THE PERFECT STEAK

Never heard of it before this Thanksgiving at Lake Sonoma talking to ChuckE around the campfire.
He mentioned a way of cooking called Sous Vide (pronounced Sue V). It's french for 'under vacuum'.
The idea is to let the meat soak in a water bath while the meat is sealed in a plastic bag or anything that will keep the water out.
The water is maintained at a constant temperature so however you want your meat to be cooked you keep the water at that temperature.
There are a couple of great benefits right off the bat. You don't have to tend to it, you won't over cook it, and it will be cooked exactly the same throughout.
Sous Vide machines can be purchased for upwards of $500...no thanks.
You can also buy a thingy that will heat and monitor the water temp for between $100-$150...no thanks.
But for $31 I can get the job done.
I ordered a Willhi wh1436 temperature controller from Amazon. About $31 including shipping.
Use this device in conjunction with your slow cooker (crock pot).
The way it works is that you plug the controller into the wall, set the desired temp (I went with 130 degrees/medium rare) and the temp variance (I went with a 2 degree variance) and plug the crock pot into the controller.
There is a thermometer with a long cord that you place in the water.
When the temp of the water reaches 130 the controller turns off the crock pot. When the water drops to 128 degrees (my 2 degree variance) it turns the crock pot back on.
The variance can be set to a value as little as 0.1 degree.
Put the sealed meat in the water and walk away.
You can let it cook for one hour or four hours, it doesn't matter. The meat will just stay at the temp and won't cook any further.
There are scientific calculations of how the meat breaks down after so many hours, but between one and 4 you are fine.
This web site explains it all the best: http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/06/food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-steak.html#tempchart1
I let them go for 2 hours.
Pulled them out, seared them in a hot buttered grill, less than a minute on each side, and they were done to perfection.
You can also toss them on a hot BBQ afterwards if you prefer grill marks or a crispy outside.
One of these steaks was over 1'' thick and it was cooked exactly the same all the way through.
Tender???? Melt in your mouth tender. Flavor was amazing.
I could not have been happier with how these turned out.
Here's a tip if you decide to go this route with this temp controller. The directions can be a bit confusing and frustrating because of one letter. The instructions are from Asia but are in English. In the instructions H=heating and C=cooking. Confused the hell out of me until after watching a video or two I realized if you replace the 'K' in cooking with an "L" it now becomes cooling which makes all the sense in the world.

I have a sous verde machine it is amazing. Nice job.

Sounds like a good Christmas gift. I noticed amazon has two similar units. One is with a cooling function and one without. I wonder if they work the same other than that. They are the same price. It looks like one has a max of 5 watts and the other is 8 watts.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015G25HNQ?keywords=Willhi%20wh1436&qid=1449451193&ref_=sr_1_2&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V4TJR00?keywords=Willhi%20wh1436&qid=1449451474&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

Sounds like a good Christmas gift. I noticed amazon has two similar units. One is with a cooling function and one without. I wonder if they work the same other than that. They are the same price. It looks like one has a max of 5 watts and the other is 8 watts.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015G25HNQ?keywords=Willhi%20wh1436&qid=1449451193&ref_=sr_1_2&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V4TJR00?keywords=Willhi%20wh1436&qid=1449451474&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

They are a heating OR cooling unit, hence the H and C.
Let's say you want to cool down a room. Plug your fan into the unit and set the max temp. Instead of turning off when it hits the temp it will turn on the fan. You can set the low value to turn off the fan.
Say you want your room at 72 degrees at the highest and 68 at the lowest. The fan comes on when the room hits 72 and will turn off at 68. That's the cooling function. 

Since I don't want to cool down my room is there any down side to getting the heat only unit? It looks like the heat only unit handles a higher wattage.

Wow! That's badass, thanks for posting this, I'm on it, I just read your post my wife, she said - Get one, this will be great for our crock pot recipes!

 

Looks good bro!!! bring it to LS and cook my a ribeye!!!

I'd love to try a steak cooked in this manner (maybe I have at a steakhouse and didn't know it). 

I did try the reverse sear method once and honestly it wasn't any better than the method recommended by Alton Brown - http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/pan-seared-rib-eye-recipe.html.  I don't wait a long time for me to be able to eat and the results come out fantastic.  Love the cast iron skillet!

Before I forget, thanks to Chuck E, too!
He has taught a lot of us great ways/recipes for cooking many things!

    To much work. 

Mike, that looks great!

They've had some good deals on a sous vide machine recently, the anova brand. I am in a pre-order for a new one with Wi-Fi, with the hope that I can set a frozen steak in the bath when I leave for work and have it ready when I arrive home to sear.

This is a great idea. I made a similar temperature control for brewing out of an aquarium thermostat that would work perfectly for this. I think it was around $20 and took about half an hour to build. I'm going to give it a try with some steak.

I use the Anova Sous Vide and it does work great but a little cumbersome to use sometimes.

Another way I do it to use the slow cooker. If I have a frozen steak, I just place it in the slow cooker (low setting for 8 hours) in the morning before I leave for work and put some rosemary on top. When I get home I just season and cook it. Meat comes out very tender almost as good as the sous vide machine.

Another way to cook steak....My daughter sent this link a few days ago.
http://simplepickup.com/article/5220/how-to-make-a-sexy-steak-with-tim-ferriss

Enjoy!

Neat stuff.

I use a similar temp controller with my Bradley smoker. It lets me program cook times, temps, etc.