Pork Shoulder Steaks

I would like to make pork shoulder steaks using the sous vide method of par cooking. I would also like to sous vide individual portions to have on hand whenever I am ready to sear off and enjoy. I have a couple of questions regarding this...

Firstly, should I SV at a different time and temp than let's say a loin steak? I understand there is collagen and much fat in the shoulder. I assume I should cook my shoulder steaks longer. I tried 140F for 1.5hrs and it came out horribly.

Secondly, did it come out horribly because of my reheating method? I would like to reheat the steak purely on my stove/oven (not using a circulator--so straight from the fridge into the pan). The steak was 1in. thick and I threw it straight a hot pan and into a 450F oven for 2min., flipped, and back in for another 2.

Edit: Forgot to mention that these are in "steak" form before SV. So preportioned shoulder steaks 1in thick. Then SV. Then cooled. Then seared and brought back to temp in the pan. Is this a poor method?

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Cheryl_71360

I've done them and they are insane good. I followed CS recipe: http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/tough-cuts-transformed

If you scroll down in to the comments I posted my info and a couple of pics.

Jay_152918

Thanks so much for your reply, Cheryl! That post and your pics both look great. However, it was my fault that I didn't mention I wanted to treat these just like beef steaks in that they are pre portion before sealing and SV.

Diablote_389234

Cooling your sous vided steaks and then searing later is absolutely fine—you can even buy pre-sous vided meats for food service this way. Just note that shoulder steaks are extremely full of collagen, so they need a very long time to break down. Reco the following workflow:

Start the meat in a bath at 70˚F and ramp up to 130˚ over 2-3 hours. This will maximize calpain and cathepsin tenderization at 77˚ and 122˚, respectively.
Hold at 130˚ for 12 hours. This will maximize collagen degradation by collagenase action without denaturing actin.
Drain the gelatin, pat dry, and rebag (preferably in a clean bag). This will prevent gelatin gumminess during storage.
Shock back to below 40˚ in an ice bath.

You can then treat them like any other steak in the fridge. Given the collagen and fat content in shoulder steaks, they'll be moist up to 150˚; you'll need to cook them at least to 140˚ to melt their copious fat content.