Go to the Recipe: Beef Short Ribs Your Way
Any suggestions for sous vide time and temperature for boneless short ribs/chuck flap. Looking to achieve medium rare for finish.
@iAmBoomer 🤪 It's up to you if you want to SEAR before putting in the bath, however, you'll probably want to sear after you take it out, regardless as to whether or not you've seared before.
So my one and only question as I get ready to do the 185* 12 or 24 hour beef short ribs is are the Short ribs pre-seared or are they seared afterwards? I have the Bernzomatic 8000 so once they are done do I just Cher the outside really quick and that’s it OR do I do that before cooking them Sous Vide
I have never had a successful result of cooking tough cut sousvide.
For short ribs, I have tried almost all of the time and temperature variants, and the result are all pretty disappointing.
The meat just comes out as dry, tough, grey, and totally shrunk up rock hard leaving tons of bag juices every single time.
Yea, at 85c it flakes, but just bone dry and hard as rock, not nearly as soft and succulent as it shows in the video
Before you ask, no, I didnt salt or season it.
The meat I use is not necessarily cheap either. Its from a local reputable butcher shop from my city
I have tried cooking tough cut sousvide many times throughout the years without any success. To a point that I just feel like this is not even achievable.
Does anyone know what is even going on?
Am I the only one who was disappointed with the 54c / 72 hr result? The meat was pretty chewy, the connective tissue never broke down so half or more of the ribs were a struggle to eat, and it also felt like the flavor didn't really develop (or maybe that was just the frustration with everything else).
Definitely trying a different method next time.
Blanch VERY quickly before salting/ bagging.
At 62c you need to cook it for 48 hours. If you cook them for 24 hours you need a higher temperature to make it tender - probably 70c/158f.
It's probably the "mallard effect" from Smoking & Grilling part your missing.
The inside of the meat on all methods does not change the taste.
The heat from hot water or hot air doesn't change the taste (unless it comes in contact with the meat).
How does the 72h version compare at 144f?
am I the only one that loses beef flavor when sous viding beef?
@Bleeto47 while what you say is true, its far and few between where there us actually a, negative impact on your product of surface bacteria. There have also be several studies that show that rinsing your meat can leads to more harm, and never actually does anything practical for your meat.
For long/high temp cooks I found that double bagging is an easy way to prevent it from spilling out.
Long cooking meat at low temperatures can allow Lactobacillus to grow. This is the same beneficial bacterium that ferments cheeses and kraut but gives off a funky, funky smell like sweaty feet. While not harmful it can be off-putting. To kill off surface bacteria salting, scorching, careful rinsing, et al before placing in sous vide are some suggested steps. Using the highest quality fresh meat from a small butchery is a good practice. Or, you can cook at higher temp to begin, in order to kill surface bacteria then turn down for long haul.
Hey guys. I just did my first attempt at 62c for 24h. I had one rack of ribs chopped into 2 and in 2 separate vacuum bags. I just opened one and the meat is still very tough.. I sliced a piece and I can't even chew it. Any idea what could have gone wrong ? Bag issues? Temperature ? Meat being too thick/tough? Any advice would be appreciated. I turned up the temp to 65 and am planning to leave it I for another 24h before opening the 2nd packet
First attempt at first option (185F for 12 hours) was a disaster. I vacuumed packed the meat, per the usual, but the bags came unsealed under the high heat. This is the first time I've cooked at so high a temperature, and the first time I've had bags fail. The dog sure is going to love my short ribs.
Could I open bag after 24 hrs and re marinate for another 24?
I've tried most of the above. If you want a beefy tasting tender moist rib, that still has a little bit of bite to it; Sous Vide for 48 hours at 144F/62C. I've taken them out after 45 hours and still awesome (I usually start Sous Vide 6PM Friday, for BBQ on Sunday afternoon).
And don't buy the cheapest ones you can find. This is a special occasion.
When done, Fire up the Grill as hot as possible. Let ribs cool to room temp in bag (it reabsorbs juices). Remove them and pat the outside of them till dry (REQUIRED, it won't char if you don't, it will just steam them til dried out & you want to stop the inside from cooking further).
