BEST STEAK EVER! Pre-sear is well worth it.

Ok so finally got the pictures uploaded and resized. I used a regular chimney starter with lump chunk charcoal and let it get hot then threw my regular grate over the top and let that get hot and just seared right on top of the chimney starter as it gets hotter than just coals in the bottom of the Weber. I then removed the grate from the top of the chimney and put the regular lid on over the cimney with the vent closed, this kept the charcoal at a low smolder, after 45 min in the bath the ribeye went back onto the same setup for a post sous vide sear. Pure perfection. I served it with smashed potato medallions and some whipped horseradish and chives. I did the burger patty the same way, I ground it myself at approx 15% fat, best burger patty ever, the mild horseradish whip was perfect and all the burger juices soaked into the potatoes, very yummy.

Mason

Man-Burger! Almost a full pound AFTER cooking!

Patrick_Ancillotti_6135

Looks great! And, you too have snow outside..!

haha ya today it actually got into the 30s, first time in a week.

Patrick_Ancillotti_6135

Ours was up in high 30's today!

prince_of_porcelain

What is the theory behind presearing? I would think that any crust that forms would be softened during cooking. Do you get some of the sear flavor to penetrate into the rest of the steak during the sous vide cook, then hit it again post bath with a second sear to develop a nice crust?

http://blog.chefsteps.com/2012/12/help-us-prepare-our-sous-vide-food-prep-course/

Last question there, - the maillard effect is started, it gives a tremendously nice meaty flavor.

I also noticed it was easier to get a better sear after cooking if it was preseared.

@Seijoed Thanks for relinking to that comment. We're looking to come up with a better way to integrate comments on course pages with the forum, but it will probably be a while before we get to that priority.

@Brian_Douglas There are several advantages to presearing, including flavor and hygiene. Searing creates many of the delicious meaty flavors we like through the so-called Maillard reaction. Once you get the reaction started, those flavors will continue to develop during the sous vide cooking process. In some cases this can give you a richer flavor to the meat than if you simply seared it after sous vide cooking where there is less time for the flavor to develop.

You do, however, need to re-sear after cooking to refresh the crispness of the crust. But as @Mason_Perry points out, the initial searing helps make the surface proteins more reactive, so that when you do the final sear, it only takes a few seconds to get a really deeply colored, and intensely flavored crust.

One note, I generally don't recommend pre-searing lamb. The searing step destabilizes fatty-acids in the cell membranes of the muscle tissue in lamb, which can trigger a cascade of aroma-creating reactions that can lead to a mutton-aroma during cooking, which is only great if you like mutton.

The other advantage of presearing is that presearing rapidly kills bacteria where they are most likely to be found, on the surface of the meat. This enhances the overall safety of the sous vide process.

prince_of_porcelain

Thanks...it's interesting and surprising to me that Maillard flavors continue to develop even when the heat has been reduced. I always thought they were heat dependent and had to be well beyond 100 C to develop, but maybe that's just to start the process? Thanks for the answers and I'll give it a try.

On that note, I need a new torch. The small creme brulee torch I have just doesn't cut it. I've been eyeing the TS8000 recommended somewhere in these forums.

Maillard reactions happen at all temperatures, it's just that they happen very slowly if the temperature is too far below 130 °C / 265 °F or so, or if the food is very wet. If you've ever seen old milk powder, it's very yellow and has a strong aroma; this is the result of the Maillard reaction. Because powdered milk is so dry, the reaction occurs over weeks and months even at room temperature.

The trick with the pre-searing is three-fold: First, once you provide the activation energy to trigger the reactions, it is easier for it to proceed even after the temperature drops. Second, the cellular tissue and proteins at the surface are ruptured and denatured, respectively, which makes it easier for the sugars and amino acids to react. Third, you are dehydrating the surface a bit, and even though the food is quickly swimming in moisture inside the sous vide bag, you will have localized pockets that are a bit dry where the reactions continues forward. Think about when you scorch meat juices on the bottom of a frying pan; you can soak the pan in water, but the burned bits are water-proof and stay dry for quite a while before they reabsorb moisture and soften.

So, pre-searing can be tremendously valuable as a way to deepen the meaty flavor of a sous vide steak.

http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/presearing-for-sous-vide

Hi everyone, we're in the process of releasing some new content in module 2 (and we should be finishing all of the content for this module shortly). This is slightly out of order, but thought you all might enjoy seeing it:

Great video. And it really was an eye opener what a difference it makes.

Yup makes a huge difference! Great Video!

Jack_Mayer_85396

Wow, great clip! I'm now a believer in pre-searing (except for lamb). This site just keeps getting better and better. Thank you!

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Chris I recall reading (eGullet forums?) that it is necessary to cool the pre-seared protein before bagging and vacuum sealing. Is this correct?

