DIY Sous Vide and 48 hour short ribs


 
Dave from Denver

Dave from Denver

TVWBB Wizard
For those not following the discussion here I undertook to build my own sous vide controller from parts using instructions from this blog.

I ordered all the parts mentioned in the blog, and have had to make a couple trips to radio shack as well for troubleshooting items. The device works great as an immersion circulator, and once it settles in to temperature it holds steady in a .1C range. I didnt have to fuss with programming the PID very much as it includes an autotune feature to self calibrate to any container.

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I made a couple chicken breasts and confit wings that I havent eaten yet, and dinner last night was 48 hour 132.5 F/56C bone in short ribs. Served with red wine sauce, pickled beets, roasted gold nugget squash and domino potatoes.

Sorry for the bad cell phone photo.

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Ribs were great, nice and tender with a steak-like texture but as you can see I had to trim them after cooking and serve them in pieces. The 132F temp did no rendering and the thick veins of fat in these ribs were unpalatable, so I had to remove them. Not sure if meatier ribs would work better next time.
 
Momofuku calls for 140*, not sure how much that would effect the fat.

Beef rib quality can be tricky. They have big packs of them at RD, and you can see how the rib meat varies across a rack. I buy a 4 pack of 4 rib racks (16 ribs total) and I'd say half are great and the others are too thin. I like buying these packs because I'm guaranteed some nice ones.

IMO, the 48 hr rib cook was worth the price of my sv rig. I compared it to my meal at Per Se. It cost about the same as my sv rig and I had one dish that was an absolute revelation (Oysters and Pearls). The 48 hr rib was the same, but I get to share it with all my friends and family.
 
From the description "Sous Vide" just sounds like a fancy word for boiled. I have been experimenting with a crock pot lately.
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Thanks, guys.

This project has been very rewarding so far. If you plan to build it, one recommendation I have would be to spring for the extra $15 for a waterproof thermocouple. Mine is bare metal, and above 70C I get some electrical signal noise from the heaters.

I was able to trouble-shoot the gremlin by using some capacitors and the digital noise filter built into the PID. Still, above 70C or so I get rapid fluctuations in my thermocouple reading of +- .5C. That is within my tolerances especially at higher heat so I'm not sweating it for now.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Shaun R:
From the description "Sous Vide" just sounds like a fancy word for boiled. I have been experimenting with a crock pot lately.
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</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

the big difference is, the food is vacuum sealed in a plastic bag - so it never comes in contact with water

AND, the water never boils. Water temp is 130-150 usually.
A lot of techniques keep the water temperature at or below the finishing temp of the food - which means that food can sit in that water bath for hours and never overcook.
 
Fantastic meal Dave, but even better new toy! I may have a moment of nerdy weakness and spend $75 on parts. Nice Winter project.
 
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