So I just cooked a steak in a beer cooler...

I got the idea here

I bought a medium sized filet at Whole Foods this am. About 5 pm I chopped some shallots fine and sliced some garlic thin. These items I placed on said filet. Meanwhile, I started boiling some water.

This was the only real problem: According to my probe thermometer, the hottest water out of my tap is 109 degrees or so. I wanted medium rare: about 133 degrees before I dropped my steak (you will lose a few degrees warming the cooler steak). Well, two pots of 110 degree water plus one pot of boiling water = about 120 degrees. Not so good. So I had to boil two pots of water. So be it. (I'm using pots because the size of the pot does not matter but the ratio.

So I got the ziplock and put the filet in there. THe way to get 99% of the air out is to slowly immerse the bag with it mostly sealed and right before it goes under completely, zip it up. I don't have a foodsaver, have no room for a food saver and the ziplock worked.

Close the lid of the cooler! My cooler keeps ice for about 3 or 4 days. So it keeps hot water equally as well.

The meat came out at 7:30. I had heated a little canola oil in a cast iron pan, blasted both side, let it rest ten minutes.

The results were fantastic. Silky, perfectly medium rare filet. With a little salt and pepper, perfect.

Next time: salt before sou vide? Maybe. But definitely salt before frying.

Also I am going to try a sirloin and see if the process makes a cheaper cut more appetizing.

Give it a try folks.

That's brilliant! Thanks for sharing this, I'm definitely gonna have to give this a try.

AngrySarah wrote:I bought a medium sized filet at Whole Foods this am. About 5 pm I chopped some shallots fine and sliced some garlic thin. These items I placed on said filet.

As a bit of warning, according to this Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking, raw garlic produces off flavors when cooked sous vide. I've taken it as face value and have always used cooked garlic when doing sous vide, so I can't say definitively that raw garlic does what the author says, but worth keeping in mind while you play around.

-Dan

I did this last week as well with a whole pork tenderloin. I had a probe thermometer so I put a pot of water on the stovetop until it got about 155 (I was shooting for pork at around 150). Where I went wrong was that I tried to cook it with the probe thermometer in the meat, so I had to leave part of the ziplock bag unzipped. I tried my best to keep water out of it but some did get in there. I was a little skeptical that my small beer cooler (one of the small ones that probably holds about 12 beers) would keep the water at 155 or so. I think next time I will just leave the thermometer in the water itself and not the meat; that way I can keep the bag zipped. My only fear is that the meat won't get up to temp since you sort of have to guess at how long to leave the meat in the water for.

How long did you leave the steak underwater for?

I left the steak in there about 2.5 hours. I used a larger cooler and put about 15-17 gallons in there - partly by mistake but the larger thermal mass helps keep the temp steadier.

Tonite is boneless chicken breasts!

Sarah-

Steak recipe sounds good - but I'm curious about your tap water temperature. It should be set at about 140 degrees - UNLESS you have very small kids in your household who couldn't quickly get away from hot water out of a faucet, because 140 degrees can injure them.

If you're in a multi-family unit with a central water heater, of course, you can't do anything about it.

When my daughter and her husband were in a townhouse with very young kids, I told the SIL to dial it down to 120 deg. We visited them in their house in Pbgh recently and were startled at the heat of their hot water. I mentioned it to Roy and he said "I lived with lukewarm water for years, and now, by God, I got HOT water!" (The girls are 16 and 13.)

He is a superlative Mister Mom, and he deserves all the hot water he wants!

This is quite fascinating and very creative and seems like a fun thing to do. I get it and wouldn't mind giving it a try. I am wondering though what advantage spending 2.5 hours with a somewhat tedious process has over spending about 7-8 minutes with a hot skillet.

MikeLM wrote:Sarah-

Steak recipe sounds good - but I'm curious about your tap water temperature. It should be set at about 140 degrees - UNLESS you have very small kids in your household who couldn't quickly get away from hot water out of a faucet, because 140 degrees can injure them.

If you're in a multi-family unit with a central water heater, of course, you can't do anything about it.

When my daughter and her husband were in a townhouse with very young kids, I told the SIL to dial it down to 120 deg. We visited them in their house in Pbgh recently and were startled at the heat of their hot water. I mentioned it to Roy and he said "I lived with lukewarm water for years, and now, by God, I got HOT water!" (The girls are 16 and 13.)

He is a superlative Mister Mom, and he deserves all the hot water he wants!

'lil AS is only barely two. We turned it down.

MKL wrote:This is quite fascinating and very creative and seems like a fun thing to do. I get it and wouldn't mind giving it a try. I am wondering though what advantage spending 2.5 hours with a somewhat tedious process has over spending about 7-8 minutes with a hot skillet.

