Just to see how well the oven works as a sous vide setup.
Turned out really nicely, although I had to give it another 20 minutes.
I’m assuming this is pretty poor energy efficiency, though, vs. a dedicated circulator.
There are plenty of things that are safe to eat that others love but I dislike. I have been served, and eaten (more out of politeness than gusto), pink in the middle chicken breasts. I did not like them. I am fine with a little pinkness near the bone in thighs, however.
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I’m unsure of this assumption, and doubtful of its significance, even if true.
One major factor in finding out would be assessing the insulation values of the SV container versus the oven. Both can bleed heat. However, anyone who’s used a quality vintage oven knows that their very good insulation values, a/k/a heat holding ability, is far beyond those of counter- and stovetop pots and Cambros.
Another factor is going to be the energy input required to bring the bath or oven to temperature. With an oven, the air temperature starts heating at ambient, i.e., room temperature. With SV, the bath temp can start much lower, i.e., directly from the cold tap, or can be preheated. A fair comparison would have to take into account the energy required to preheat water going into the bath.
On the other side of the scale, water in SV is extremely thermally conductive, whereas oven air is not. And there will be practically zero heat loss from evaporative cooling in a SV bag. So SV offers a good 1-2 punch of conductive and convective heating.
Whenever these efficiency questions arise, we need to remember that conventional electric oven cookery (and all electricity used in cooking combined) is but a tiny share of household energy consumption. Room, hot water heating, AC, laundry and food storage shares are all much higher, no matter regular oven use. So even if one could generalize which–between SV and oven–is more energy efficient, in the big picture, the difference may be insignificant.
This is hardly a proof or disproof, but I sometimes use a (completely uninsulated) 1800W countertop oven set to 120F to reverse sear steaks prior to grilling. It takes about an hour to bring two steaks to the uniform set temperature. IME, this is roughly the same time it takes in a SV bath heated by a similar-wattage SV circulator. More the same than different, IMO.
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Ah ok. I think of reverse sear as the oven version of sous vide.
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Me too, but I wanted to see if there was a benefit to cooking bagged in water in the oven vs. my usual, slow roasting (exposed to the air) in the oven.
I might try air-roasted but wrapped in foil next time, just to see how it might differ from being exposed. Or one each way, and see if final moisture loss is similar.
A Japanese lady I talked to yesterday confirmed that they eat rare chicken, but it’s only the breast filet, and in a restaurant, not at home.
I guess that the next logical course after that one is fugu!
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I got an order of Buffalo Wings at a favorite bar a week ago and thought I had hit the jackpot with a large meaty thigh “wing”. Then I bit into it and the meat near the bone was chilly, not completely cold but not cooked. I ate it and failed to tell the bar tender/waitress.
So I am part of the problem.
But it was pretty tasty and I did not have any issues.
That time.
Side question, do wings usually come half wings and half thighs everywhere? Because I thought I used to get wings most of the time on the East Coast and now I get half and half, thighs and wings
I couldn’t eat cold (or even chilly) chicken . . . I’m not even a big fan of fully cooked chicken served cold. But I’m glad you lived to tell the tale 
I haven’t run into the thigh thing . . . I don’t order wings out very often, but I don’t think I’d mind if my order included thighs as long as they were properly sauced.
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Thighs? I’ve only ever seen wings (flats) and drumsticks. I suppose that is the chicken’s calf? 
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Are you bringing or dry brining the meat? Or have you had a moisture loss issue otherwise?
I’ve never found moisture loss to be a reverse sear problem. More the inverse, where the liquid in the bag has to be dealt with in sv.
Sometimes I wonder if it leaches out marinade flavors.
Yes to dry brining (or dry salting, for someone around here who likes to complain about the non sequitur presented by “dry brine”). But no, I am happy with my usual in terms of moisture content.
I just like to nerd things up.
I don’t have enough experience with sous vide to know if the moisture coming out of the meat leaches off flavors. I’d guess that it’d have to at least a bit, when viewed in comparison to a cooking method that evaporates juices and in doing so, somewhat concentrates seasoning flavor at the surface.
But I didn’t have a lot of liquid in the bags, maybe 10 ml each. That is more than generally I see under the wire rack when oven heating a similar amount of meat. And the juice did taste a lot of the salt and powdered rosemary and garlic that I had seasoned the pork with.
