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How to start a great discussion

borgech

Before asking my question, I want to first thank you for putting this together, I love the content so far.

I am getting ready to make a meal with a few components that need to be cooked at different temperatures, but only have 1 water bath. My thinking is that I should start with the component that needs the most heat, and work down from there. For example:

Cook eggs @ 64*C for 45 min.

Cook beef tenderloin @ 57*C for 45 min. (eggs are still in bath)

Cook salmon @ 40*C for 30 min. (eggs and tenderloin are still in bath)

Is this the correct way to approach this problem? Or will the components needing more heat break down once the bath temp is lowered?

Thanks,

Chris

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Comments

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Parker - the beer cooler that @Brendan suggests could be a real help to you. You probably already have one and if not, they're cheap. Also it will work for storage if your fridge is already pretty full. 50/50 ice and water will keep things about 0-1C.

ParkerCook_66639

@Brendan Thanks for specifying! I'm going to be getting my circulator soon and my wife definitely won't approve a second with our income!

Brendan_Lee_56950

I tend to go with 2-3C lower than the final temp of the lowest food in the cooler. So if it was just holding a bunch of steaks for service I would set the water temp to around 52-53C to keep it just below my med-rare steaks at 56C and obviously eggs will hold at this temp etc. One good way of judging this for yourself is to take the temp of a food right before you sit down to eat it so you know approx what temp you enjoy your food at.

ParkerCook_66639

What is a "common serving temperature?" What do you guys usually reheat/hold cooked product at? @Brendan what temperature was the water in your cooler?

Chris_Young_80640

Large eggs (USDA large) take about 30 to 35 minutes to reheat in our experience. The exact time will depend on the size of the egg, the starting temperature, and the final reheat temperature.

Chris

Chris_Young_80640

Trevorteich, this is a perfectly reasonable approach. As you say, it's critical that you reheat to the lowest common temperature. In practice, I like to have two (or in a pro-kitchen, maybe three) baths. Usually a low-temp reheat bath for seafood and rare meats, a medium-temp bath for other, tougher cuts of meat, and a veg and garnish reheat bath.

I usually set the baths 2F / 1C hotter than my desired reheat temperature. Why? Because that extra one degree Celsius will cut the reheat time by as much as 10%, with almost no perceptible change to the degree of doneness.

Cheers,

Chris

trev_teich

Something I did when I was cooking a 5 course dinner for four, was I cooked all my proteins, veg, what have you, beforehand to the core temp I wanted. Ice bathed them and kept them in the bag a stored it in the fridge. A little before service I had heated up my bath to a temp a few degrees lower that the temp of the protein I cooked at the lowest temp. So, if I cooked a pork tenderloin at 135F and a ribeye steak to 127F then I set the bath to 124F. Put my proteins in the bath to warm up. Then when it comes time sear them or finish however, I just pull them out and do so. Veg can just be in a hot pan with oil, butter salt. So you can just keep them in a 9 pan or something. What do you think of this approach Chef Chris?

Chris_Young_80640

BeeLee:

Yep, we often do that with sous vide eggs. Cook them all in advance and then just reheat to a common serving temperature. And coolers are underrated for sous vide, we use them all the time for cooking large, awkward items. We'll be putting a video up shortly showing how we use coolers for sous vide cooking.

Chris

Brendan_Lee_56950

I did a 5 course meal a month ago where I found that for the home cook without multiple baths, a large-ish cooler with service temp water in it will hold your stuff warm quite well and will really only vary in temp by a degree or so every 15-20 minutes (as long as your not opening it all the time).

Also, with something like eggs, you could do those the day before, hit them with an ice bath immediately and then you would only need to reheat them to serving temp. In my experience, the texture hasn't suffered too much with the cook-chill-reheat method specifically with 63F eggs.

borgech

Thanks so much! I will plan on using ice.

Chris_Young_80640

Chris:

Your plan will absolutely work; however, the eggs will gain slightly firmer texture over time even with this lower temperature. I would not expect a noticeable change in the texture of the beef tenderloin. I strongly suggest that you add ice to the water bath each time you need to lower the temperature. A relatively small amount of melting ice will rapidly drop the temperature compared to just adding cooler water.

Best of luck,

Chris

borgech

The idea was to keep the eggs and tenderloin warm for service, not to cook them further. I'm less worried about the tenderloin, because I will sear it before eating, but wanted to keep the eggs warmer than room temp.

michaelnatkin

Let me ask a clarifying question: are you wanting to leave the eggs and tenderloin in the bath simply to keep them warm for service or because you are hoping they will cook further even though at a lower temperature?

I'm sure Chris Y. and Grant will weigh in with the straight dope, but it seems to me that it won't be much good at keeping them warm for service because 40 C isn't hot enough to serve the eggs or beef anyhow. And I don't think you will get any valuable additional cooking at the lower temperature.

My thought would be to cook each one separately, in the order you mentioned, and then retherm the eggs and beef for service.