Most people with a chamber vac will completely cool anything they are sealing as any moisture that is sucked from the item being sealed can contaminate the oil and cause problems. A cold item gives off little to no moisture where as a freshly seared or hot items (like warm soup) will give off enough moisture to condense on the inside of the chamber meaning that some will inevitably enter the oil.

You must also remember that as the pressure is decresed the tempurature at which liquids boils is also decresed so room temperature water will boil inside the chamber as you pull a vaccum, we know this thanks to Boyles law as well as Charles' law, regarding the linear and inverse relations of pressures and temperatures of gases and liquids (IE air that is compressed will heat, after that air escapes from pressure to normal atmosphere it drastically reduces in temperature sometimes well below freezing)

I just love the pre-sear...

Hah! @Brian Douglas - I just noticed Appleton on your blog, I used to live in Menasha.

@Seijoed Info on those potato cubes?

@Seijoed how did you prepare the mushrooms? Steak looks great, BTW

http://momofukufor2.com/2010/03/ad-hoc-potato-pave-recipe/

Potato pave.

Mandolin thinly sliced and layered in a papered form, salt, pepper and cream, thyme, rinse repeat.

Fold the paper over, tin-foil and bake in the oven at 350 until tender, 1h 45 or so, then put a weight on them.

If they can go overnight with a press, it is great.

Then just slice them up, and pan sear with plenty of thyme butter.

@Chris they are baby portabellas, sliced 5mm thick, pan seared on high heat in oil, deglazed with a splash of water and veal stock, then I had a cube of brown demi-glace, tossed that in with a little cream, reduced and finished with butter and S&P.

susan_fox_33805

@Seijoed will you marry me?

Mrs Edstrom might have something to say about that. Lol!

Jack_Mayer_85396

Holy smokes, where to start?

@Mason I knew that learning about Boyles and Charles would come in handy, just didn't know it would take 35 years! So it sounds like the answer is, pre-sear (except for lamb) chill in an unsealed bag, then vac-pack and cook SV, then a final sear, torch, etc.

@Seijoed and @Brian I grew up in Waukesha, WI but except for visits have been away for 30 years.

@Seijoed great looking steak! what cut? With your permission, I'm gonna steal the potato and mushroom ideas!

@Jack - And everyone else for that matter - Of course you should steal whatever you want.

It is a Costco full loin tenderloin, i just cut that down and cleaned up the pieces a little.

I'm an Apache / Opensource developer, I passionately hate "this is a sekrit family recipe" - (Which when you start evaluating it and compare to classic books always seem to be a cut down betty crocker that simplified a classic and missed a few steps)

I haven't invented anything, Pave is a classic oldie I think Keller made it "cool" again, the mushrooms is more or less a bordelaise without the wino, once again classics. I firmly believe that information wants to be free, research should be public, collaboration should be a goal.

That is what I love about this, I've been stealing ideas all my life, reproducing, recreating or whatever we want to call it, here we get to participate in interactive learning with the masters on this topic.

Steal away!!!

Another pre-sear and after pic - I've used up all of that loin now

I was pondering this quite a bit earlier but I was too lazy to bring out the piping bag,

originally I had planned to just pipe the mash as a diagonal or straight line on the plate,

does anyone else have better ideas?

Oh, and sofrito rocks in stuffed mushrooms.

@Jack and others: A word about sealing warm food. It's not necessarily a problem—although I add the caveat that sometimes it can be. Yes, as the pressure in the chamber falls you will reach a point where the boiling point of water (under the reduced pressure) is equal to the temperature of the food. Once this happens, the water in the food begins to boil.

Depending on how powerful your pump is, you may find it difficult to lower the pressure further because water vapor is evaporating into the chamber as fast as the pump can remove it from the chamber and, thus, the pressure doesn't change.

At some point, the chamber sealer will stop the pump and activate the heat sealing bar. Once the pressure is restored into the chamber you'll have a sealed package, but the seal might not seem very tight. The question is, is this a problem? Not necessarily.

The reason the bag is loose around the warm food is that water vapor is still evaporating in the bag from the warm food, which creates enough pressure to loosen the bag around the food. But if you put this package of food in the refrigerator, it will cool and the water vapor will condense back into liquid water and the package will tighten around the food.

It's worth mentioning that if you pay close attention to packages of food while they cook sous vide, you'll notice that the packaging always loosens around the food, and the hotter the bath the looser they get. The reason is the same: water vapor pressure inflates the bag slightly.

So, is sealing warm food a problem. The answer is, it depends. Pulling a vacuum on delicate ingredients until the water inside them boils does a lot of trauma to the ingredient. If you were to step outside an aircraft at 90,000 feet, the water in your body would boil and you would be very unhappy. A lot of ingredients we cook feel the same. But for relatively durable foods like most tough meats and plant foods, it's usually fine.

The other issue is that running a lot of moisture through an oil-filled vacuum pump will degrade the oil faster, which means you'll need to change the oil more frequently. This may, or may not, be something that bothers you.