Go to the Recipe: Sous Vide Burgers
144 for 15 mins is obviously higher than medium rare, what is the core temp of the burger after 15 mins? For a set-it-and-forget-it option, would you advise 130f for 1-2 hours?
hello,in the recipe you guys say egg,but in the video egg yolk,witch one is right? and also what cut of beef you guys are using?thanks Marcello
I am glad to see the demise of the grind-the-meat-and-align-the-fibers technique from ISOP. Tried it a couple times, and it never really caught on with me. The patty tended to just fall apart as soon as you bit into it. Granted, that may be 'operator error' on my part, but I know I can assemble a good burger patty using the old mix 'em up method. Can't wait for the full class!
I don't think a 15-minute cook is enough to get a core temp of 62°C. I'm guessing it's more like 54-56 C.
i have done sous vide burgers a few times (pre-sear frozen, cook to temp., sear again) and every time they have been awesome. Every. time. Great recipes here! You guys definitely know how to go overboard, but in a good way!
I really don't like set it and forget it with burgers, they never have the right texture for me, i always just cook to core.
I love sous vide....I can't afford it....but I love it. I for one think its a miracle to kitchen consistency and quality, and eagerly await the next lesson featuring it.
Did you ever consider the Anova or Nomiku sous-vide circulators ?? They both retail at sub $200 !
I second Marcello's question: Which cut(s) of beef do you recommend?
Your site is getting greater and greater. Your last classes were fantastic, especially the one on foams. Thank you
130F will work as a "set and forget" temp. However, as Brendan stated below, the texture isn't the same. By cooking a higher temp to a slightly cooler core, you achieve a more familiar texture with a snappy exterior and med/rare interior.
Whole egg is correct.
Honestly people will pick and choose their preferred cut. I think a nicely marbled piece of chuck is hard to beat. Great flavor and still super affordable.
do you like to cook equilibrium for burgers at 6 plus ounces? ie those that are more like large cuts of meat?
hey, i dont seem to understand why you dont align the grain of beef - like heston does. it seems like such a great reciepe, but squishing it in a form (I HAVE NOT TRIED IT) seems a but off the " modernist" course...
Thanks for the feedback @Ben Johnson, I have been following the MQFH recommendation of cooking to a core temp of 129F for 45-60 mins, then flash frying. I may not have noticed the texture issue due to the finishing process.
Does anyone know where i can get those white plates in the video? Thanks!!
They look like the Mercer line from Crate & Barrel, but I'm not certain. That's where most of their tableware is from, at any rate.
I have two anova units they are spot on
What's the reason for searing before sous vide? Traditionally the sous vide searing step is done the other way around.
Ground Beef is the only protein I don't like to cook below medium and this time/temp won't acheive pasterization. I am the furthest from a "phobe" but was curious if you can elaborate on this a little for me. Thanks!
For me, it's the question of whether it's (a) beef that was steak seconds ago and ground at home using tools that are clean or (b) beef pre-ground from the grocery store. With (b), who knows how clean is the meat grinder at the grocery store? With (a), I had no problem eating that steak medium rare before I ground it up, and not else has changed since.
There is some detail missing here. No cut recommendation? No fat percentages? In the past I've done 1/3 Rib 1/3 Brisket 1/3 Sirloin at 25-27% fat with great results.
Why no post sear?
In the Burger Geekery section they say 80/20 chuck is what they used.
How long do you cool the patties for between steps 4 and 5? Do you let everything come to room temperature? Or do you refrigerate and start them from <40F?
Also, where does one acquire a 105mm ring mold? I've been searching and either I don't know what to google or I'm not looking in the right places.
4 inches
4" isn't quite 105mm. It's only 93% of the area. So either your burger is thicker and your timing isn't going to be quite right on the cook or you need to drop the weight of each patty back to 140g. It's not the biggest deal in the world, but if I'm going to bother to get a ring mold, I might as well get the exact one called for.
I haven't! But i will now! Thank you for the tip.
IKEA
what type of meat or mix of meat do you use?
why not bind with a quick hand mix rather than egg? similar to binding sausage just less?
as you said, it's not the biggest deal... it really doesn't matter if the ring mold is 101,6mm or 105.... it's just a burger patty! Relax!
What do you suggest for cooking time/temp if starting from frozen? Still presear frozen?
I saw Heston in search of the perfect burger and if i'm not wrong , he saids that egg is a big sacrifice on the pattie's texture . Today i made some burgers but i intentionally skiped the eggs in the pattie and i could easily flip them without losing their shape . Is there any other reason you add eggs to the pattie except it's property to bind ?
I bought Williams-Sonoma's 11 piece round pastry/cookie cutters. The biggest one was just over 4". I've since found cheaper options, but the set at WS was only $16.
I beleave the presearing is to start the Maillard reaction that will give the patty a deeper flavor. You can use a blow torch to do this step and after to quickly refresh the crispness.
I am going to test out the low temp oven to an internal temp and see how that works out.
Should work perfectly
Knowing that CJD has a 30-year gestation, I limit my exposure by grinding my own beef, ensuring a single-cow burger.
I want CS to succeed so do what you gotta do, but I am insatiable when it comes to sous vide. Repeatability, convenience, exactness... can't be beat.
