Brinkman

Thats easy for you to say! I could be taking an early bath on this one or even worse, sleeping with the fishes.? Asian salmon bagged and marinaded for two days in the holy grail of ginger, kaffir lime leaves and chilli with a soupcon of garlic and my version of teriyaki marinade.

where flying fishes played unhindered

coals sparkling, a heat haze

Todays the day, salmon one way, Asian, will be going into the bath kicking and screaming and if not it then me! Shall I put the bath on now? No, that would just be plain silly, besides I have hot water in the tap, plenty of it, so it will only take two or three hours to heat the bath up, no I'm worrying unnecessarily! Shall I cook it at 46c or 54c? 30 minutes or 45? I spoke to my chef pal and he swears 46c for 30 but others say 54c for 30 but then it could turn out with a chalky taste at 54c! Oh woe is me? Who knew cooking a bit of fish was going to be so stressful? It was never this way when I had a hot pan in front of me with some olive oil and butter in it! Why oh why am I putting myself through this hell? Sorry but its all too much, I'm off for a lie down in a darkened room.?

with pipes of peace wailing

Well only if you are using the newer type of bag with a valve built in! Its only a little hand pump and if used too vigorously with a marinade, it will draw it up and out into the pump, but if you intend to use ziplock or press bags then its down to the old immersion method which works perfectly with marinades. Vacuum sealer bags work best if the item has been left in a marinade and you then intend to move the food across and into a vac bag for sealing. I tend to do it that way, retaining the marinade and freezing it in the ziplock bag to be defrosted and reduced as a glaze on the stove when the chosen food is going to be eaten which saves wasting the marinade! The vac bags are great for veg with butter, seasoning and so on but unless you have an industrial vac sealer the home ones just don't work so good with wet ingredients. Does any of that make sense? I think I'm losing the plot man.?

blew smoke up my, alleyway

Where are you, currently! I can't believe there isn't an Indian somewhere nearby? She who must be obeyed refuses to touch a curry that I haven't made! I like to think its a compliment but hey, she just might be sweet talking me into cooking something other than BBQ?

and in flew Enza

Not what the memsahib called me this morning!? I had to go out and buy more eggs and then prep the Biriyani for a meal in the week! Mind you, it does look and smell very tasty.

times of despair she cried

So lets test to see if the the new SV bath works was my first thought, but lets not try it on anything that matters or was an expensive food item was my second. So I went for eggs, there cheap, no pun intended, there easy? Well they are cheap, and they may be easy, but not for yours truly apparently! I correctly set the temp I required for the type of poached egg I was looking for but Incorrectly set the timer on/off function due to being an idiot and misunderstanding the written guides instructions! So, can you cook eggs in a SV? Yes you can. Can you overcook them despite setting the correct temp? Hell yes! Were they poached? Hell No! But they are ideal for an 'egg salad' or for decoration on top of a Chicken Royal Biriyani which is what I used them for so not a total loss.?

I use them for other things anyway but almost all of the SV sites I've checked out say the zip lock or the press type are just fine. I only use the sealer vac bags for freezing as they stop any chance of freezer burn and or splitting due to other stuff chaffing them! Trust me, nobody wants chaffing be it in the hot or cold..

Is that Q for me Ice?

I see no reason not to use them! Are they cheap? If not Tesco do large 20 £2

its peanuts or pistachios?

I noticed that on quite a few of the videos I watched, makes sense, otherwise they could ballon! I think the first thing I'm going to test this unit out with will be some poached eggs for breakfast on Sunday! Would I be right with 64c for an hour if the eggs are at room temperature?

Yeah as I understand it the valve is a one way affair so you don't have the issue of drawing any marinade up and out of the bag while sealing on the less sophisticated vac units. Anyway if I'm getting one or two of the silicone ones for free I'm all for trying them before committing any dosh.?

I was on the phone earlier to one of my pro chef pals and he said, as did Justin the other day, that heavy duty freezer zip lock bags work just fine if you use the immersion method to expel all the air! Oh and they are cheap, which is nice. If you want to go mad, I don't but my pal is going to give me a couple for free, well I hope so, then the new silicone bags with a little hand pump for drawing the air out are proving to be 'very good' His words not mine and they have the bonus of being re-usable thousands of times, well as long as you wash em!! Hope that answer helps Raptor?

Well I've never given a salmon a bath either so its a voyage of discovery all round! Been reading both furiously and avidly everything I can find on bathing the blighter and two of the options that kept coming up over and over were that you should dry brine for thicker portions and or oil! So as I had a whole salmon I decided to do half of it for testing in the sous vide! That way if I ruin it I've only lost half of the fish. The Asian version is one I would do using normal cooking methods anyway, the only difference is its going to be done in a bath instead of pan fried after absorbing the marinade! Cheers for all that info Justin, I'll take it on board and think I'll aim for the 54.5 option. Wish me luck, I'm going in...

And so yet another culinary journey is about to begin! A salmon has been pin boned, portioned and prepared three ways. The first has been vac'd with a teriyaki sauce, some shaved ginger, a little garlic and a tiny amount of soy syrup along with a couple of kaffir lime leaves for future use with a noodle dish. The second has been very very lightly dry brined. The third has been rubbed only with a smidgen of olive oil. Three double portions I hear you say? yes they are quite large portions because I'm greedy. A long hot bath awaits them at some stage, well as soon as I've figured out what the temp and time should be? Is it weight based I wonder? I feel a Google search coming on... ?

Will do cocker...

Hiya Colin I think that about sums up everybody on here, well the newer members anyway. Good to have you aboard, the bigger it gets the better it gets for ideas, information and knowledge! lets face it if we cant learn from others with a passion for BBQing Grilling and in my case Smoking and now Sous Vide as well then all is lost.?

And so yet another culinary journey is about to begin! A salmon has been pin boned, portioned and prepared three ways. The first has been vac'd with a teriyaki sauce, some shaved ginger, a little garlic and a tiny amount of soy syrup along with a couple of kaffir lime leaves for future use with a noodle dish. The second has been very very lightly dry brined. The third has been rubbed only with a smidgen of olive oil. Three double portions I hear you say? yes they are quite large portions because I'm greedy. A long hot bath awaits them at some stage, well as soon as I've figured out what the temp and time should be? Is it weight based I wonder? I feel a Google search coming on... ?

qué?