Yeah --- dry brine with the rub and all the flavors get deep into to meat. I picked up some rub that didn't have sugar in it..... I thought it would be OK since I was going to baste with bbq sauce and figured there would be enuff sugar from that.... WRONG.... having the sugar in the rub while dry brining is key to keeping it from getting overly salty --- it keeps it balanced. I've been doing this with chicken and pork for a while now with great results.

I'll give it a try, thank you.

The protein matters, as well as size...

Something like chicken, especially wings, <1 hour, generally, UNLESS, it has other powerful ingredients, or acid, for balance...but still, not too long, if you want it to taste like chicken, and not be mealy...

Fish is similarly sensitive....

Beef, pork, lamb, venison, have denser proteins, and break down much more slowly...so a longer brine or marinade works...

Yeah - I can see that when doing wings.... I haven't done any for quite some time.... same with breasts - I'd think they would take longer because of the cross section. I've stayed away from breasts because I doubt the rub would penetrate the ribs - and the fact that they cook more 'unevenly', but I think I'll give some a shot soon. I stick to mainly thighs since they cook evenly -- the drumsticks take a bit more tending to get an even browning/blackening.

I've been shying away from marinades lately because I find that the penetration of the flavors isn't really that good no matter how long you let them sit --- a dry brine with a rub containing sugar and finishing with bbq/teriyaki/glaze has so much more flavor than just a long marinade I've found. We have also determined that the Memphis Rub we've been getting when mixed with brown sugar and used for the dry brine can actually stand all by itself with no sauce or glaze!! But I'm one of those people that believes bbq chicken should be sticky and gooey, so everything gets basted/brushed-- if you use less than 3 napkins per piece, you did something WRONG.

For marinading I have a marinating container that I use with the vacuum sealer to vacuum it, which helps to infuse the flavores.

Sirloins in the sous vide for 20 hours, smoker for 2 hours, broiler for 4-5 minutes. With baked beans on the side.

What's the advantage of going more than 4 hours in the Sous Vide?

I've read about the texture change on Serious Eats, and not sure thats the texture i want...But then cooking twice more...I dunno

Sane temp in the smoker.
Experiments, really.
these ones I took out of the freezer the previous night and stuck in the sous vide because it's easy. I don't get home early enough to cook them for 4 hours then smoke them.
Sirloin isn't a real soft fatty cut so leaving it in the sous vide for a day makes it more tender.

The longer the time held at body temperature of above, the more collagen breaks down into gelatin - ie, the more tender the meat gets. Higher temperatures means faster breakdown, but it'll still happen at lower temperatures - that's how you can do brisket at 135 for 72 hours and have it tender and medium. If you roasted brisket to medium it would be medium shoe-leather. It's the time component that's the key for that.



The cooking twice more in this case may not be actually cooking - just re-heating. One of the things that happens when cooking meat from raw is that there are chemical changes to take it to medium and then well-done that don't have to take place when you're just re-heating. Those changes take energy, and slow down the cooking process. It's most obvious when smoking meat back up to temperature, as it'll get up to 160 or so WAY faster than it took to get there the first time around.

Now, for the grilling section - that's a hot-and-fast - it wont' have the chance to cook through, merely to make the sear on the outside.

I'd lay reasonable money on this being a time-intensive way of getting an awesome flavour on a steak that he knows exactly how well it's cooked.

Experiments, gotcha!

Yeah, I was aware of those things....

Where I was coming from was the 'why more than 4 hours'....

The texture changes, and it sort of shreds...so I was asking because I wondered if he was mimicking barbacoa, or something.

The biggest changes occur after the 4th hour, so I was wondering what he was after, or what the benefit was.

Kenji at Serious Eats found little benefit over 4 hours...

https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/06/foo ... steak.html

Your mileage may vary

Love the dialogue

I made mayo.

Possibly the least-exciting thing I could tell people about making, but there's a reason for it. We realised about halfway in to making a tuna-mayo sandwich that were were completely out, so I just made some. It has raw egg in it, and so *I* got some, but the wife didn't, what with the whole
"also eating for someone that doesn't have an immune system yet" thing.

My solution to this was to cook 2 eggs, in the shell, sous-vide for 2 hours at 135. The white is just starting to cloud at the end of that time, but more importantly the eggs are then pasteurized, and I made more mayo with that.

Mayo is easy, if you have a stick blender. Just crack an egg into the cup, add a big pinch of salt, a fairly large teaspoon of mustard (an emulsifier - keeps it from breaking), a cup of oil, a thinly sliced clove of garlic, and a couple of teaspoons of your favourite non-balsamic vinegar. Put the blades over the egg yolk, activate the blender and lift slowly.

The only thing to know is that if you use the blender you'll hurt olive oil and make it taste bitter, so use a flavourless oil and just stir in olive oil at the end to get the olive taste. Aside from that, I can tell you that apple cider vinegar works well.

I don't know how many of you have tried the bottled 'Vodka Sauce' for pasta.... if you haven't, you should --- its incredible! I'm surprised how many people I've talked to haven't heard of it or ever tried it.

The first time I used it, I treated it like any other spaghetti sauce --- adding sausage, onions, peppers, mushrooms, more diced tomatoes... I tend to make 'goulash' style of sauce --- it turned out pretty good, but I realized the the additional ingredients kinda muddled the flavor of the sauce. This time I kept it simple -- browned sausage and browned onions with the sauce only.... it was the right choice!!! So flavorful and creamy! The mini penne was perfect for picking up and holding all the sauce --- I've pretty much sworn off most 'stick' pasta and go with the mini penne and rotinni. I actually restrained myself from eating it the first night when I made it --- knowing it would be even better after sitting over night (OK, I did sample several or more spoonfuls just to be sure it was good). This stuff just kept getting better and better every time I had it! Six meals off that batch and I'm still craving more.

Pro tip for browning sausage for sauces --- make one big ass patty out of the lb of sausage and fry it in a skillet. I've found this is about the only/most reliable way I can brown sausage/hamburger for sauces without cooking the hell out of it or ending up with just 'grey meat' boiled in grease. You can form a good hard crust on both sides of the patty while keeping the center rare/medium rare --- chop it up on the cutting board and toss it in the slow cooker with the sauce to finish cooking. It gives you all the deep browned flavor while still keeping a lot of tender chewy pieces.

When you throw a bunch of meat in the pan and just let it sit, the reason it boils instead of browns is because there's too much water to evaporate off before it can properly brown. The Serious Eats solution to this is to brown the hell out of a third to a half of it. This means that you don't have too much in the pan and water can evaporate. Once that's where you want it for flavour then add the rest and cook it to the doneness level that you want. It'll partially rehydrate the browned bits, and so give you good texture to go with the browned flavours.

Yeah - I would tend to pull out the monster 12" CI skillet for a full # of burger/sausage.... but it seemed like the fat would all render out right away and proceed to boil the meat in the small bits.... Making a big patty, I can cook a # in the 10" and get the good browning AND keep tender bits too. I've thought about doing the split batch with the 10", but I find the patty just as easy. And I think it keeps the spattering to a minimum too - most of the grease is under the patty so it can't spatter.
I would even surmise that you keep some more of the aromatic spices intact with the patty route since the center isn't seeing the full temp of the hot grease. I don't think I could 'prove' it, but there sure is alot more and sharper 'italian seasoning' smell when cutting up a patty vs crumble cooking. Plus with the patty route, you get a nice dose of the meat juices into the sauce instead of just boiling it away and tossing it with the grease.