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Sous Vide/Heat aging beef

utku

In the MC book, meat chapter, there's a small section on tenderizing enzymes.

The theory suggests keeping the beef just below 40C and/or 50C should give the effect of dry aging but due to food safety reasons the process should not be exceeding 4 hours.

Heston Blumenthal has a different approach, after searing the meat (using a blowtorch) he keeps it in an oven at 50C for 24 hours (way way above 4 hours)

So guys, what do you think? Have you ever experimented with this methods of aging beef? And why don't you try some recipes and let us know , as I don't want to poison myself during the experiments at home

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Comments

fisher23

Very interesting. I hope we can have some discussion on this with those who are better informed than I. With it being in the danger zone for such a long time I only worry about the safety. But then again, dry aging is a controlled rotting process.

tshewman

You can do this using SV as well. I've done it using similar roasts as in the episode. I've done the fish sauce, vacuum seal for 2 days, sear, cook for 24hr @50C and then cut into steaks. It is very impressive (and easy).

bkeene12

Todd- do you have a link to the episode? I'd like to check it out.

tshewman

Hi Bobby, link is here: https://vimeo.com/34158026

Chris_Young_80640

So I personally did the work on the 24 hour steak recipe for the Perfection series. I cannot recommend the approach. Because the meat is sweating in your oven, the evaporation cools the roast even further than the 50C oven. And the oven doesn't hold the temperature constant anyway. The result is the meat is spending way too much time in the danger zone. Yes, blowtorching the surface helps and very often you would be fine eating a steak from that roast, but there is a good chance of some really nasty stuff growing. I disagreed strongly with the decision to put this recipe on air and in the book, but I didn't win the argument that day.

bkeene12

Hi Chris- Since the SV can hold a constant 50c, could we use it for "safer" results? My plan was to blow torch the meat first, then cook for 24 hours in SV at 50c then refresh in deep fryer for minute or so.

utku

todd: 50C for 24hours; aren't you risking pathogen growth?

tshewman

Ultimately, yes you are to a degree especially if done in an oven (see @ChrisYoung response). That said, if you go only a few deg up (E.g. 54.5C I believe this was the minimum threshold for long cooking times developed by Doug Baldwin). If taking into account the minor fluctuation depending on your bath, 55C would be a safer temp and still give excellent results. This is essentially the same temp where short ribs can be/are done for 3 days.

utku

You're absolutely right about minimum threshold for long cooking times at 54C+; but that's not really aging at all. The only tenderization you'll get would be from the collagen gelatin transition over 50C.

The tenderization by means of aging is caused by the two enzymes; calpain and cathepsin which would work respectively below 40C and 50C.

utku

@Chris Young : I agree with the 50C oven issue; that was the reason I didn't really want to try it out at all...

I think sous vide sounds like a more controlled approach as long as we don't exceed 4 hours in the danger zone. Would under 4 hours within the range of 40-50C be having any aging effect at all?

I see some strategies like follows:

1. sear the meat (blowtorch)

2. either

- 1.5h at 39C + 1.5h 49C (or slightly more)

- 3h at 45C (or slightly more) (nathanm at egullet mentions this as well0

- 3h at 49C (or slightly more)

Pasteurize to core (just in case) at 54C+ and finish regularly.

Any brave volunteers to try out

)

Chris_Young_80640

Safer, yes, but not risk free. Blow-torching the surface, or even giving the packaged food a quick boiling water dip for 5 seconds can greatly reduce the risk. I'd also avoid any source of meat that may have been "blade tenderized" which involves sticking a mesh of needles into the meat, thus contaminating the inside with bacteria from the outside (Costco blade tenderizes a lot of their meats). But, yes, 4 hours is about my upper limit before I feel it's getting pretty risky.

tangma27

Oh my god a young chris young!

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Ha...... kinda wish I had seen this four years ago when I did the 24-hr roast......................

Saad_94717

How harmful are these bacteria? Ultimately, hardly any food is free from micro-organisms, and consequently hardly any food is risk-free. What sort of risks are there?

That said, isn't aged beef unsafe too then?