Tough shoulder after sous vide

Hey guys,

I've had both great experiences with long SV cooks, yielding juicy meats, and also quite disappointing ones, with tough, dry (all the moisture squeezed into the bag) results of lean and tough cuts. Now I'd like to understand the systematic.

Example 1: Beef shoulder cut, about 1,5kg (usually, compared to the recipes here at chefsteps, I buy smaller cuts since I mostly cook for two). Prepared the whole nine yards with injecting and brining of the "smokerless brisket" recipe here on CS. After 24h of low and slow (65°C) cooking, the meat came out tough & shrunk.

Example 2: Pork shoulder, again around 1,5kg, Cooked SV low (55°C, about 4h) in hopes of breaking down collagen and getting that steaky texture – came out dry instead.

Success Example 1: Took some veal shoulder for the same cook, was much jucier than the pork.

Success Example 2: Same pork shoulder from the grocery store rolled up with some bacon-onion paste inside – cooked in the oven for 3 hours at 160°C came out juicy, delicious, somewhere in between braisy and steaky (sliceable, but edible with the fork, if that makes sense). Core temp was around 75°C in the end.

My assumptions that I had going in:

- According to the recipes on CS, the higher the temp, the braisy-er (as in, fall-apart texture) the meat should be

- But also, the higher the temp, the more water it will lose during the cook (right?)

- So, 24 at a low temp should, in theory, break down the collagen of a tough (the cuts I bought had some connective tissue, but were rather lean) cut and preserve the moisture. But it didn't. If I had cooked the beef or pork shoulder at, let's say 80°C as the CS recipe for braisy results suggests, I would have ended up with an even tougher result, I guess?

- In direct comparison, veal is jucier, but I guess that's the general nature of the meat?

- The oven cook was much more "radical", but it worked like a charm. The meat was marinated and I basted it every hour or so with its own juices (didn't lose all that much, though). Maybe the fat in the center helped?!

Sorry for the long post, I hope it makes sense to some of you

What I would like to get out of this is your best guess on what might have gone wrong – or what went right in other examples...

Cheers,

Ken

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elviswasjesus

Hi Ken, regarding the pork shoulder, is 4 hours a typo and did you mean you cooked it for 24 hours at 55C?

If so, the CS recipe for "steak-like" pork shoulder suggests going a bit higher than you did - 60C for 24 hours. Collagen will convert to gelatin at lower temperatures, but the lower you go the slower it is - until it seems like it's not happening at all. I'd try again at 60C for 24 hours.

If it wasn't a typo and you only cooked it for 4 hours, that's easy - it's far too short a time at that temperature. Pretty sure you didn't do that though.

Regarding your assumptions: changes to the texture of the meat are a function of temperature over time. Yes, higher temperatures for a given amount of time will result in braisy-er meat, but cooking lower for longer periods can also result in braisy textures. Have a look at this handy primer if you haven't already; explains far better than I could!

https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/beef-chuck-12-ways

I would assume cooking at 80C for 24 hours would result in drier meat that fell apart easily rather than tough meat, because a lot more connective tissue and muscle fibre would be broken down.

For reference, I've cooked both pork and lamb shoulders at about 70C for 24 hours for a texture that holds together enough to quickly sear the outside, but pulls apart easily. From memory (which may be faulty), I think I worked out I lost about 20% of initial weight to the bag.

Yet another consideration is the meat itself. A number of people have posted that when SV'ing a cut from the lean end of a brisket, dryness was inevitable irrespective of what they did. If the meat you're being sold is just lean and tough with little marbling or connective tissue, it might be worth trying a different butcher or store and seeing what you can get.

Not sure I've helped, but trust others will

Ken_259952

Davo, thank you very much, this is indeed very helpful!
(And yes, that was a typo... I meant to write 24h)

Basically, my assumption was that the more water I lose during the cook, the dryer and tougher the meat. But it seems like this is more nuanced.. so basically, had I started with a fatter (and more connective tissue) cut, I would have lost more moisture, but still ended up with a more tender piece of meat.