I grind my own burgers for my restaurant and I use a cheap 1/2 hp $80.00 grinder but it does the trick. I keep the parts in the freezer after sanitizing them properly.. When I first started this process I found that the beef (using the whole beef shoulder clod) had to be ground more than once. however, the first grind was still extremely delicious and I think that sous vide is a great way for this as the first grind has tiny bits of beef that is a bit chewy and I would imagine that a majority of my customers would not like or understand the texture. The first grind tasted very much like a steak burger because the fat is still more like what you would find when eating a ribeye or ny. Because we want our customers to come back & their taste buds usually win, we then decided to grind our beef twice. this made the ground beef much more of what you would find in a traditional burger. We flat top cook our burgers and they are great. Now our grind consists of trim from a strip loin along with the chain and the fat as well as the shoulder clod, including the flatiron. we do not put egg in it I don't believe in it, feels like meatloaf; just some garlic & fresh ground pepper, not salt as it will dry the burger and turn gray. (do you reccommend activa rm?) this burger is ridiculous. We are also careful not to over press the burger, they are hand formed because I have also found that over pressing with a tool or hands will turn your burgers gray as well. A Form is good. Our burger of course with everything is definitely not 80/20 but more like 70/30 but it is juicy and now we are going to do the cheese! the trick to grinding I have found is to keep everything ice cold! literally, after the first grind, bag the meat & save that, keep in cooler, clean & ice bath your parts again, then regrind. then clean & sanitize your parts then freeze the parts for another day. yeah it's a pain but it's totally worth it. I use a brioche bun but we buy it because I am a tiny quick casual restaurant and do not have the time & staff to make these buns, but we make every damn thing otherwise! lol. we even do the mi-cuit salmon, which I just recently turned into a ground salmon burger with the belly and trim! good day guys!
I love my Anova!
I've now done this recipe twice: once was the best burger I ever had, and one was... not.
The smaller difference: I didn't adjust the water-bath time after I refrigerated my patties for a while post-sear, so patties were underdone. (I was trying to host a party with near-zero kitchen time.) Can anyone steer me toward a way to estimate the math on adding a few minutes cook time to a patty that's 40°F rather than just-seared-with-carryover?
The unbelievably awesome difference: pre-searing with beef tallow. Talk about upping the beefy flavor!
Are we trying to make a good burger or just feed guests? I have friends who have to eat at 5:30 they don't care what they eat or what it tastes like they just like food at 5:30.
I don't care when I eat but I like my food to taste good. A hamburger only takes a few miniutes on the grill. Lightly squish a hand full of ground beef between two baggies into a
round patty and grill. I would be ashamed to feed my guests out of a bag.
Ground beef you buy at the store, butcher shop or mega store is only guaged on fat content Ground chuck, Ground Round, or Sirloin may have none of those cuts in them only the fat per centage. Butchers nor you could affored to clean the grinder before and after a grind ( 30 Minutes) to insure a single cut grind, there is at least a 1/2pound left in the screw with each grind. You would have to buy 2 1/2 Lbs. round steak to get 1 Lb of ground round and that would be sirloin.
I have one question about searing options. It's best searing before souse vide cooking or after? I have not tried this technic yet, but I think that searing after is better for nice crispy crust. My english is not perfect but I hope it is at least understandable. Mirko
The big deal with the ring mold isn't this recipe...it's the size of the bun you're using. If you're making a slider with this recipe, a 105mm ring mold would be silly. Match the ring mold to your desired bun and adjust the weight of the meat to create the patty thickness you want, then weigh that, and then weigh the rest so you're consistent.
My last burguers were breaking easily in parts... I tried to freeze it a little to try to sear better... don't know if was that.
I'm using eggs, and sometimes it happen.
And after searing, my burgers are always smaller, so they turn to be smaller than the break.
Any tip to not shrink or just make it bigger?
If I cook a burger in this method do I still need to worry about consuming it medium rare? I know with longer sous vide time it sterilizes the food but 15 minutes in the water bath does not sound sufficient although I could be wrong. Can you address this please?
They wouldn't actually see the bag Sherlock and you could always save the grill for the end in which case they would not notice the difference. All the juices will be lost when grilling the full time as opposed to sous vide where it traps the juices in adding more beef flavor to patty and more moisture in general. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out why sous vide would work great for hamburgers.
If you are grinding the meat, there is little opportunity for the meat to come in contact with any nasties. A little less worry-free would be having the butcher grind a cut for you to order. But I would be wary cooking pre-ground meat from a Styrofoam boat under medium doneness.
@Aldo Ferrari — The plates are from CB2: http://www.cb2.com/frank-dinnerware/f7923
We use paragraphs in my restaurant, makes things much easier to read.
America's Test Kitchen ground beef without a meat grinder by cutting beef into cubes, freezing for 30 minutes and then pulsing in a food processor. I have tried it several times and it works great.
I like to do a mix myself. The way I think of it is I want a fatty meat for moisture, a super tasty meat for flavor, and an all around good meat for volume. Then I go shopping and see whats on sale. I normally wind up with a combo of chuck, skirtsteak/oxtail, and sirloin/brisket of some kind. You really can't go wrong though. ;p
If you're going to it that way you might consider cooking in a water bath at around 131F for 45-50 min. It's a lot longer but this way you don't have to be quite as precise with your time
I know modernist cuisine recommends a blend of short rib, hangar steak, and aged ribeye. I use all short rib and that works pretty well
If you want to pasteurize the burgers (not a bad idea when working with ground meat), you'll want ~2 hours at 131F.
This was so interesting I didn't mind the lack of paragraphination. (I think I just invented a word!).
Medium rare would be 134 degrees F / 56.5 C. This video suggests 144F / 62 C -- that's medium to medium-well temperature, and it's done after pre-searing in a screaming hot pan, so 15 minutes should be fine. They also do it with freshly-ground meat, which has less risk of pathogens than pre-ground meat.
I like to pre-sear in a little bacon fat
There are plenty of sub $50 thermostats out there that allow you to transform a crockpot/rice cooker to a sous vide setup. Look online from beer making suppliers.
I often wonder if in this situation you need to make the burger a bit firmer and more pressed to stop it falling apart.
