Hot Tub Spares


 

j biesinger

TVWBB Platinum Member
My interest in sous vide cooking has a lot to do with my desire to master barbecue. If you follow the Modernist Cuisine lab, you'll see that there's plenty of cross over between the two techniques.

I finally got my sous vide rig together this spring and an unsmoked rack of spares and a chunk of brisket become my first guinea pigs.

I started with curing both with the basic cure (with dextrose) from the book Charcuterie. I don't recall what I was shooting for but I think it was around 3.5% salt:meat.

They dried over night in the fridge and this afternoon I hooked up my smoke daddy to my kettle. I've manage to get this thing pumping smoke into a wsm, a primo jr and now a 22" kettle.

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spares and brisket hunk hanging out in the apple wood perfume
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I bagged the meat and dropped it into the hot tub. The goal is 24 hrs at 145*.

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Tomorrow night I'll chill them, and I think I'll play with them on friday as they'll make a nice lunch snack for our first comp.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I'm anxious to see how the color and texture are affected. Can't wait! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I suspect the color won't change much from what you see in the last photo. They still look like that after 12 hrs. Keep in mind, they have been cured with nitrite, so they should look like bacon when they come out (I usually cook bacon to 140-145*).
 
I'd be interested in your reasoning to cure them?

From what I've seen of MC Lab they seem to like smoking at 154 and then a 72 hour bath at the same 154 temps. Interested in your outcome at the lower temp.

Now is it "par-boil" if you bag and place in a dutch oven on a kettle to sous-vide at the comp? Then finish on the kettle to re-establish the bark.
 
This is a very interesting marriage of cooking styles. I bet those ribs will have an amazing consistency. Are you planning to create a crust on them in the end?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Hammy ribs, I'm guessing. Not a bad thing. Keep us informed, you mad scientist. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

you say "hammy", I say "bacony"
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. Ham is a leg, bacon is the belly, but its the same process. For me, what makes ham is the cut, not so much the salty, smokey pork .

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> I'd be interested in your reasoning to cure them? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

a necessary precaution when cold smoking. The warm, anoxic environment during cold smoking has the potential to grow C botulinum.

I suppose I could hot smoke the ribs without curing, but I prefer the flavor from the smoke daddy.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">From what I've seen of MC Lab they seem to like smoking at 154 and then a 72 hour bath at the same 154 temps. Interested in your outcome at the lower temp.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I watched some videos and read some blog posts and it seemed like warmer temps were simply for people who don't know how to cook ribs. In Douglas Baldwin's video, he cooked 8 hrs at 175* and they looked like they might as well been cooked in a crock pot.

I'm looking for something different than cooked ribs.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Now is it "par-boil" if you bag and place in a dutch oven on a kettle to sous-vide at the comp? Then finish on the kettle to re-establish the bark. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm taking these with me to a comp for a snack and we were joking around about pulling a switcheroo, and wondering if anyone has won doing so (we suspect yes).

I'm wondering how well FEC's and the like can hold low temps. I could see somebody working a combi oven (temp controlled steam) like cooker to some effect.

with chicken, and the ubiquitous "hot tub" technique, you'd think you could do something similar with ribs. I was scolded on another forum for suggesting that the chicken hot tub was parboiling. Their argument was that: 1)the thighs are never fully submerged, 2)the bath is not preheated, 3)the bath is in the cooker just like the meat would be, 4)the bath isn't boiling, and 5) the rule was started because some guy would boil a hug tub of sauce and drop all his meat in a few hours before turn in, and this annoyed the guys who stayed up all night cooking their meat.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> This is a very interesting marriage of cooking styles. I bet those ribs will have an amazing consistency. Are you planning to create a crust on them in the end? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

certainly! probably sear them on my Primo.
 
Wow, looking at this I ask myself 2 questions. 1) What the h-e-double hockey sticks is sous vide? I am still trying to soak in as much as I can about this beautiful passion we have called BBQ and this seems way above any technique I have tried and 2) How long before I add a new twist and find myself immersed in this new (to me anyway) technique. Very cool, I am going to check this out further and am anxious to see your follow up.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Wow, looking at this I ask myself 2 questions. 1) What the h-e-double hockey sticks is sous vide? I am still trying to soak in as much as I can about this beautiful passion we have called BBQ and this seems way above any technique I have tried and 2) How long before I add a new twist and find myself immersed in this new (to me anyway) technique. Very cool, I am going to check this out further and am anxious to see your follow up. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

hehe, you should have no trouble finding info on the web. The technique is still pretty grassroots, but its gaining momentum with a couple of semi affordable home units (like Sous Vide Supreme). The microwave oven is sort of a good parallel, 50 years ago nobody had one, now everyone does. Sous vide isn't exactly like that though, as it surely isn't convenient and time saving like the microwave. I heard an interesting vision of the future by the guy who runs the culinary end of the lab equipment company Polyscience, he sees the addition of temp control units to kitchen sinks as a logical outcome.

My rig cost me a tad less than $300. I have a large, electric food warmer/steam table ($90) and a PID controller from Auber Instruments ($180). I did some research and think I have a very usable solution at a good price. I don't have to worry about volume, and once I get my PID tuned, I should have excellent temp control.

I started out doing confit, which morphed into confit in a bag in a water bath. Now I'm full blown sous vide.

Yesterday morning, while the ribs and brisket were "cooking", I dropped in a hunk of bacon. The ribs and brisket went 24 hrs and the bacon went 12. I chilled it all and cut up the belly to add to some hanger steak skewers. I fried up a piece of the bacon and it was perfect, nice and crusty brown on the outside and pillowy soft and tender on the inside. I'm hoping the ribs and brisket are equally good.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Gary H. NJ:
... you mad scientist. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Mad scientist indeed. Cool stuff. Can't wait to hear how they turn out.
 
Alright, the ribs have the most promise but I never got a chance to grill them this weekend so they're back in the freezer.

I did manage to get the hunk of brisket on the grill with a big hit of cracked pepper. It came out really nice. It wasn't as tender as I would like, I'm guessing it could have used another 12 hrs. It was still darn good, really moist, tender when cut cross grain, and had a pastrami flavor.

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The belly bacon that swam for 12 hrs was cut into bits at added to the ends of some hanger steak skewers. These bits were simply amazing. They crisped on the outside and were pillow soft on the inside. These are going into heavy rotation at my house.
 
So these ribs sat in my freezer for close to a year and I finally found an opportunity to break them out. We had a commercial convection oven at our disposal (the restaurant we were at used to be a Subway and this oven is part of the legacy). A few minutes in the oven was all we needed to get the rack crusted up

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not shown, but we sauced them with a curry mustard that was just about perfect on top

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As you can imagine, they were basically bacon on a stick. Interestingly enough, the meat fell off the bone but the meat stayed very firm. It was suggested by Brad Benski that cured meat wont break down as much as uncured does. I have to do some more testing with my sous vide bacon and see if I can figure anything out. It certainly makes sense, since the connective tissue seemed melted.
 
Great job and very interesting JB! You definitly get the prize for longest rib cook! A whole year!
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