So, in sum I'll have to try to cook a little higher (which is the opposite of what I thought I should do) or go for longer cooks and live with the fact that a lot of moisture is lost. Just interesting that the oven roast worked so well despite the short time, maybe with smaller pieces, the time-temp-function is even steeper (meaning, the collagen breaks down faster, so that 3h were enough). What I don't understand is: I thought the strength of SV would be to cook at lower temps, thus lower loss of moisture. If, however, to compensate for the slower collagen breakdown, I have to cook much longer, I effectively lose just as much moisture as I would using traditional methods... or am I wrong?

(One more thing: Truth be told, though, my understanding of the english language is probably not nuanced enough to understand the difference between succulent and juicy - to me, it sounds like the same thing

)

fisher23

This is a very good article regarding steaks, which shows you moisture loss at various temperatures. I found it very useful.

tshewman

I'm reading the pork shoulder (for example) as it was wrapped in bacon (thus insulated with fat/moisture) and would be expected to be moist. I personally prefer to brine all pork dishes (not always possible, but for shoulder and such is helpful). I also would recommend 57C for Pork and no higher than that for beef-brisket included-my preference (e.g. I have a chuck roast going at the moment at 56C in a Bordelaise sauce).

wolfiegirl

In byrdieland, pork ain't pork til it meets/meats up with Mr Brine.

Thus endeth the lesson.

elviswasjesus

Yes, the water you lose will be offset somewhat by the gelatin and fattiness of cuts like shoulders etc.

In respect to the strengths of SV, while it's true you'll still lose some moisture, it should be far less than using traditional techniques, even with much longer cook times. In the great article that @John_Fisher_218893 linked to, Kenji notes that a steak cooked SV for 24 hours loses barely more moisture than one cooked for an hour. An added bonus is that you're not losing it to evaporation; all the juices are still in the bag and can be re-incorporated back into the dish. Because you can see the amount of moisture loss in SV very clearly, whereas in an oven it will evaporate away, it can be easy to assume you're losing more with SV.

In the successful example you gave of cooking in the oven, the high temperature and smaller size of the pieces contribute to collagen breaking down much faster, although your window of time in which the food is "perfectly cooked" is correspondingly smaller.

Ken_259952

Todd,

the bacon was on the inside (rendered down to a paste with the onions), so no insulation there. But maybe I just got lucky with an overall higher fat content...

tshewman

Did you use bacon on the oven and sv methods or two different recipes (eg bacon only with one). The bacon will add fat, moisture and flavor.

Diablote_389234

Cooking is the alchemy of turning muscle into meat. There is a maxim in statistics: "All models are wrong; some models are useful." Here are a couple of hopefully useful models to improve your meat alchemy.

The method of cooking meat depends on what you mean by "meat", as not all meats are the same. Skeletal muscle (roasts and steaks) is invariably composed of ~70% water and ~30% protein & fat (everything else is negligible). The protein can be made up of 8-12% collagen, while the fat can be 1-5% of the total mass. The amount of collagen and fat depends principally on what part of the animal the cut came from. Beef is a good model for most mammals. A cow commands where its entire body goes via its shoulders and pecs, while its rear serves as a trailer for the rest of its body. Its midsection merely holds the two together, so it carries very little load. As such, a cow's shoulders and neck (aka "forequarter") has lots of collagen and fat (so its muscles don't fall apart and for sustained energy, respectively), while its midsection (loin) has very little collagen. Its rear ("leg", "round" or "hindquarter") has very little fat but a fair bit of collagen, especially toward the shank. Here is a diagram showing this distribution (Model 1):

