How to take temp.
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Going to attempt my first batch of snack sticks. Watched the video on 5 hacks to making snack stick. One way to finish them is a water bath once they reach 130. John says he vacuum sealed them than finished them in a
Sous Vide until 160. My question is, how do you physically take a temp when they are vacuum sealed? -
I personally have not attempted to take temp once vacuum sealed, but I often finish all of my smoked sausages via sous vide, but I take them to 155. I set the sous vide at 155 and let the sausages (vacuumed sealed) sit in there for an hour. The beauty of sous vide is that the meat will never get any hotter than the temp of the water so I never even thought to check the temp at that point. I have seen instances where people do not use a vacuum seal to get the air out but rather submerging the bag with the meat in the water until the air around the meat escapes the top of the open bag. The pressure of the water keeps the bag tight against the meat while it is submerged (sometimes it is necessary to weigh the bag down with some spoons or other type of weight), but with the bag being opened at the top, you could easily put the probe into the meat and have the lead go out the top. You could do this with maybe one bag of sausage and use it as a rough estimate of the temp for the rest of the product.
I actually have 25 pounds of Cajun Sausage in the smoker right now and I intend on finishing them in a 155 bath. -
rjsenk
Good evening,
Very interesting article on finishing sausage in the warm water bath( forgot that fancy name for it ). At what point do you take the sausage out of the smoker and do you vacuum seal at that time, then submerge it in the hot water? Thanks for any help, Buckeye -
Buckeye,
My vertical smoker that I use for sausages/snack sticks is made out of an aluminum pan rack (bakery style) and I have a tough time keeping the internal temp towards the end of the day as it cools down, so rather than bump the temp up (and risk rendering all of the fat in the sausage), I will just pull them and put them in the sous vide bath set to 154 degrees for about an hour (regardless of the temp when I pull them). I take them from the smoker and vacuum seal them before putting them into the water. This helps seal in the smoke flavor a little better in my opinion. Once I pull them from the bath, I plunge them into an ice bath (still vacuumed sealed) to stop the cooking process. The next step depends on the type of sausage; if they are snack sticks, then I will remove them from the package and let them bloom (sit out at room temp) for an hour or two before I cut them up and refrigerate. For everything else, they go right into the refrigerator for the night still vacuum sealed. From there they will go into the freezer for later use.With all of this in mind, I tend to make my snack sticks a little bit shorter in length than the lenght of the sous vide container so everything fits when I vacuum seal them, and I keep them flat (single layer) when I seal them so they have equal exposure to the heated water. The beauty of the sous vide is that whatever you are cooking will never reach a temperature higher than the temperature of the water, so you won’t have to worry about it going over the temp. I hope this helps.
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I have 2 of them actually.
The first one is called Joule by Chef Steps:
https://smile.[link removed]/ChefSteps-Joule-Sous-Watts-White/dp/B0727R431B/ref=sxin_10?ascsubtag=amzn1.osa.e539f9c8-727a-41d6-93c5-6004f1e7be23.ATVPDKIKX0DER.en_US&creativeASIN=B0727R431B&crid=3E0LJJZ9FJ87V&cv_ct_cx=joule+sous+vide&cv_ct_id=amzn1.osa.e539f9c8-727a-41d6-93c5-6004f1e7be23.ATVPDKIKX0DER.en_US&cv_ct_pg=search&cv_ct_we=asin&cv_ct_wn=osp-single-source-gl-ranking&dchild=1&keywords=joule+sous+vide&linkCode=oas&pd_rd_i=B0727R431B&pd_rd_r=e8c86836-da9a-4c1a-82c7-cd67db779da5&pd_rd_w=z6LGB&pd_rd_wg=JVcDX&pf_rd_p=26c7e498-3189-4918-a321-ec25e32964ce&pf_rd_r=2YGRE97RT1J5NV6HKQJS&qid=1603914260&sprefix=joule%2Caps%2C222&sr=1-2-d9dc7690-f7e1-44eb-ad06-aebbef559a37&tag=foodwine01-20and the second one is by Monoprice (www.monoprice.com
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=21594They are both 1100 watt models and heat up pretty quickly. The Joule model is controlled via an app only and has a smaller footprint, while the one from monoprice has buttons to control it. I bought the second monoprice one for the external controls for the times when I am camping and don’t want to have a phone with me.
As far as the tubs go, I use a Weston Meat Lug (50 lbs capacity), and then I have a LIPAVI 26 Quart Sous Vide container as well as a smaller 12 quart container. The sous vide containers also have available lids that are designed to go around different models of sous vide’s to keep evaporation at a minimum. I have seen people use ping pong balls as well (just floating on the top of the water acting as a barrier) for longer cook times. I have done 24 hour cook times for tri-tip and they come out as tender as filet.
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Monoprice has a 800 watt model that is just as good. In fact, they had a sale near Thanksgiving one year and had them down to $42 so I bought 3; kept 1 and gave the other 2 away for Christmas. lol I really didn’t need the 1100 watt version, but I bought it anyways.
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atcone155 If you have something like the Meater or Meater plus that will work but you’ll probably have to cut the bag at the seal and temp them and then reseal it. Shouldnt be more than 1 hour though.
