Sous Vide

[brandekm]

I’m looking at different ways to ramp up my summer sausage production this year. What I am thinking about doing is finishing the sausage in a water bath that way I can get more production out of my current smoker. I’ve done water baths with propane heat before but with the precision of these sous vide machines now, I’m wondering if that wouldn’t be an even better option. Does anyone on here use an anova or something similar and know about how much water they can actually heat? I have one of those big 100 quart igloo coolers that would make a perfect water tank and would let me do 40-50 sticks a time if the anova can handle that capacity.

[Jonathon]

brandekm For being able to heat 100 quarts you would need a serious sous vide cooker, that is 25 gallons. The Vacmaster SV1 and the HBC bot do just under 8 gallons and those are pretty strong ones. You’d need 3 of those or a far more powerful one, those are designed for restaurant use though so you’d need an industrial strength one? It is absolutely worth looking into as this process helps greatly but I don’t know where you might find a sous vide circulator strong enough. Turkey Fryer is easier for sure but not as accurate

[lkrfletcher]

My 1000 watt anova handles 5 gallons of water. Use a Coleman party stacker cooler and drill a hole thru the lid. Its worth a google

[brandekm]

Jonathon the anova website says the 1200 watt pro model can do 25 gallons with a lid so I might be ok if I modify the cooler lid. Guess there’s only one way to find out.

[Jonathon]

brandekm That’s an awesome amount! When I do something that requires a meatlug I would normally try to cover the lug a much as possible, but with that Anova I wouldn’t even need to worry about that. Interesting, thanks!

[smokinbubba]

I use a 1000watt unit and heat a 40qt non insulated tote. I place a large weighted down mixing bowl in it to displace water so when I put the sausage in I don’t need to dip out water and it does not need to heat more water than necessary. Takes over an hour to heat to 175deg but does work. I am going to convert a cooler to retain heat and heat quicker. Starting out with HOT tap water helps a lot. I bought the cheapest unit I could find to see if it would work for my sausage process before I purchased a large unit. For now the elcheapo unit is working great. Will never go back to the old way again.

[glen]

Insulated coolers work great.
Heat up time is a little faster but the heater run time is greatly reduced.
Checked water temp. 2 hr. after shut off and it had dropped only 2 degrees F

[Christopher Beach]

I just purchased an 1100watt unit off of amzon for about $80 and took it for a test spin. That unit had no issue heating a tub full of water to 160 degrees. It’s kitchen tub from Sam’s club that I’m guess had about 30 quarts of water in it. Insulation would have definitely helped as would a lid. If you go the cooler route, maybe you could hook up two or three of the cheaper units to run at the same time. You would need separate electrial circuits to run them without tripping a breaker, but seems well worth a try before spending thousands for the commercial stuff.

[processhead]

Once a year I use one of my 15 gallon brewing keggles with a 5500 watt electric element and temperature controller to process braunschweiger at 180 degrees.

Definitely requires some special cleaning measures before going back to beer brewing.

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[brandekm]

Christopher Beach I’ve got an anova pro that I picked up cheap off the facebook and it says it will handle 100L of water without issue so I’m going to give that a try. I’ll post back after a test run

[YooperDog]

processhead do you have a special recipe for braunschweiger?

[processhead]

YooperDog

I use the recipe on pg.232 of the R. Kutas book.

[YooperDog]

processhead the same that I was going to start with for mine. It is a bit challenging to find a decent liver sausage. I found a purveyor of sewn casings that I may try. Thanks.

[processhead]

YooperDog said in Sous Vide:

processhead the same that I was going to start with for mine. It is a bit challenging to find a decent liver sausage. I found a purveyor of sewn casings that I may try. Thanks.

The process is the challenge for making your own liver sausages. First, liver emulsions are picky about chopping temperature and times. Having a bowl chopper or large food processor makes it realistic for making your own fine texture braunschweiger.

[YooperDog]

processhead no bowl chopper yet, keeping my eye out though. I plan on doing multiple grinds. I talked with my local butcher and he talked me through his techniques, no chopper there either, but he doesn’t make venison liver sausage. He has been really helpful all around with my questions , even got a job offer LOL.

[smokinbubba]

My dream sausage kitchen would have a bowl chopper and 20 qt Hobart mixer, oh and stainless tables and and and

[GWG8541]

I’m happy to say my sous vide arrived today. I’ll probably run a small batch of Bloody Mary snack sticks for my learning batch this weekend.

[smokinbubba]

It’s a great kitchen tool. Did chicken breast last night. Have done salmon too. And I bought this thing to do sausage!!

[brandekm]

GWG8541 let me know how it goes. Do you plan on bagging them somehow before going into the water bath? My water gets pretty nasty when I ice bath my sausage and thought it might not be good on the anova. Figured zip locks would be easy enough for summer sausage but snack sticks might be tricky.

[GWG8541]

brandekm I’m still deciding on that. The first batch may just go in the water and hope for the best. I also have an Anova 1000 watt, so I’ll let you know.