This anatomy is important because the fat and collagen in a cut exclusively determine how you should cook it. There are two methods to break down collagen: heat breakdown and enzyme degradation. Heat breakdown is what both a smoker and a slow cooker do. Collagen fibers begin to break at above 160˚F and reach a peak rate at 180˚. It takes at least 3 hours for the collagen to convert to gelatin sufficiently to hold its form after refrigeration. The problem, though, is that collagen starts to contract at 140˚, and if there isn't sufficient fat to resist the contraction the moisture will be wrung from the meat before the collagen finishes breaking into gelatin. Contrastingly, enzyme breakdown is what sous vide does. In particular, collagenases activate at 113˚, peak at 130˚, and completely denature above 140˚. It takes a minimum of 6 hours at 130˚ for enzyme conversion of collagen into gelatin in a young animal (e.g., veal and lamb), and up to 48 hours in a roast from a mature animal. And it all happens well below where the collagen can contract. Here is a phase diagram showing these interactions (Model 2):

So here's a crack at applying the the two models to your meats:

Example 1: Beef shoulder steak

Assessment: A high collagen, probably high-fat, forequarter cut (from Model 1)
Reco: 12h@130˚, shock to 100˚, then sear to 140˚ (to melt fat) (from Model 2)
Actual: 24h@149˚ - (high collagen contraction, collagenase completely denatured, too cold for fast collagen breakage) - probably tough and dry (from Model 2)

Example 2: Pork shoulder steak

Assessment: A high collagen, definitely high-fat, forequarter cut (pork is generally much fattier than beef)
Reco: 12h@130˚, shock to 100˚ then sear to 145˚ (to melt more fat)
Actual: 4h@131˚ - not long enough for complete collagenase breakdown - probably juicy but tough

Success 1: Veal shoulder steak

Assessment: A moderate collagen, possibly high-fat, forequarter cut (veal is young, so its collagen is not as tough/crosslinked/wound up)
Reco: 6h@130˚, shock to 100˚, then sear to 140˚ (or 145˚ if fatty)
Actual: 4h@130˚ - probably tender and juicy

Success 2: Pork shoulder (assume roast)

Assessment: A high collagen, definitely high-fat, forequarter cut
Reco: 3h@160-180˚ in slow cooker or smoker
Actual: 3h@160˚ (same) - probably succulent, but denatured actin and hemiglobin (i.e., well-done)

Hope that helps.

Ken_259952

This is amazing stuff, thank you so much! Really appreciate the time and effort you put into this! I'd like to include one other thought into the equation and would love to get you opinion on it: Salting! As many of the CS recipes suggest (if however not consistently – the pork "steaks" cut from the shoulder cook without seasoning) I personally season before it goes in the bag.

This article (http://blog.ideasinfood.com/ideas_in_food/2011/10/corrective-seasoning.html) suggests that seasoning prior to long cooks will dry out the meat – I found this definitely not true in the case of turkey breast that I generously seasoned and cooked for 12-24h (again, following the CS recipe).

What's your take on this?

Cheers,

Ken

Diablote_389234

I tend to not brine much—like the authors of the article you reference, I tend to wait until after sous videing to salt and spice, if nothing else because the expelled water dillutes or carries away most of the flavor. (I've never followed their workflow of salt, sous vide, fridge, sear, so I can't speak to that result.) When smoking, I find brining (or injecting) to be absolutely critical for turkey, but a wet salt rub is generally sufficient for everything else. But meat alchemy is as much science as it is philosophy, so if you find a method that works, write it down and stick to it!

Laraine_Agren_491492

Just cooked a beef shoulder at 133 degrees for 6 hours. I took it out to check how it was doing, since I am going to make a twice cooked kung pao beef dish, and did not want to have tough meat. To my surprise, when cut across the grain, the meat was perfect. My husband tasted it and said "forget the kung pao, just make some potatoes and vege's." The meat was like velvet, with a beautiful, rosey, pink color. I am still going to slice it across the grain and give it a quick sear, before adding the stir fried vege's and spicy sauce. Time to have a drink while I prepare my dinner.