Rosbif - Sous Vide vs KK

[tekobo]

The Italians make a mean roast beef.  They call it Rosbif and it is cooked rare or medium rare, cooled and sliced thinly on a meat slicer.  I ran into problems on my last visit to Italy when I asked a friend for his recommendation for the best rosbif in town.  He took me to a horse butcher and could not understand why I thought it was funny that the "bif" in rosbif didn't mean beef but just any meat that Italians think is tasty when roasted rare!

We are back home in the UK and I want to roast a couple of veal joints for a party tomorrow.  Heston Blumenthal has a recipe for slow roasting beef in a 60C degree oven for about 6 hours until it hits 55C internal temperature.  I have made it a few times and it gives you an edge to edge consistent pink meat.  Today I had two joints and I decided that it would be easier and more energy efficient to achieve the same effect in my sousvide water bath.

Here are the two joints.

I seared them on a very very hot griddle and managed to avoid greying too much of the meat.

 Here is the first one seasoned and ready to be vacuum packed and go into the water bath.

I decided to try cooking the second joint in the KK, knowing that it would be tough to keep the temp as low as 60C consistently.  I used fresh cocoshell briquettes to reduce the chance of any hotspots and I put my cast iron smoker pot over the coals to shield the meat.  I thought I would get a little smoke but it turns out there is just not enough heat to get the woodchips going.   Here is the KK joint all wired up to the MEATER block.  The problem I now have is with connectivity.  The good news is that the MEATER seems to be staying connected to the thermometers and so my job is narrowed down to trying to bump up the wifi signal to that corner of the garden.  When I last connected up the KK was at 80C so I dialled the top hat down just a little to avoid snuffing out the fire.  I will report back tomorrow when I have both joints sliced for the taste test.  

 

 

[C6Bill]

Can’t wait to hear about the results 😁

[Tyrus]

Looking at my clock I'm figuring it's safe to post and your still asleep. Love the meat Tekobo, wrapped like a present and so many decorations, with a watchdog on the side. I'll be looking and hoping you share some of those results with us....praytell.

[DamienMcdonald]

tik tak tik tak..... im waitin

[tekobo]

Well, the experiment turned out great.  The cook was for a party yesterday hence the delay with getting back to posting.  A good time was had by all.  Now, down to business.

First let us talk about temperatures.

My MEATER kept dropping off so I don't have a temperature trace to share with you but I took these three photos within a minute of each other.  The two thermometers on the side of the joint in the KK were measuring 73C while the one in the top was measuring 81C.  The KK dome thermometer was measuring about 73C too while the grill grate thermometer was showing close to 100C.  In some ways, the actual temp of the KK was not critical, what was more critical was getting the meat out when it was close to hitting the 55C target internal temperature.  The KK was great, keeping a steady temp for the whole of the approx 3 hour cook.  

I found this really thin needle temperature probe that my Husband bought years ago for poking into sousvide bags to check the temp of the contents.  Here is the reading on the sous vide joint after about 5 hours in the water bath.  A check on the KK joint showed a range of temps from 57C at the thinnest end to 52C in the centre.  The good news is that the internal temp was consistent across the joint, staying the same as I pulled the needle from the centre to the edge.  

I rested the joints over night in the fridge and only cut them just before we had to serve them to the guests.  Nail biting!

Here are the two joints.  The right hand one was cooked in the KK.  It did have a faint smell of smoke so we did get some smoke into it from the smoke pot, even at that low temperature.  

 

And here are the results.  KK joint on the right.

Sliced up the sous vide joint was consistently pinker (lower pile in the pic below) but I suspect I could have got closer to that result in the KK by going for a slightly lower target temp.

  

Learning? Sous vide is easier.  Set and forget the water bath temp and get your meat out when you are ready.  KK is more fun and does almost as good a job without having to buy extra equipment.  Also have opportunity to introduce smoke when using the KK and  I could have used the cold smoke generator to get a more pronounced smoke flavour.  All in all I was very happy with the results from both methods and our guests loved this, new to us Brits, Italian method of cutting roast beef.  

 

 

[qundoy]

Oh my, that looks delicious! 

[David Chang]

i just want to say i really like saying the word "ROSBIF" 😂

looks good! @tekobo

[Tyrus]

Fine job Tekebo, it made an attractive looking plate. Like I said when I did my Rib roast I found the process to be like cheating, it's going to give you what you ask for. Here's the catch though, your meat will always stay at what you set your water temp at, if you let it go past it's (optimum) point, time wise for too long the meat will begin to break down and you end up with mush. That would be the risk if there's any risk at all. Either road at the fork, be it Sous vide or straight on cook you'd may be hard pressed to distinguish one from the other in a taste or visual test, but personally I prefer the latter. Sous vide is an insurance policy, a food prep worth knowing, it certainly gets you by an anticipated obstacle, but doesn't fill the air with the aroma of what's cooking.

Edited August 22 by Tyrus

[jonj]

Very nice! Looks delicious!

[tekobo]

It was delicious and I have since had thicker hand sliced portions.  The difference between super thin slices on a machine and thicker slices cut by hand is like night and day.  The former is much more like charcuterie, light in the mouth and a bit more of a snack while you get much more of a chew and, I think, more of the meat flavour with the thicker slices.   I like both.

To respond to @Tyrus point:  Yes, sous vide doesn't give you much sensory fun.  And you are limited by the size of the water bath.  I am pleased to have been able to keep the KK at such a low temp and might try to simulate other sous vide cooks in the future.