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Sous Vide Guidelines

JW's Sous Vide System

This system will allow you to simultaneously cook 8 steaks, or 1-3 large cuts of meat.

Heads up: do not buy an Anova-branded vacuum sealer.

Food Safety

One of the most interesting things about Sous Vide is that you can cook food that is completely frozen. The times listed above for deer/game are based on frozen or semi-frozen meat, where everything else is geared towards meat that is already thawed. Add 45-60 minutes when cooking from frozen for those other meats.

Never sous vide in the vacuum sealed bag from the butcher. It's unlikely that it is meant for sous vide temperatures. Plus, you should always be adding seasoning, salt, and sometimes even butter or beef tallow, which you can't do if you aren't sealing in your own bag.

You can thaw meat under cold running water in the sink (2 hr max) or you can thaw by placing the frozen meat in the fridge. Food thawed in the fridge will retain the most integrity and flavor compared to food thawed under running water, but either method works. If the piece of meat is so big that you cannot thaw it under running water in 2 hours or less, then the only way you can thaw it is in the fridge. Absolutely, under no circumstances, are you to ever thaw food by leaving it out on your counter at room temperature or by placing in direct sunlight. Those methods destroy both integrity and flavor, putting the meat at risk of disease.

After removing food from the sous vide, unless you plan to eat it same day, it should go into a cold water bath for 30 minutes and then immediately moved into the fridge to further chill. On the other hand, if you plan to eat same day, it usually needs a twenty minute rest on the counter before being seared.