I did an eye of round sous vide for 24 hours. The texture turned out both mushy and dry. And flavorless. I didn’t repeat. For all the tips and recipes and blogs I’ve ever read about eye of round, I’ve never prepared one that I was happy with.
Those slices look nearly identical to mine, and I was very happy with the result. I seasoned with PLENTY of salt, pepper amd some garlic and rosemary. I’m surprised you’ve had such consistently poor results.
Apparently this trick is also supposed to work with a chuck roast. Maybe bottom round as well?
Those cuts are so much cheaper than a rib roast or tenderloin. Maybe it’s worth trying one of those as an experiment? Failure is only a minor loss.
I’’Ve pretty much stuck to very low temp reverse sear these days. I did a London Broil yesterday. Heavily seasoned. It was very satisfactory. I also came upon a chuck eye roast sometime this past year which was fabulous. Sometimes, you just luck out and get a cut of meat that’s for some reason really, really good, regardless of the cut or the grade.
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You can approximate this with a Styrofoam cooler and heated/boiled water. There are probably instructions online.
ETA: did this several times before investing in a SV stick that rarely gets used. 
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I finally got a-round to this (poor pun - it’s a round roast, either top or bottom but I didn’t label it).
This roast had been frozen for a month or so. I had pre-salted it to 1.3%, let it sit overnight in the fridge to absorb, then bagged and froze it.
I thawed, coated in some powdered rosemary, pepper, and grated garlic. Wrapped it tightly in foil and stuck a probe in it, and roasted about* 4 hours at 152°F, the lowest I can make my oven go.
(* something like 4 hours; I had to run to the kids’ house for something so my wife pulled it out when the thermometer alarmed, but I forgot to ask her to mark the time).
It turned out very tasty, and a lot more tender than my usual prep, which is ~ 80 minutes at 325°F.
This was a smallish roast, about 2 pounds, and the liquid in the foil was about 15 mL. But I failed to weigh pre/post, and it could have lost more mass in vapor leaking out around the foil, or around the probe hole.
And yes, the chowhound in the background got some scraps, as did his partner in crime.
Also @kaleokahu - I think you mentioned wanting to hear how this went.
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This sounds good. I may try something similar with our oven just for fun, since we’re swimming in beef rn. If you could have gone lower, how much lower? I think my Samsung has a keep warm setting…I wonder if it’s a good idea to pre-sear to kill off surface bacteria when cooking so low?
Silly question, but does this mean you took the raw weight of the meat and added the equivalent of 1.3% of that as salt for seasoning? Is that a consistently good percentage to aim for in your experience?
I’d like to run it down to 140°F and see if the extra time required to get to 133-134°F makes it more tender. I’m guessing it might take another ~ 3 hours, but that is just a wild guess.
I do have a lower oven on this stove with a “Warm” setting (although it’s good for regular baking, too, goes up to 450). It looks like it should be a range of temps because the dial has an arc, with the first numeric setting after that being 200°F. So I’m glad you asked, and I have a probe in there now. It only gets used on holidays for casseroles or buns, when we have disparate temps between the meats cooking and/or other casseroles.
I’ve also got a large counter-top model. I mapped it the other day. Its first setting for the oven after the “toast” feature is at 100°F, then the next is 180°F, 250 etc. up to 450°F and Broil. It’s pretty decent at the higher temps, but swings too much at lower temps to be useful.
Below is about an hour’s snippet of over 2 hours of adjusting up/down, up/down. It’s not horrible in the grand scheme of things, but I can’t be monitoring it constantly over a several-hours long baking period.
As for salt amount, I actually like it around 1.5% - and yes, based on original mass of the meat. Subtracting out for bones. But I wanted to leave room in case I wanted it less or more salty in the end, so I used 1.3%. I’m still on the fence about salting stuff before freezing. This on turned out fine, but I’ve had steaks end up mealy.
A whole pork shoulder (aka Boston Butt) or big bone-in ribeye might only be 10% bone, so I’ll just fudge it for those cuts, but other stuff like pork ribs are close to 50% bone mass, and something like beef back ribs might be 65% bone mass, so for bonier stuff I pay more attention and reduce salt by however much I estimate the bone mass to be.
I also salt chicken or turkey around 1.25-1.5% if I’m using single pieces I’ve butchered off the whole. I figure the bone mass at around 20% (edit - except obv not if I’ve boned the piece), although I’ve never bothered to figure it out for real.
For a whole chicken or whole turkey, I usually brine. Twice I’ve salted the entire bird and did a poor job of distribution, which some parts ending up a lot saltier than others.
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Helpful – thanks!
I’m going to give this one more shot but it might be a bust. With the dial just barely nudged into the “Warm” range, I can get a pretty steady 130°F. It climbed there and held quite steady (129-130°F) for over 30 minutes.
I nudged the knob just a bit more (I’d like to get 140°F) and it started rapidly climbing, and at 165°F showed no inclination of stopping, so I shut it down. Opened the drawer and let it cool, then tried again. Pretty much the same result.
I’m going to test it some more, but there may not be a way to get just a bit more than 130°F, instead of getting a lot more.
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This is a sliding scale process… it is a 7-log reduction. That means these times reduce risk to 1/7th of your starting point. If you start with chicken that is speed processed and batch water-cooled, you start with a high bacteria load and when reduced to 1/7. It is much safer than when it started but I would not trust it myself.
If you start with a bird that is air-chilled, your bacteria load going in in much lower.
I have never cared for sous vide for either my professional or private cooking. But I do play with low and slow cooking and I find that for breast meat chicken 138 to 140 leaves the meat flabby while 148 is better and 155 is my favorite. For thighs, I like 170. The flavors develop and the fats are gelatinized. Yes it is a little dry but the flavor and unctuous fat is worth it.
I like my pork at 140 for chops and tender muscles, 170 for shoulder.
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Doesn’t look overly satisfied with the scraps. Boy, do I know that look. I like how his lip is up on one side. Always ready…always ready. I wouldn’t settle for scraps, either.
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