Put a thin layer of BBQ sauce (my preference), but only for option #1.
Then choose one of these two finishing touches: (I remove the bone on beef ribs before finishing)
1) Char them for a few minutes, turning, don't walk away from them. If it takes more than a few minutes, the inside will start cooking again and it will result in a dry rib - especially if thin.
2) For an unique thin crunchy crust, I've fried them in hot oil for about 1 minute per side - Put BBQ sauce on after you fry them; People eat them wide-eyed, like it's some sort of magic food.
If rib is less than a half inch thick, like baby back ribs, you should put them in the Fridge till cold - remove, pat the outside dry, sauce and flame' it, char it up.
Bottom line is after Sous Vide, YOU DON'T want the inside to cook any longer or you will end up with a dried out rib - But, If outside is not dry (except for BBQ sauce) it will take too long to char. The inside should just be warm.
Sous Vide for 48 hours at 62C/144F. Fire up the Grill as hot as possible. Let ribs cool to room temp in bag. Remove them and pat the outside of them till dry. Put BBQ sauce (my preference) or your rub on.
Char them for a few minutes, turning, don't walk away from them. If it takes more than a few minutes, the inside will start cooking again and it will result in a dry rib - especially if thin.
If thin, you should put them in the Fridge till cold, pat the outside dry, sauce and flame' it, char it up.
Bottom line is after sous vide, you DON'T want the inside to cook any longer - inside should just be warm.
I tried two times the 72 h cooking time at 54° and while the texture was amazing there was a very strong smell kind of ruining the taste.
I tried several times with salt and no salt and sourced from different butchers (one was Wholefood) and they all came out the same. I suspect it comes from the blood leaking from the meat: has anyone experienced the same?
Thanks!
@Steve Brandes The only issue with that is these aren't brined.
Pretty likely no nitrite, and I doubt they'd use nitrAte at all. At 129F/54C, you SHOULD get pasteurization, but you are running at the ragged edge of the pasteurization envelope. Extra care in handling and preparation would be prudent.
62/144 degrees for 48 hours - add just a bit of Campbell's french onion soup into the pouch before vacuum sealing, Nothing else, no salt, nothing. 2 - 3 ribs per pouch. Total absolute astounding perfection. I served them over grits, au jus, with a Bordeaux blend wine.
Hey there! The short ribs in this video must be using sodium nitrate in the brine, yes?
You can precook sous vide and reserve to finish many days later. To do so you'd want to cook for the required time and when done you'll need to submerge into an ice bath before placing into fridge.
See the link on storage under Chill Out. https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/storage I've done this before with long cooks. For example I bough mass ribs, cooked for 36 hours, placed them in an ice bath until cold and then I froze them. Afterwards I only had to reheat them in sous vide for 1.25 hours . Gave a friend some, he reheated in oven at low temperature and said they turned out great. Don't see why you can't do as you're asking Hope this helps!
just did your 48 @144. Perfect. i've done the 72 and a variety of others (including the dreaded "it tastes like rubber shoe inserts" phenomena -not sure why other than to say make sure you either double bag or use official sous vide bags since the baggies tend to leak and then ...well..)
I would also like to know the answer to these 2 questions..
Can I cool down the ribs after the sous vide bath and then finish in my Traeger (smoker/griller)? My thinking is that if I cool them down first, I can then heat them in the Traeger at about 225 degrees back to the target temp, giving them a nice smoky flavor and a nice crust, without overcooking the meat. Any thoughts why that wouldn't work?
Also, can I keep them refrigerated for a day or two after cooking and before the finish?
I have been making this recipe for 2 years now. I've never ventured away from 48hrs @144. the ribs have turned out amazingly well each and every time! They eat like butter. I side it with pureed cauliflower toped with a read wine reduction sauce. SO good. One interesting question, I have only ever used bone in short ribs. @Chef Steps, do you use bone in or boneless? Thanks!
300-500g beef stock per 2 lbs of ribs. If full length ribs cook one hr, if short, 30 minutes. Wait 45 min after pressure is released. Them strain, add your favorite bbq sauce to liquid and reduce to a glaze.
