nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Whole Hog Sous Vide

rawburntpellerin

I've been scouring the internet for a bag large enough to fit a 100 lbs berkshire pig in. The only thing that has potential is something I found on a website http://spitj ack.com/product/SPIT_ROASTING/WHOLE-HOG-STORAGE-BAG-ECONOMY.html. It's basically a body bag which is claimed to be food safe. I sometimes use Ziplocs to cook and the literature so far seems to point in the direction of safety. There are no Ziplocs large enough for whole animal sous vide.

My main concern is the risk of plastic materials leeching on the food with using this other type of bag. I noticed that in one of the recipes the team at Chefsteps used garbage bags to cook the dinosaur pastrami. Is this a type of bag known to be ok? Are there garbage bags safe to use for sous vide? Otherwise, can these body bags be a good alternative to sous vide with? Thanks people!

Find more posts tagged with

Equipment

Comments

rawburntpellerin

Decided to go old school and try a two heat system. Shoulder end was 225f and ham end 180f. Everything came out juicy and tender. Shoulder, ribs and belly were 190, loin and hams 150. Smoked for 13 hours with a 71 lbs Tamworth/Berkshire crossbreed. Turned out perfect. My dad was happy with his birthday gift : ) I'm still looking around plastic manufacturer for a custom made bag in the future. We'll see.

rawburntpellerin

Just thinking out loud here, but if I were to apply the method of cooking the whole pig at 140f for 24 hours like this class http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pork-steaks for example. I would then finish it like this class http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/bbq-beef-short-ribs on the smoker for a few hours at low temperature for nice smoke and color finish.

The toughest parts are the shoulders, belly and ribs. If they're all cooked at 140f for 24 hours, they should be tender, no? Then the ham, loin, tenderloin would all still be juicy since they're best cooked at 140f anyways. I'm just brainstorming here.

The only thing that's making me doubt is that the people from AmazingRibs keep bringing up the issue of collagen not melting until the 190f-200f mark. Whilst the folks at Modernist claim that collagen starts to melt at 122f with enough time.

If push comes to shove, I'll cut the carcass into separate pieces and hope I can "meatglue" the thing back together for presentation. Ideally I'd like to see if it's possible to cook the entire pig without loss of juiciness. Anybody see a faulty reasoning with how I'm looking at this? Is it the shoulder not having pulled pork texture that's the problem? Or maybe having the more tender cuts stay too long in the water bath? Does the tenderloin turn to mush when cooked too long?

rawburntpellerin

So I spoke with the seller who spoke with the manufacturer and it's a no for sous vide. I also subscribe to the notion of different cuts require different temps. I think I'll stick with cutting it up into parts, use the XXL Ziplocs and reassembling it somehow for presentation afterwards. Cooking it whole isn't worth the sacrifice of texture and succulency. Thanks for the comments, guys.

FrankM_3301

Safety of the bag aside, it seems to me that different muscles cook to perfection at different times and temperatures. While I get the appeal, is going whole hog the way to go here?

artstype

I would be concerned about the material, as well. Food storage is about refrigeration, sous vide is about controlled long term application of heat. The way plastics react to heat is very different than cold. Have you contacted the manufacturer of the body bags? I suspect your best solution is to break it down, not what you probably want in terms of presentation, but perhaps you could use meat glue to put it back together? Do post whatever you end up doing.

I just noticed Sandro posted a sous vide suckling pig, maybe you could ask him?

http://www.chefsteps.com/forum/posts/5-course-dinner