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Why do you not seal up the salmon packages?

BlvCook_25591

I've been cooking sv/water bath for over a year and your salmon demo is the first time I've seen the bag purposefully left open, but flipped over the top and clipped. Other than to ensure that no water seeps in, why do you not seal up the salmon packages? And is there more of a chance that air can get in when left open?

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Chris_Young_80640

BlvCook:

A couple of thoughts on your comment. When you vacuum seal something like a burger patty, the compressing force of the atmosphere will tend to compress together small air gaps between the bits of ground meat. This will make the burger more cohesive, and chewy. I can see how some people might even describe this texture as spongy.

Getting air pockets out of the ground meat is generally a good thing if want that chewy, sausage-like texture. But, personally, it's a bad thing for a burger texture. Air gaps help to make the burger patty crumbly, which is a more pleasant texture for a burger IMO. Using the water displacement trick makes it easier to get the patties to sink in the water bath so that they cook evenly, but because the packaging is not truly sealed to the surrounding atmosphere you don't squeeze the air pockets out of the patty.

As you point out, this technique is also a much better approach for dealing with liquids compared to an edge-sealing vacuum packer (like a FoodSaver). Your only good option with liquids when using an edge-sealer is to freeze the liquid first so that you can add them as a solid.

Chris

BlvCook_25591

I'm intrigued with the portion of the answer that leaving the bag open helps to alleviate the spongy texture of sous vide/water bath (sv/wb) cooked burger patties. Some feedback I've received from family and friends is they like the texture of sv/wb cooked fish and veggies, but not so much poultry and meat. I've heard it described as spongy-like. I'll have to explore that more and I'm curious what others have experienced.

Not sealing (but still using Archimedes principle of displacement) also seems to solve the problem when cooking with a lot of liquid in the bag. I have a basic food saver, not a chamber vacuum, so I've had to be choosy about which liquids/sauces to put in the bag, mostly miso based, as not to get drawn into the machine.