Can anyone else confirm if adding seasonings when cooking this long is a good/bad idea? Is 1% of salt by weight still a good option for 24-72 hours?
With cooking sous vide, the pound of the food doesn't matter as much as the thickness of the food you're cooking. you're going to want enough water to fully immerse the short ribs in the water, with a good amount of water on all sides.
How many pounds of short rib do these methods use? Does it matter?
One thing I see missing from this post is how he is packaging the sous vide. I use a chamber vacuum packaging process, once sealed there is very little air inside the package, IMHO 129 is at my lowest end temp for this long a cook, but pasteurization should maintain safety. You would probably know if there is an issue because the bag will inflate and/or there would be an off smell if something goes wrong. Long cooks (over 48 hrs) and I have experienced meat breaking down too far and becomes mushy/mealy, undesirable to me - I like a bit of tooth (chew) to my beef.
Looks like my last comment isn't showing up. Is 129 for 72 hours safe without using nitrates?
I'm really curious about this... I don't mean to be insulting and maybe something else is going on with your results but did you cook them sous vide? You didn't mention that in your post. I honestly don't have any idea how you'd end up with tough, dry meat by cooking it sous vide in a vacuum bag. Seems pretty much impossible.
Hi Gregory, i interestingly read your question. I am very into Sous vide cooking at the moment and ordered some Beef short ribs. I am going to cook them Sous vide. I want to try 62°/24hours because I thought this way of cooking might be right in the middle of the above mentioned recomendations. What do you think? I dont want to screw up. Could you please answer me
I would love a recipe for pressure cooking short ribs, waiting for Joule in May but have my PC now
Can anyone share a success story here?
Hi Chef Steps!
I have been trying out your cooking time and temperatures for short beef ribs but I can never get the same result. The meat always comes out tough and dry.
I've tried cooking it low and slow, 62 degrees for 24 hours and now trying it at 85 degrees for 24 hours. I am now at the 17 hour mark and the meat starts to flake but you can feel its dry, nothing like what you guys do. It also tastes tough and dry.
I usually end up using the pressure cooker to soften up the meat really good but end up wasting several days cooking the beef.
Would you know if there is something wrong with the technique or would you think it's the beef?
Mike, I totally agree. I just do kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper for any long duration items.
It seems to me that when cooking meats long term (12-72hours) its not a good thing to use typical seasonings in the bag as it significantly changes its flavor profile and seems to become something different and also overwhelms the meats flavor.
I did 48 hour ribs both with just salt as instructed and with my usual rib rub and the latter turned out not so good and salt ony seems to have a really good pork flavor.
Looking for confirmation that this is true. I had the same happen to beef ribs as well with a different spice rub.
For pork spare ribs I recommend 60 °c for 16hrs, but for a shorter cook time try 75 °c for 4hrs
Hey Joshua, for short ribs I recommend following the brining ratios and times in this pastrami recipe, simply omit the spices if you want. Also if you remove the bone before brining, the brining time can be cut in half. Hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions.
Honestly, I'm trying to find it, but just can't seem to find a link to the actual weights and measures recipe.
If they are conventionally frozen then yes you should thaw them first. There is a technique called cryo-freezing that was used in the modernist cuisine labs to quickly freeze meat. This is the go to way for cooking from frozen because it develops the smallest ice crystals in the meat and does not ruin the product through cooking from frozen.
This is a great guide for cooking short ribs low temp, however, it is listed as a recipe on the recipe search. Is there an actual recipe? Do you have a ratio of salt, sodium nitrite, resting/curing time for the meat? Thanks!
Can you apply these same temperatures to pork ribs?
The 54C/ 72h is truly... The EXCUSE as to WHY you get; an immersion circulator and a vac packer.
I've seasoned and seared before the cook, this time did not sear, just heavily seasoned (salt & Pepper, thyme, garlic powder, bay leaf, olive oil) and yielded excellent results. Less "juice" seemed to have come out of the ribs and into the bag, a really awesome rib after searing hard on my Le Creuset French Grill. Of COURSE incorporate all accumulated juice into my red-wine redux (highly recommend Big House Red as your go-to cooking red, BIG fruit-bomb, low acid/ tannin but still drinkable). Thyme, garlic, veal-stock, LOTS of black pepper, himalayan rock salt.
