Sous Vide - Chill - THEN Smoke

I read a blog posting from SousVideSupreme that describes a method of mixing sous vide and hot smoking. In the article it says "quick chill in the pouch, and store in the refrigerator for a couple of days, if needed. Then when ready to finish, remove the food from its pouch, pat the exterior good and dry, and then expose it to the hot smoke for about 10 to 20 minutes before moving on to finishing with a sear with a torch or under the broiler or on the hot part of the grill." (the author earlier says you can hot smoke in the range of 225F to 250F, which is of course correct).

A few obv problems with this part of the article, for example the author does not discuss types of protein or the size/weight when he advises 10-20 mins. For example I would assume a 14 lb turkey cooked sous vide (butchered into it's key parts) will need much more than 20 mins of hot smoke. But the thing that confused me the most was that the article seems to imply that the food to be smoked comes straight from the refrigerator, which means he is expecting the smoker to reheat the food item in less than 20 mins.

Pretty doubtful in my eyes...

http://blog.sousvidesupreme.com/2014/08/smoking-and-sous-vide-the-great-debate/

But that leads me to the real reason I was reading this article in the first place. I intend to cook turkey legs sous vide a few days before thanksgiving, chill them, and then reheat/smoke just before it is time to serve them on thanksgiving. The sous vide cook & chill part I got down pat, but I admit I am not sure of the ideal smoking and reheating strategy.

Any advise to make sure I don't screw up this most sacred of all holidays?

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tshewman

For what it's worth, I'm doing something similar but with goose (shout out to Jack Mayer which spurred me to pick up the phone instead of email). I plan on confit via sous vide, then smoke immediately (while still warm) using maple for one and cherry for the other (2 different uses). So when looking at others do, HB appears to have done this for his Goose (xmas dinner episode) which made me wonder why then and not while cold. So.......I looked at some papers and it appears that the instant chill we do after cooking would appear to have an affect on tenderness (required shear force increases with quick chilling-called the Warner-Bratzler Shear Force) which would suggest a stiffening component. While warm this presumably would suggest they are still tender and more likely to absorb (mentally I think of a sponge - grossly over simplified) or potentially absorb the smoked flavors. I plan to then store until making the stuffing and soups :-)

ttpoker

Typically when I cook sous vide & smoke I prefer to cook and then immediately transfer the protein to the smoker while it is still hot. Thanksgiving is of course a special situation due to the volume I will be cooking for my family and friends, therefore I opted to cook in advance so I can focus on the other priorities such as the crown, pies, and countless sides. My original plan before reading that article was to reheat the turkey legs in the morning, much as I would reheat any protein that I used the cook-chill reheat sous vide method, and THEN smoke. Seems like this would be the proper strategy after all, based on your feedback above .

Where is this HB article? I have his three best known books, I'll go hunting to review. I don't recall reading much about smoking in his books before, I hope I get to learn something new. Smoking is so simple, yet such a complex process to master at the exact same time.

PS: I use an electric smoker with a PID controller if that makes any difference. I will be placing ice cubes in the smoker to maintain humidity of around 40%.

lfmichaud

Personally I would smoke it first and do teh confit after. The downside would be that you can't really reuse the fat after that... And finish it with the torch. I agree 100% with you that smoking fridge temperature turkey for 10 to 20 minutes will get you cold smoked turkey. So the easiest way for me would be smoke in advance, plan your confit to be ready when you need it, finish with the torch and serve.

tshewman

For your recipe/application, the reheat then smoke (while warm) would likely be the best approach (IMHO). My application is different in that the maple smoked leg meat will be going into the stuffing and the cherry smoked into the soup. Hence I think Heston's powdered goose would be very appropriate (I will use different spices though) Heston does a nice veloute and I simply plan on using a portion of that combined with a potato truffle cream (similar to the hot potato cold potato black truffle base). I couldn't find heston's recipes in my books either, but the video is rather telling (including the veloute) and found here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikwB9Cam9CI I don't plan on adding ice as my smoke time will be very short 30 minutes or so) and I test drove it with Chicken recently and worked nicely. Hope the video helps. Cooking is such a deep rabbit hole for us. :-)

ttpoker

I'm doing a mix of confit, smoked & torched with a searzall, and deep fried - but all three will be cooked sous vide first. I don't have the extra bath I would need to cook sous vide same day, hence smoking has to be final step.

PS: I have 2 lbs of duck fat, and I am NOT afraid to use it!

ttpoker

Update:

I decided to reheat the turkey legs and then place them in the smoker. I planned on a 3 hour smoke at 175 F, I use a PID controller so I placed one probe in the meat just under the skin (the wet bulb temp) and the other monitored the air temperature (the dry bulb temp). A third probe was placed deep inside the turkey to monitor the core temp of the leg. I placed a tray of ice in the smoker to help keep the environment nice and moist as the heat increased.

When I first turned on the smoker the core temp of the leg was a solid 153F, within the first hour it dropped to 125 F so I chose to take the bold move of increasing the temp of the smoker in the heat of the moment. I bumped it up to around 190 F - but 30 mins in the core temp was still only 134, so I pushed the temp up to 220 F and kept it there until the core reached 150F, at which point I pulled the legs out to be served.

Net result: The flavor imparted by the smoking process was wonderful, I used Hickory which would haave not been as ideal as apple wood; but it still tasted fantastic. The look was spot on, I was very happy with the visual aesthetic of the bird. The texture was a miss however, the smoking process (and higher temperature I assume) made the meat a little dry compared to the confit legs which were cooked separately or the roasted breast. In hindsight I probably should have brined the smoked legs, I didn't think of this because the confit legs did not need a brining.

Looking forward to more experiments next year!

Jack_Mayer_85396

Thanks Todd!

Brandon_Byrd_40557

I'm a fan of cold smoking prior to a sous vide cook step. This lets the smoke flavor develop throughout the cooking time. I'm also a big fan of hot smoking (at relatively low temps... less than 225) before serving to refresh the smoke flavor and develop the texture on the outside of the protein. This year I did the ChefSteps Thanksgiving protocol with a crown roast of the white meat and a deep fried roulade of the dark meat. While I liked the roulade, I think that next year I'll just do a "cold smoke->SV->hot smoke reheat" on the legs and thighs and shred them. It should be easier and also add an extra flavor. Plus, it'll make for better sandwiches than the roulade.

JasonWirth_68226

Not much to add but I misread the title as "sous vide chili - then smoke" and it got the ol' hamster wheel in my head turning about how to make smoked sous vide chili.

ttpoker

It's been done ;-)

ericthomas810

I've done this a few times, with both a spice rubbed tri tip and pork shoulder (no salt in the rub).

I find that smoking first produces the best results. I tend to keep the grill hovering above 150, tolerating fluctuations up to 225 (only higher if I've totally screwed up the charcoal). Then vacuum bag, rapid chill, refrigerate, then 24-48 hours in the water bath at low temp (56-65 C).

The results have been spectacular.

JosephParker_965018

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