I am making this recipe for pulled pork, planning to do 24 hours at 75 deg C. After coming home from work, I discovered I did not suck the air out properly and there is a big bubble in the bag, causing it to float to the top and for the top of the meat to be not submerged properly. I have now put a bowl on top of it to weigh it down for the next 12 hours. Will it still be safe to eat? Will it taste good?
Sous vide air bubble, still safe to eat
sous-vide
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Your set-up is fine. You'll probably eventually want to trade in the stock-pot for something like this:
But there is no reason that the set-up you have shouldn't make great salmon. I have exactly that set-up (including the stock-pot for now, but the square polypolycarbonate container is on order).
125F for one hour is pretty close to bare minimum time and temperature for salmon fillet. I like it that way, but it appears that you have a different expectation than I do. I base that guideline on the recipe from Modernist Cooking Made Easy: Sous Vide: The Authoritative Guide to Low Temperature Precision Cooking and having just enjoyed salmon done at 122F for 1 hour.
First, double check your water temperature just to be sure. If you have a sous-vide circulator and a vacuum sealer, I don't want to hear that you don't have a digital, instant read thermometer. Double check that your Anova circulator is producing the temperature for which it is set. If the temperature is how you've set it, that means that you don't like your salmon that rare. Simple as that.
140F for 1.5 hours is pretty much the upper limit for a typical salmon filet to not be overcooked. That would be overcooked for me, but I have a preference for rare.
Assuming that your circulator isn't defective, you will almost certainly like salmon somewhere on that spectrum. Exactly where you like it best, only you can say.
For your steaks, 5 minutes of searing seems like a pretty long time, easily enough to go from medium-rare to medium, or even more than that, depending on thickness and exactly how hot the pan is. It's definitely normal for the meat to be gray before the sear, so if your pan was indeed as hot as you can get it and you needed the whole 5 minutes to get the level of sear you want, you may want to deliberately undershoot more with the sous vide. You may also want to pat the steaks dry, if the liquid from the bag is possible taking you too long to cook off.
For the burgers, you don't mention ever salting them, which would certainly make them bland. You shouldn't mix salt into the patties, but salting just before bagging should be fine, or at least before searing. J. Kenji López-Alt suggests salting before bagging and before searing. On top of that, sirloin steak is pretty lean, which would account for the dryness and maybe some blandness. You might want to try a fattier cut, or part sirloin and part something fatty. People have all kinds of opinions about what's best, but I don't think many people like it as lean as pure sirloin.
In general, salting before bagging is totally fine and often recommended - yes, it might pull a little more liquid out, but if you want salt for flavor, it's going to be a lot more effective in the bag than added at the end. And you're going to get a lot of liquid in the bag no matter what you do. It doesn't mean the meat won't be good, although you can make a great pan sauce out of it and get even more flavor.
Poor circulation, including bags getting stuck against one side without water getting around the other side, definitely isn't ideal. It's hard to tell how big an issue it is for you, though. The best way to check would be just to sneak a thermometer probe to the places you think may not be getting good circulation and see how big a difference there is.
The pot size depends a bit on what you're making. A big stock pot is definitely big enough for a lot of things. I think the one I use is 10-12 quarts, and I do big stuff like pork shoulders. If all you're doing is a couple steaks or fish filets, you can get away with smaller.
Best Answer
Air in the bag can be a result of two things: (a) you did not properly eliminate it, or (b) bacterial growth. The main problem is that the portion of the protein that has floated above the water will not be at the same temperature as that which is under the surface. We don't know what portion of the meat was above the waterline, nor for how long. So, I won't make any guesses about safety or quality. Given your description it is difficult to determine whether your issues is related to (a) or (b)...or maybe even both, if you did not notice floating immediately. In the future, firstly make sure you seal properly, by using a vacuum machine, or barring that, submerging your bag, which has been sealed most of the way, in water to force the air out. At the last moment, seal the rest of the way. You can inhibit bacterial growth on long cooks at low temperatures by either giving the protein a quick sear on all sides, or a 10 second dunk in boiling water. If you are using sturdy vacuum bags, you can dunk in boiling water after you bag the meat.