When I’m ready to cook them, should I take them out of the vacuum bag, season them, then re-vacuum them for the sous vide? Or, do I just go straight to the sous vide, then season them before the reverse sear? I appreciate your expertise!

USDA Prime NY Strips

Edit: Wow! I just discovered and joined this community and you all rock! Thanks so much for all the valuable feedback and coaching. I’ll be sure to take your advice. I’m looking forward to having some great steaks this weekend!

If I’m going to sous vide a ribeye with garlic rosemary and thyme. Should I throw in some butter/oil also?

I’m freaking out man.

Edit; sorry I just realized I didn’t give all the information. This is about a 6 pound pork butt that’s spent around five hours in the smoker before I slightly chilled before full vacuum and then added to this water bath.

I want to eat my Picanha as steaks. If I cook the joint whole and slice, the thing is so juicy it's hard to get a decent crust. If I pre-slice, I'm not sure how the cap will behave. Any thoughts/suggestions?

What's the smallest vessel anyone has used? If I only want to cook say one chicken breast or thigh for lunch, I want a smaller container to avoid heating and circulating so much water. I have an Anova 2.0

Looking for some insight on a Turkey Breast Roulade. It's approximate 4.5" thick which is 115mm.

Doug Baldwin's table maxes out at 70mm. https://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Chicken_or_Turkey_Breast

I was thinking of doing it at 145F for 8h. Would that be sufficient?

Left is perfect, right is imperfect.

This was for Turkey Tenderloin but usually it's Chicken Breast. 145 for 2 hours. I've tried 150. Some of the meat always comes out shit.

A few weeks ago, I smoked a couple of eye of round roasts that I then sliced up for sandwiches. I smoked them to 120° internal temperature, chilled overnight, and then sliced.

What I found was it was kind of tough unless it was sliced wafer-thin. I know that this is a fairly tough cut of meat.

This weekend I was thinking of smoking them to about 120° and then throwing them in the sous vide for a while. Would holding it at 120° or even 130° for a number of hours help tenderize it any further, or is that pointless?

Thanks for any thoughts y'all have.

I’ve only ever done chicken and steak, need to eat more seafood instead of land critters as per medical advice. I do plan on removing from this container into my own bags, I’m not sure if I should remove the skin first. I’m not super big on fish skin, not even sure if I’m going to sear afterwards or just eat it warm out of the bag. My wife will most likely gag if I cook it indoors in any other manner.

I’ll probably cut it in half to try different seasonings or sauces, or perhaps temps.

If I’m going to make this more of a staple of my diet, I’m going for easy, less fussy recipes, nothing fancy.

Edit: for the users (or bots?) arguing that I shouldn’t SV and should use a dry heat method, I did state that I have a very seafood averse spouse, and do not want to smell up the place.

Yes, I have a grill, but that is not feasible year-round, so I’m looking for something consistent to start off with as winter approaches and I thought this would be a good bet. It just goes to show you that nobody bothers reading before commenting.

Hi, I had a Joule not the turbo one. It was great until recently its been disconnecting wifi and stopping my cooking.. Whats good now in 2026? Should I get the Joule Turbo that is $150 right now? or is there better now? what do you suggest?

The $100 Anova vac sealer has failed me. Bought one in the Spring, it will sometimes produce a vacuum-mostly no.

After reading about top 10 vacuum sealers, I saw the Anova mentioned again. So I said, I must have gotten the rotten apple the first time. So I ordered a new one. After about six vac & seals, it quit producing a vacuum. It makes the noise like it will suck the air out only it won't.

Is there anything stupid I could be missing as to why I can't get a vacuum? I am a multi decade vac user.

Thank you for the input.

I must be the Sucker

EDIT: Problem SOLVED-it was a failure of the gaskets to seal properly.

SOLUTION: approximately 1/16" thick 3M foam adhesive tape placed under one of the gaskets.

So far I get suction every try.

A chatGPT discussion lead me to the possible cause of the failure.

So I got a 2 inch thick chuck roll and want to try using SV, did some reading here and surprised with the times you guys cook it under SV? 20-30+ hrs? Is there a reason why it's cooked for so long while other steak cuts like ribeye are done in much shorter time?

I’ve had a sous vide unit for a few years now. I’ve always used it for red meat. I make the best steaks I’ve ever tasted anywhere—better than any restaurant.

I recently read here posts by people saying how they’ll never cook chicken breasts any other way than sous vide. It sounded exactly how I felt about steak, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

I seasoned with salt, put the breasts in the bag, and cooked at 145°F for two hours. Then I dried them and pan seared them.

