Not many people know that you can use our brewing systems to make more than just beer. Because our brewing equipment is designed to heat and recirculate water for long periods of time, they’re perfect for making sous vide foods. Don’t be intimidated by the name of the cooking technique, even though “sous vide” sounds like a fine culinary term, it’s a surprisingly easy process that yields amazing results.
Why Sous Vide?
There are many advantages to the sous vide process when compared to traditional cooking techniques. Sous vide takes a lot of time, but the process guarantees that you will never overcook any protein. When cooking meat on a skillet or grill, heat is not distributed evenly, meaning the surface of your steak can become burnt while the interior is still cold. With sous vide, nothing will ever exceed the set temperature. A steak submerged in water at 140° F (60° C) will be cooked the same inside and out. This guarantees an expensive cut of steak won't go to waste.
Soude vide is also great for meal prep. You can easily sous vide your favorite proteins on the weekend and toss them in the fridge while they're still vacuum sealed. Vacuum sealed foods last much longer in the fridge, so something sous vide on Sunday could be consumed on Friday.
We’ve been thinking about doing sous vide food for a while, simply because our brew systems can sous vide any food with zero modifications. With our brew systems, you can heat water at a very specific temperature, recirculate water for even temperature, and use the grain basket to keep food away from the heating element. This is all you need to make perfect sous vide food at home.
Full Recipe Video
Here’s a video that illustrates the following recipe
Ingredients / Items needed
- Steak
- Seasonings - We used All-Purpose Barbecue Rub and “Rub Some Butt”
- Parsley (optional)
- Vacuum Sealer - alternatively you can use Ziploc bags
- Propane canister - camping size
- Searzall Torch attachment
- To make this a full meal, buy some potatoes and veggies of your choosing - these can be sous vide as well
Steps
1. Add water to your kettle and let it heat to 132° F (55.5° C)2. Season your steak liberally - feel free to add more than we did
3. Vacuum seal your steaks and add them to the kettle
4. Cook your steaks at 132° F (55.5° C) for 2 hours - recirculate using the pump and spray valve during this time to ensure all the water stays evenly heated
5. Prepare your potatoes and veggies and place them into the kettle with your steak for the last hour of cooking
We seasoned our potatoes and veggies with butter and salt
We had to use a metal weight to fully submerge our veggies - you can easily substitute this with a pot or pan in your kitchen
6. After 2 hours, pull your steaks out. Bump the kettle temperature up to 190° F (87.8° C) and add your vegetables back in - cook vegetables for an hour or more longer
Lifting the grain basket to pull our fully cooked steaks out
7. While the veggies are still cooking, cut the bags holding your steaks and pat them dry with a paper towel
8. Place your steak on a surface used for cooking (griddle, skillet, etc.) and sear it using your camping fuel and Searzall torch - do this outside or it may set off a fire alarm
This is our searing device - a Searzall torch attached to a camping fuel canister
Slowly moving the torch around all sides of your steak is enough to sear it
9. Pull your veggies out and enjoy everything
Our finished veggies
Our finished steak
We were blown away by how good these steaks turned out. Using our recipe, these steaks had a medium finish with just enough red on the inside. The texture and moisture level that the sous vide process imparted on our steak was unlike anything we had ever experienced.
Both Emmet and Kyle, who made this recipe, agreed that this was one of the best steaks they’ve ever had. Doing this was super easy and affordable, especially if you already have our brewing system. We highly recommend you try this at home
Emmet gives the steak two thumbs up
This was our first time doing Sous Vide on our system. After learning from this attempt, we would have put our veggies in at the same time as our steak or even before our steak to let them cook longer. Do this to ensure your whole meal is ready at the same time.
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