Reheating sous vide style

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lovelife

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Jan 4, 2016
135
12
Holland
Sunday I am taking care of my nephews birthday and am making pulled pork sandwiches with cole slaw. I am making potato salad and baked beans as a side. There will be a couple people that don't eat pork and am making tri tip sandwiches for them. I will be smoking my tri tip.

I have a couple questions:
 

1) What is the best and safest way to cool down the meat before vacuuming it?

2) I will be reheating the tri tip sous vide style before slicing. What is the best way to go about this? How hot should the water be and any indication how long a 2.5lbs tri tip should take? I mean obviously I won't be able to check the IT and put it back in the water if it's not ready yet.... :)

3) The pulled pork I will be reheating in the oven with a little bit of bbq sauce and some apple juice. I have 18lbs of pork to smoke, so lets say I'll have 11lbs weight of pork left after smoking, is there a rule of thumb of how much apple juice to use for reheating in the oven?

I went to a bakery that's located in the oldest city of Holland, over 2000 years old and they make their bread 100% Organic and use a recipe that is 50-60 years old. Their bread is heavier, needs to be chewed more, and it has a lot more flavor than bakeries that make their bread cheaper and faster. I also had them made my hamburger buns and the bread is just awesome. The bread is a tad pricey and am also talking to other bakeries in the area to 'custom make' my bread :)


Thank you all for your time and have a great weekend!!
 
 
Sunday I am taking care of my nephews birthday and am making pulled pork sandwiches with cole slaw. I am making potato salad and baked beans as a side. There will be a couple people that don't eat pork and am making tri tip sandwiches for them. I will be smoking my tri tip.

I have a couple questions:
 

1) What is the best and safest way to cool down the meat before vacuuming it?  I shred, place into some disposable pans, and let it cool to where I can handle it with bare hands, and then vac pack.

2) I will be reheating the tri tip sous vide style before slicing. What is the best way to go about this? How hot should the water be and any indication how long a 2.5lbs tri tip should take? I mean obviously I won't be able to check the IT and put it back in the water if it's not ready yet.... :)  Place the vac packed meat (defrosted) into a pot of cool tap water, place the pot with the meat and water onto the stove, or burner, and turn to high.  Allow the water to come to a boil, after boiling begins, allow the bag to simmer for 5-10 minutes depending on the thickness.  

3) The pulled pork I will be reheating in the oven with a little bit of bbq sauce and some apple juice. I have 18lbs of pork to smoke, so lets say I'll have 11lbs weight of pork left after smoking, is there a rule of thumb of how much apple juice to use for reheating in the oven?  The addition of liquid depends a lot on the moisture content before reheating.  Add a small amount and check now and then as you heat it up.  After you pull it from the oven, if it isn't moist enough, you can mix in some WARM AJ or BBQ sauce as needed.

I went to a bakery that's located in the oldest city of Holland, over 2000 years old and they make their bread 100% Organic and use a recipe that is 50-60 years old. Their bread is heavier, needs to be chewed more, and it has a lot more flavor than bakeries that make their bread cheaper and faster. I also had them made my hamburger buns and the bread is just awesome. The bread is a tad pricey and am also talking to other bakeries in the area to 'custom make' my bread :)


Thank you all for your time and have a great weekend!!
See my answers above...
 
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Thanks for the reply!

Should I still rest the pork in foil or just let it rest and cool at the same time? I'm not sure since I read a couple times that resting the meat in coolers resulted in the best pulled pork.
 
For pulled pork, I agree with everything above.

For the trip-tip, since you have a sous vide water heater, I'd heat it to the temperature at which you would normally pull your trip-tip, probably about 145 degrees. If your meat was still pink in the center, this should retain most of that pinkness. If you boil it instead, it will take on quite a different character.

This is my basic "rule" for reheating when using something that can accurately control the temperature: heat it to the same temperature at which you originally considered it done. The sous vide machine is the ultimate accurate temperature controller.
 
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Thanks for the reply.

Makes a lot of sense, I just don't have a sous vide machine. I will be using a regular pan on the stove.
 
No worries. I might purchase one at one point this year.
I built a temperature controller coupled with an old temperature probe from my 1979 Amana microwave. I use this to control the temperature of my crockpot. I've done sous vide and also make yogurt in it every week (I've made yogurt every week since 1974). You can also buy your own external temperature controller for a LOT less money than a full-fledged sous vide machine. The only thing you'll be missing is the water circulator, but I make up for that with a spoon and a timer, stirring once every fifteen minutes, if I'm actually doing sous vide.

I had the parts on hand, so my cost for the controller was zero, but I think you can purchase the same thing for under $30, considerably less than the hundreds of $$$ that a real sous vide machine costs. And, if you don't have a crockpot, you can get a cheap one of those for under $20, and you're still money ahead, and you've then got a crockpot which you'll probably use a LOT more than a sous vide.

I originally built my temperature controller to keep my crockpot from boiling my food. Most of what I've read says you want the food to get to 195-200, but not all the way to 212. However, once I had the thing working I found all these other uses.

[edit]Here's a link to one of many temperature controllers of the type I'm talking about. The top user review talks about using it to control his crockpot:

Willhi Wh1436 Ac 110v - 240v Digital Temperature Controller Thermostat Control Switch Unit 1 Relay Output with Sensor

 
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Thanks for the idea John. I am going to look into this.

Warming up the pulled pork in the oven worked out great! Meat was moist without adding apple juice. I just added the defatted meat drippings. Everyone loved the food.
 
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