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Subject: Vacuum Sealed Bags

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One of the requirements for cooking Sous-Vide is being able to seal the food in food-safe plastic bags.  Michele Richard's book mentions cooking lamb loin in "food-safe" plastic wrap.  (He recommends Saran Cling Plus or Saran Premium).  Within the last few months Reynolds and Ziploc have come out with actual vacuum bags.  Reynolds uses a low cost (-$10.00 I think) battery operated hand-held appliance that sucks the air out of their bags, which come in several sizes.  Likewise, Ziploc has a variety of sized bags from which the air is extracted with a manual pump, which looks a lot like the popular Vac-U-Vin wine stopper system.  I had great results with the Reynolds system this weekend.  Anyone else?

[edited January-21-2009]

Trucster

Trucster : 44w ago

The FoodSaver style products also offer an electrical unit.  AnnieBananie on this site has one and (last I heard) likes it a lot.

stevemur

stevemur : 44w ago

Steve is absolutely correct. I have the Food Saver, and I do love it (after a rocky start due to a poorly written instruction manual).
 
I've never tried Sous Vide (except if you count Green Giant frozen veggies ), so I can't really comment on how well the Food Saver bags would hold up under those conditions, although the company says they can be used in boiling water.  The model I use is the V3840.  I've used the Reynolds bag system, and after sealing a few bags, found it lacking, and the bags not sealing tightly.
 
If I'm not mistaken, doesn't Sous Vide require that that water be kept at a steady temperature throughout the cooking time?   If that's the case, would using any of the methods we've been discussing qualify as a true Sous Vide?
 
Anne



 
 

AnnieBananie : 44w ago

Anne, thanks for your comments (yours too, Steve).  Glad to hear of your success with Food Saver. Re your question about how is SV different than cooking peas in a bag, the biggest difference would be that SV is done at temperatures below 212 degrees. I've had no trouble regulating the heat just by using the lowest burner setting on my gas stove, and by adding an ice cube(s) if temperature starts to climb. I've done lamb loin and fish, both of which have relatively short cooking times (20 - 30 minutes). This manual control of water temp. would be totally impractical for cuts of meat which can take 8 or more hours.

Trucster

Trucster : 43w 4d ago

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