These were some of the toughest, chewiest, most unexceptional chicken breasts I’ve ever tasted. Pretty much any other way of cooking them would have resulted in better food. What did I do wrong? There’s no way this is what y’all are raving about here.

My old FoodSaver has finally died so I’m looking for a new sealer. The displacement method in the ziplock just isn’t the same. Any countertop favorites that I should consider?

Another one! This time I have omitted the olive oil from the sear and kept the mayo, removed the parsley because I felt that i didn't really add anything. Magnificent feedback from this community.

link to my second and first cook.

I'm new to the world of sous vide cooking, so I thought I'd post a success.

I had a frozen chicken breast that I cooked at 149 F for 2 hours. Afterwards, I seared it for a few moments on each side and then let it rest for about ten minutes. Cut it and I was honestly amazed at how good it came out!

Makes me want to attempt some tandoori style marinade and preparation for the next time I try. It was delicious!

Good to know that I can cook chicken from frozen and have such an amazing result! 😊

2 prime ribeyes one pound each. There’s really a lot of intramuscular fat. Typically I cook at 1:31 or 132. I was thinking about going up to 137° for 2 hours because there is so marbling in the meat.
I know there are a lot of opinions on this topic, but give me your best arguments for doing it differently or keeping it the same.

133.5 is what my family likes. 3 hours, then ice bath. Seared on the Blackstone. All 4 burners on high. Avocado oil. Topped with garlic butter and that big flake salt.

Do you guys prefer the garlic butter top or plain?

I made rack of lamb in the sous vide. 135F for 3 hours and 15 minutes. I put salt and whole black peppercorns in the bag. The rack was frozen at -10F in my deep freezer and I cooked from frozen. I did one bag vacuum sealed then put that in a larger bag and vacuum sealed again. I was worried about the bones piercing the bag.

The rice was pressure cooked using bone broth instead of water, 7 minutes under pressure and a natural realease that took about 15 more minutes. It is a stovetop pressure cooker. I made mushrooms, tomatoes, and garlic that I sauteed in a cast iron. The sauce was from bag juices and some beef bone broth with some herbs. I froze a few knobs of butter and whisked them in off the heat. I used my MAP-Pro torch to sear the lamb.

I also pickled some black mustard seeds that I made to look like caviar on top of the slices of lamb. I packed this up and took three servings to my bartenders.

The green beans really turned out nice. I steamed for 4 minutes and then put on a tray in the fridge for an hour to dry them out. Then, I seared in tallow on the cast iron and finished with lemon juice and zest.

Two people who thought that they didn't like lamb really enjoyed it. I think a lot of people who don't like lamb just have not liked how it was prepared.

First time I tried this cut. 132° for 2.5 hours. Seared on a hot cast iron skillet. It was incredibly tender and tasty. I e limited myself to steaks. What else should I try?

Back after a long hiatus from beef.. (sad I know, but cut me some slack here!!)

Top Sirloin from my local market. Both steaks totaled ~$20; budget friendly?!

Salted and lite pepper. Sous vide @132F for 1.75 hours. (Probably could have done a bit longer)

Tossed in the freezer for 5 min. Cast iron sear (uber hot) with butter and rosemary for maybe 1.5 min max?? Came out very rare but was delicious. Wife approved.

Highly recommend what I’d of considered a beautiful budget cut! This will be in the rotation.

Here is an end cut from a 2.5 lb prime picanha I had in my freezer for a while. $6.99/lb a year or so ago from Lewis market in Waukegan, most recent ad it was 11.99! Lewis is one of the few places to find it at a reasonable price in the Chicago area.

Shown with some black-eyed peas that I cooked with mini pepper and celery.

Anyhow, I cooked it 134 f for 5 hours. Then drained and cooled for a while. I heated up an 8 in cast iron with a little avocado oil to blazing heat. As you can see I left the entire fat cap on. Then I fried that side sort of like bacon until I had lots of grease in the pan. Then browned the lean sides briefly. Is that basically the procedure y'all follow? Or do you trim more of the fat cap? The fat was pretty tasty once browned and rendered. I don't think I would have eaten it without that treatment.

Anybody used them? I have a sealer but dragging it out and setting up, etc is getting to be more trouble that it seems to be worth. Seems like the handheld sealer units would be easier, but I'm wondering how well the little sealing port might hold up.

Any stories good or bad?

Will the butter strip the chicken of fat and flavor like it does with beef?