With this method (or any slow-cooking technique, really, be it oven, beer cooler or immersion circulator), you get a piece of meat that is cooked very, very evenly all the way through. On the other hand, if you just toss a raw steak on a hot skillet and cook it until it's medium rare in the middle, the outsides will be overcooked & tough.

Khaopaat wrote:

MKL wrote:This is quite fascinating and very creative and seems like a fun thing to do. I get it and wouldn't mind giving it a try. I am wondering though what advantage spending 2.5 hours with a somewhat tedious process has over spending about 7-8 minutes with a hot skillet.

With this method (or any slow-cooking technique, really, be it oven, beer cooler or immersion circulator), you get a piece of meat that is cooked very, very evenly all the way through. On the other hand, if you just toss a raw steak on a hot skillet and cook it until it's medium rare in the middle, the outsides will be overcooked & tough.

Not only that, but the inside of the 7 minute steak, even though it has been cooked to Medium rare, will probably be tougher because it didn't spend enough time in the sweet spot between 80 and 122 degrees where all the tenderizing by the meat's natural enzymes occurs.

Another advantage of the long process is that the meat can be held for hours at it's finished temperature and doneness, giving a broad leeway as far as serving is concerned.

if you just toss a raw steak on a hot skillet and cook it until it's medium rare in the middle, the outsides will be overcooked & tough.

I somewhat disagree with this, and I think the OP did say it was finished in a hot pan. But, that is neither here nor there and I appreciate the explanation. This technique does seem to have advantages.

I bet some potatoes and vegetables cooked in the dishwasher would go nicely with that cooler steak.

I somewhat disagree with this, and I think the OP did say it was finished in a hot pan. But, that is neither here nor there and I appreciate the explanation. This technique does seem to have advantages.

There is a difference. Yes, sous vide steaks and chops are usually "finished" in a hot pan, partly for appearance as well as for a nice seared texture. Cooking from scratch in a pan, especially for a cut of decent thickness will yield textural differences throughout the meat as well as differing levels of doneness. Sous vide allows fo rgreater control o the texture and "cooking" without drying out or toughening the meat. True sous vide also requires vacuum sealing before cooking which can add textural qualities to the finished product. Sous vide fish preparations cna result in cooking without altering the raw texture appreciably - may not be your cup of tea but does allow for added creativity.

Thanks for posting this Sarah! I've had really great luck cooking steaks at low temps (225-250) and then searing at the end, I've been meaning to try the cooler Sous Vide method.

Searing in a hot pan does something similar to caramelizing the proteins and sugars on the outside of the meat, adding a lot of complexity to the flavor. The technical term for it is the Maillard Reaction, which applies to sugars and proteins that are seared. It also kills any bacteria on the surface of the meat, which isn't as much of a concern with Sous Vide cooking.

I usually cook my steaks using the blast and sear method, but cooking in a beer cooler seemed like fun. Started with a 16 oz NY Strip from Gene's Sausage Shop.



Put it in a zip-lock bag, pressed as much air out as possible, sealed it with just enough room for a straw, and then sucked out as much of the remaining air as possible.



My tap water only gets up to around 107 degrees, so I used a few batches of heated water to bring the temperature of the water in the cooler to 124 degrees and in went the steak. I was aiming for a final temp of about 125 degrees, the rare side of medium rare.

I pulled the steak after 70 minutes, and the water temp had dropped to 120 degrees, and the internal temp of the steak was 114. The outside of the steak had taken on a greyish pink color.



I seasoned it with salt and pepper, and then seared it in a smoking hot pan for about a minute and a half per side. After a ten minute rest, the internal temp registered 123 degrees. IMO, the color of the interior of the steak looked more cooked than a 123 degree temp would indicate, but maybe that is a result of this cooking method and/or my probe thermometer isn't entirely accurate. Either way, the steak had a nice universal doneness.



So, is cooking in a beer cooler worth the hassle? I didn't find it tasted any better than a traditional cooking method, and I found the texture to be tougher than I had expected...it wasn't a tender, melt-in-your-mouth steak which I was hoping for. Perhaps cooking it in a water bath for a long period of time draws out more moisture. That being said, there are benefits to the beer cooler method of cooking, which is your steak won't overcook no matter how long you leave it in the water bath, and it makes for a really pretty looking steak that is evenly cooked throughout. The results are somewhat similar to the ATK Method as documented here http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=21164&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=30. Just like my feelings towards the ATK Method, I think I'll leave the beer cooler for beer, and stick to the blast and sear.