When my sauce came together and after searing, held the ribs in the sauce while pulling together the dinner. The meat crept up to approx med in appearance, but the texture was supple and sliced like a steak. Flavor had the brisket/ short-rib heartiness.
Umami-bomb glazed and caramelized Brussel Sprouts, Butter held together by potato puree and chanterelle mushrooms. H&G 2013 Chalk Hill Cabernet Sauvignon and a few good friends. My "go-to" late Fall/ Early Winter dish to blow some minds of friends and family.
Hi Rebecca, we do! You can find the recipe above!
Just finished doing a 72 hour (80~ hours actually since I was home late.) 62C! I did 3 pieces, but I had to rip into one of them... didn't even get the potato puree out in time. Seasoned and Searzall'd mine. Now to make the wine reduction and puree to go with it.
This isn't exactly true. Granted, collagen breaks down into gelatin at a very good rate at 70C, however, if you had to get this temperature minimum every time, you wouldn't have to supple fall apart textures they have in the videos above at temperatures below 70C. Collagen breaking down is a combination of time and temperature. You will get significant breakdown at lower temperatures, as seen in the videos above, but you need to cook them for a significantly longer time. Example: I cooked octopus last week, which, if you're not familiar, has a very high collagen content. I cooked it at 60C for about 7 hours. If the collagen hadn't broken down, I would have been chewing on ropes of rubber, but it was very tender. I had let it cool in the bag I cooked it in, and it was completely surrounded by the congealed gelatin that had broken down from the collagen.
Silver skin is a different substance. It doesn't break down with heat (at least not at a heat that you would like your meat cooked to) and should be trimmed off. This is the membrane that holds the entire muscle together. It does contain some collagen, and can be softened somewhat, but is still relatively unpleasant to eat.
I am concerned about the suggestion to go as low as 54ºC for such a long time. The rule that Douglas Baldwin established himself, and now he works with ChefSteps, was that the safety minimum threshold for long cooking times was 54.4ºC. Furthermore, when we push the limits like this a small error in our equipment calibration can be critical, so this is, to me, just pushing the boundaries of safety. See for example the several comments saying that they had bad odors after that profile. I understand that you are using several hurdles here (nitrites and likely pre-searing, but these are not mentioned explicitly in the entry as critical requirements).
I understand the logic of the 54ºC, I guess. Whereas the 54.4ºC threshold was established as the lowest value where C. perfringens had been shown to die, it should not grow from 52ºC upwards. But still I think this is pushing the limits. Specially taking into account the review by the ComBase team. They are serious microbiologist that developed one of the most well-known models of bacteria growth and destruction, and whereas they themselves start modelling death of C. perfringens from 54.5ºC, they indicate too that this was not intended for very long cooking times, and tell us that, in their opinion and review of the experimental data backing that, there is not enough evidence of the bacteria population kinetics in the area of the growth/no-growth (to which 54ºC would belong) for long cooking times. I really would acknowledge to have your point of view on their analysis.
Has anyone gone beyond 72hrs?
Apparently collagen melts at 70C
http://www.scienceofcooking.com/meat/slow_cooking1.htm
So for a cook like the 54 C one, you really have to trim off all the collagen and silver-skin
I just tried the 72hrs 54C short rib. This cut is not normally found in Norway so when it showed up at the butcher this friday I had to try it (there was quite a bit to trim of before i got it as i wanted).
I smoked in on my BBQ 1hr and then put it into the sous vide 54degrees C for 72 hrs. When it was done yesterday I used some bbq sauce and glaced it in my oven.
The texture was very nice and tender as i wanted it. But I had a feeling that I should have used a few degrees higher, because when biting into it the remaining gelatin in the meat was not pleasant when I ate the piece. I wish it was broken down a bit more. Could this be solved at a higher temp? Maybe 56 or 58 degrees?
I took a picture of the ribs just before glazing it (attached). What do you think?
Few questions:
1. If my ribs are already frozen, do I need to defrost first? 2. Given they are frozen, do I need to sear first? Or can I just do it after cooking?
3. Do you season (S&P, other?) first? or after?