I drizzled that leftover juice over the meat after searing.
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I know that for possibly pandemic or post pandemic supply chain related reasons, there was for a time an actual shortage of chicken wings, nationally. To the point that I saw advertising stating explicitly that Buffalo Wild Wings was serving thighs.
Perhaps they had surplus supply or entered into contracts, and now they’re just on the tail end of it?
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With my recent 24 hour eye of round experiment (it totally works to tenderize an otherwise very tough roast to roast-beef consistency) I saved all the jus from the sous vide bag, and after searing to roast (post waterbath) in a cast iron skillet to get a crust, I used the jus to deglaze the pan and tossed in a little red wine. Given I’d seasoned the roast with garlic and rosemary in the bag, this was all I needed for a lovely pan sauce to go with my roast beef.
I would imagine you could do that with any sous vide bag jus you happen to end up with, depending fin the protein used.
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doing ‘sous vide’ in a pot of water in the oven will - ‘under conditions’ - be similar to a dedicated in-pot-vessel-container heater/circulation.
but/however/except/and etc . . .
the water temp of a pot of water in the oven will not be the same temp as the oven setting.
yeah, doesn’t sound like a real thing, but it is.
why?
as water evaporates from the pot-o-water in the oven . . . buckets of heat/BTU are removed from the water mass by evaporation. search: heat of vaporization
so if you want a water temp of 165’F (example) you must set the oven temp higher than 165’F
and . . . . how much higher will depend (primarily) on the surface area of the ‘pot in the oven’
the oven set temp for a 10" pot is higher than the oven temp for an 6" pot . . .
some note taking and observational experience(s) required . . .
I kept the lid on the pot (except when checking temp about twice an hour), and with the oven thermometer temp ~160, the water was in the low 150s, which is what i was shooting for.
‘…checking the temp . . .’
yup, you got it nailed.
Please post your results. It may just be me, but I like the oven method, and am sometimes squicked by the sliminess of some meat that slithers out of a SV bag. It can seem completely waterlogged. IMO a little surface drying doesn’t hurt, as long as it ends up moist inside.
This is correct. However, there’s also the recognized phenomenon of temperatures in closed containers in ovens actually being 10-20F higher than the setting. Both phenomena are real.
With modern leave-in thermometers, fortunately neither is any longer a big deal. You just have to remember that published time/temp oven recipes are usually for settings, not for an actual temperature inside the pot.
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Argh.
I think the item I mentioned would be called a drumstick, not a thigh. My error.
I used to get boneless thighs and they were much bigger hunks of meat than the things I called thighs.
These are the wings with the guilty party hiding in the back nearly out of sight. I have gone to having 6 wings as a light lunch of late since it seems like it might be healthier than a small pizza. But given the saucing, that might be a silly assumption on my part. That and the ale i had with them make my rationalization pretty weak.
After looking at my photo, all I can say is that they tasted better than they look. LOL!
Sous vide animal protein does wallow in liquid. The thing is, searing is recommended pretty much universally. Most say afterwards, but some say both before and afterwards. Just remember, pat the protein down to dry it. For roasts, some use torches (common in SV) or a short time in the oven. For chicken, I put it under a broiler after SV, sometimes take a torch to it to even out the browning. For steaks, I find searing in cast iron before and after helps the flavor and appearance….few people think a gray-ish, beige hunk of beef covered in liquid is appealing.
The precise temp control is what I like and ease of use. For a NY strip, 1.5 hrs or so at 131 (perfectly med-rare) makes it fool proof, avoiding screwing up an expensive cut. Of course you can control temp by other means, probe, checking, wifi or oven probe. There’s no best way to cook animal protein , often personal preference or what equipment you have on hand. But SV reduces errors or missteps over other methods, IMO. A $100 SV circulator can maintain a precise temp for days, and not heat up the house or make a mess.
The one thing I haven’t tried but it’s on the list is SV a chuck roast for 24 hours or more at 131….suppose to get you prime rib tenderness at chuck prices. I have SV a tri-tip at131 for 24 hours, then seared it on a gas grill with smoke chips to excellent results. Now I keep a couple in the freezer in vacuum bags. it’s incredibly easy to pull from the freezer, drop in water bath and turn on the SV circulator.
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