Sous Vide Yay or Nay

I put this in my journal, but wanted to pose the question where more may see it.

I've been hearing about Sous Vide a lot. I've never used one. My question concerns cooking food in plastic. Generally speaking I store things in glass as much as possible. I do use a vac sealer for meat in the freezer. But cooking in plastic?

Does anyone know and I'll do more research on this myself, but at what temp will plastic impart chemicals? That's the big conundrum I've had since I first heard about sous vide a few years ago. At first blush I completely dismissed it due to the plastic.

Also I'm wondering if you could use a glass jar, take the air out and cook that way but I think, and I may be wrong as I know very little about sous vide, maybe the water has to come closer than a jar would allow?

Ok, I hope this is the best place for this thread. Didn't feel like it fit recipes or nutrition. Any Mod please feel free to move this if you feel it fits one of those better.

Did you remember/check this thread: https://primalforums.forumotion.com/t174-sous-vide-on-the-super-cheap ?

LB, first it’s great to see you pop in.

Nope totally forgot about that thread and since I did, I didn’t search either. My bad. With all that was going on in my life then, I’m sure it went in one ear and out the other.

What peaked my question was one of the YouTube people I follow “Serious Keto”, he mentioned canning pickles using Sous vide, and it kept them crisp. That would be something I would like, and given I know basically nothing about the method, it struck me.

Even that old thread really doesn’t go into anything about it, other than OTB’s description of how he does a work around. And no I don’t have the patience to do what he did.

Sorry for starting another thread when we had one already.

Sorry for starting another thread when we had one already.

That is so NOT the reason I commented... you might get some answers on this one from people with more recent experience or other insights. Not from me though, I don't have one and don't see a need for it. YMMV

It's not like the forums are that busy nowadays... although it's great to see that some keep showing up to share their days.

Not sure I’ll ever buy one, hence the question.

You would think with all the lock downs, the forum would have grown, but I guess not.

We've never used one, like LB, never saw the need. I might be inclined to try the method Ekba discussed in the last post on prior thread.
I think "loose ends" is the right spot for this, doesn't seem to fit elsewhere.

We got one for Christmas and it works great on seafood and steaks. E is the one that uses it so he has the technical knowledge. It is nice to have but not necessary. Our unit is fairly small and fits perfectly in a pot we already had so it does not take up much space.

We LOVE ours. We use it all the time. Well, I should say, hubby used it all the time. We probably use it at least once a week. It makes for a perfect steak. We cook all sorts of things in it - meat, veggies, whole eggs, heck, we've even tried making eggnog in it (it turned out great!).

Thank you everyone for your tips on sous vide. It's not currently on my want or need list, just heard about canning with one, so that interested me.

Everything we do with it is around 130F and not for more than an hour or so, so I don’t worry about the plastic.

It does a really great job with shrimp.

I tried lower temperature pickles a while back (just by tweaking the burner on the stove). We did not notice any difference in crispness. Now we just do refrigerator pickles.

Thank you Ekba, for your info.

Hi.I've just found this thread ... I have sous vide as one of the options on my Instant Pot - and I use it a LOT. It is terrific at making a cheap cut of beef come out super tender. Marvellous with eggs, fish etc. My only gripe is using plastic. At all. Not from health reasons (I am sure that at the low cooking temperatures the plastic is stable.) But I hate using it from environmental reasons. If only they made biodegradable bags! I have made lots of eggs in china Egg Coddlers (which I love) and various things in screw top Ball jars. But as a techniques, I think it is great.

Breadsauce....I wonder if you can reuse the larger bags by washing them and then re-using them for smaller things later. I know that I often wash out larger ziplocs for freezer storage of meats.

While I still don't own a Sous Vide, I do have a Food saver and I do wash and re-use those bags until they get too small to seal. While it's good for the environment it's definitely better on the wallet too.

Thanks for the tip on using jars etc instead of the plastic.

HI narrow-minded - like you, I wash the bags over and over until they refuse to seal any more! But I DO wish that they would make biodegradable bags!

That would be helpful.