Getting Started

On December 18, 2018 we finally received our first Sous Vide cooker. Yes, I know we are a little late jumping on that bandwagon. But, we came across a great deal on the cooker.
 
We had already thawed a 6 oz. Filet Mignon in anticipation. Early in the afternoon we dry brined the steak. The dry brine was some Kosher salt on the steak, raised over a plate to catch any juices and to allow air to circulate. Sit in the fridge for 6 hours, flipping over after 3 hours.

After the dry brine, we put our basic house rub on the steak. The rub is a simple coating of Olive Oil, a small amount of Kosher salt, garlic granules and ground black pepper. Nothing too fancy here, we want the flavor of the steak to stand out. I probably went a little overboard with the garlic.
Sous Vide steak seasoned
 

The cook

We set the cooker for a temperature of 133 for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
 
This seemed to be the average from all the web sites I was looking at to get started on Sous Vide. I also used my Thermapen to see if that temp and the cookers temp were the same. They were within 1 degree so I’m comfortable with the thermometer built into the cooker.
 
After the time was up I removed the steak from the baggie. I placed it on a pre-heated cast iron skillet with a tbsp of melted butter. Seared it for 1 minute per side and then 30 seconds per side. I took a quick temp reading with the Thermapen. Alarmed that the temperature had risen to 143. Next time I’ll do 1 minute per side. That in no way ruined this steak. It can get a little messy.
Sous Vide steak in skillet
 

The result

Here is the result, after resting for 5 minutes, along with a baked potato. Perfect medium rare throughout the steak and no gray along the edges. Sorry about the mess behind the pic. I wanted to get the pic and eat.
Sous Vide Steak
 
This turned out to be a great steak. It was very tender and moist and I’m impressed with the cooker. Yet, once spring time rolls around it’s back out to the grill and a reverse sear for the steaks. The one thing I missed about this was the hint of hickory smoke that I can get on the steaks when cooking them outside. I am not going to use any type of liquid smoke or smoked salt to achieve this flavor. Well, never say never. But that is not my intent.
 
I would definitely not recommend skipping the final step. The steaks need the quick char on the outside. They did not look super appealing before we put them in the cast iron, as you can tell from two pictures above.
 
I’m not going to write a whole post on it, but a few nights after this we tried our first chicken breast using the cooker. No dry brine, basic seasoning and it turned much more tender and juicy that I thought it would. Chicken breasts on the grill might become a thing of the past, but not the steaks.