever I do long cooks (baby back ribs and short ribs for 48–72 hours), the water bath starts to smell pretty funky after about a day. This occurs both when using a covered stainless steel pot or polycarbonate tub. I'm pretty sure I haven't had any bad failures since the water is still crystal clear and the contents of the bags smell completely fine and taste phenomenal. At first I thought that there was something on the surface of my bags that caused some sort of microbial growth during the cook so I tried rinsing off the bags before dunking them in, but that funky water bath smell still formed.

Does anyone have any ideas what's going on and/or how to prevent this? I'm not sure if this is like a normal thing or not as I couldn't really find much with some quick Googling. I guess it's not really too big of a deal, but I'd rather not generate some major funk with my meats. Thanks a ton!

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Comments

robert.c.brown15

What kind of bags? I'm pretty sure there are microscopic holes in plastic that allow a gradual release of the air inside the bag to come out into the water and therefore the smell gets in the air. This happens to me during long cooks too. I use Ziplock bags and after 72 hours the bags are even a little oily on the outside (I put oil in the bag with the meat to get a better "vacuum" seal) and the kitchen definitely smells like cooked short ribs. No ill effects yet though, 3 for 3.

julian.lo

Huh, that oily bag thing is interesting. I haven't run into that though. I'm currently using Foodsavers. The smell in my water bath isn't of cooked short ribs like what you're running into though. It's definitely more of a rotten smell. I want to be more specific, but I haven't done a long cook in a while. This was just on my mind because I was planning on doing some short ribs for dinner this week.

tshewman

It may happen with log cooks (wait til you do pastrami :-)...). Plastic is porous.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Pre-sear / blanch and get a good method of sealing down.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

If you have a bad smell you are better off starting over.

Brendan_Lee_56950

How about your water source? Do you live in an area with particularly hard and sulfurous water? I know when I'm at my parents' place in AZ, left unfiltered, the water smells pretty awful from the source.

robert.c.brown15

Seconded. I've had smell and oil in the water, but never a bad smell, just a beefy smell. Therefore I went ahead with it. Bad smell though and I wouldn't even attempt it. Not worth it.

julian.lo

That might be it! We do have pretty hard water here in San Diego and I do get sulfury notes from the tap water every now and then. I think I'll pick up some distilled water on my way home tomorrow and use it for the upcoming cook to see if it really is the water source.

julian.lo

The first time this happened I almost did start over, but then I decided to cut open the bag to see what was going on inside. Everything smelled and tasted fine in there so I went ahead and ate it (and didn't get sick!). Whatever was causing the smell seemed to be localized in the water bath itself.

julian.lo

I've avoided presearing before long cooks because I remember reading in Modernist Cuisine at Home that it results in off flavors being formed during the cooking process. I haven't been blanching my meat either (mostly due to laziness) so if using distilled water for my water bath doesn't work out, I'll take a stab at blanching.

Brendan_Lee_56950

It's actually more like the opposite. You should pre-sear/blanch before long cooks (except for lamb) to play it safe with regards to bacterial growth and also to give time for those maillard flavors to continue to develop.

Nicky_J_17040

Try double bagging on longer cooks? This has helped me in the past.

robert.c.brown15

Like Brendan said, don't do it for lamb, but everything else is ok. From what I remember, you were right, it does say not to pre-sear for long cooks as it could result in off flavors, but further trial and error has shown that it only really screws up lamb, but beef is ok. I have had no ill-effects with pre-searing beef.

julian.lo

So I just finished a 48 hour cook using some distilled water and there was no funky odor by the end of it! There was just a faint beefy smell like what Robert Brown was saying. I guess it must just be my tap water that was causing the weird smell in my water bath. FYI, I single bagged the short ribs this time in a Foodsaver without any sort of preblanch/sear just like I had been doing before, the only difference was using distilled instead of tap water.

julian.lo

Hmm, I guess this falls under the category of topics that have conflicting pieces of information floating around. I'll definitely try some presearing on my next pass!

Jack_419085

I use a vp112 chamber sealer and I always use the vacmaster bags. Which Ara bpa free and f9r high heat. They seal perfectly. I notice when I cold smoke things first you can smell the smoke in the water and outside of it. I just did a 12 lb brisket and could smell it perfectly and in the water. I also double bag anything I sous vide for more than a few hours and still the smell comes through. I usually double bag with a foodsaver for big items and it smells through that too. Not a bad smell just smells like smokey food. Very weird huh?

Swamibob_744073

I had this happen to me in the past when doing long cooks with no ill effects. I never had any color in the water only the odor of garlic and/or beef when I would sous vide bottom round roast for 48 hrs at 137F. Yesterday I decided to try pulled pork and this calls for a temp of 165F. I smoked it for 2 hrs then vacuum sealed it up. I always do multiple seals on each end on long cooks so I sealed each end 3 times. About 5 hrs I noticed the water started looking a little bit brownish and then after 8 it had a little bit of a smokey odor and was definitely getting darker. I thought I must have a leak in the bag so i pulled it out and carefully examined the bag. It was still under a good vacuum and the water inside of it was dark brown so I think I should have been able to see the leak when I flipped it all around looking for any dark liquid dripping out on the white counter. No leak was discovered. I wonder if under high temperatures it is possible for the hot liquid to permeate out of the plastic bag but not able to go the other way, and this is increased even more at higher temps like 165F. I looked for a leak for at least 5 mins thinking there had to be one, but it had a couple of cups of liquid in the bag so that was plenty to leak out when I flipped it all over to every direction and forced the liquid around squeezing the bag. I could not get any to force out of even a pin hole if there was one and like I said it still had good vacuum. It was a 5 lb pork shoulder so i'm not surprised at that amount and do not believe it came from the water bath. I will try double bagging next time but has anyone else experienced this? I think the smoke made the water color more than normal and I think the higher temperature made it do this phenomenon even worse.

julian.lo

I remember reading somewhere that some of the compounds that arise from smoking can actually pass through plastic bags... I think it might be on the pastrami recipe on ChefSteps? Regardless, I think that you're good to go with the smoked pulled pork! Also, kind of random but it's amazing that you found this post from 3 years ago.