A friend of mine is making yogurt with her sous vide. Seems really easy. Im going to give it a try once I'm back from my work trip.
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Making some infused garlic oil now, I'll know in a few hours if it works.

Basically, I took the garlic confit idea, reduced the garlic and upped the oil. One bulb of very coarsely chopped garlic, a handful of coarsely ripped up dried peppers, a teaspoon or two of dried oregano, a tablespoon of kosher salt (diamond krystal) and one 500 ml bottle of bold flavored olive oil. Split evenly into two quart vacuum bags, and going in the bath for 4 hours or so at 190. Should get a decent extraction and hopefully shouldn't cook the oil. If it works, I figure the oil should be good for finishing or dipping bread.

Thinking I'll strain it when done, save the garlic cloves and some of the peppers for grinding into a sauce at a later date.
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So I ended up with an infused oil, but not with the flavor profile I had intended / hoped for.

I probably used too many peppers, this should be a real shocker for anyone who knows my cooking :-), and they overpowered the garlic. Or I didn't use enough garlic. Or I needed to cook it longer to extract the garlic flavors. Or a combination of a few things. Whatever, there's not any garlic flavor to this. Dammit.

Didn't need the salt. AT. ALL. It sat like a lump in the bottom of the bag. In retrospect, there was no way it was ever going to do anything since it's not oil soluble and there isn't enough garlic to provide adequate moisture to dissolve it. I should have known better.

The good... I have almost a full bottle of some absolute kick-ass chili infused (with hints of garlic) extra virgin olive oil.

I'll come back to this idea and work on it some more once this bottle is done. Maybe I'll even try sciencing it next time.
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Sounds really good, Adam!
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Interesting idea.
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Adam, I've been using a baņa calda recipe that uses anchovies for the salt. But I'm not using the anova just the toaster oven.
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Greg, I wouldn't mind seeing that recipe if you have a link for it.

One of the reasons I made this though was that I wanted a shelf stable infused oil I could just pour back into bottle after straining. I can always sprinkle some salt into the oil once it's served on a small platter.

BTW, now that the oil has cooled off, the garlic flavor is coming though much better. Could have also just needed some aeration time.
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Sorrry spelled it wrong. Bana cauda

http://www.food.com/recipe/bagna-cau...y-sauce-114729
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Adam, does the time/temp make this shelf stable? I know it's not recommended to store garlic in olive oil, the risk of botulism being an anaerobic environment.
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Thanks Greg.

You bring up an interesting point, one I don't have a complete answer for at the moment.

One point to make is that I'm not storing the garlic cloves in the oil, they are being strained out. The cook temp of 190 will break down the toxin if present, but won't kill any spores.

That leaves me some options:
1) Keep the oil in the refrigerator to retard growth if present and count on that botulism from garlic is pretty rare.

2) Acidify the oil - In theory it's easy to do since I keep a few different powdered cooking acids on hand and I would just have to figure out the needed concentration. Unfortunately, bringing it down to about pH 4 where botulism would be prevented could change the flavor. Another complication here is that taking pH readings of oil is a special lab process since there is no water involved, you can't just jab a pH meter probe in there and get a reading to see what my starting point is, since it might not be the same as the listed pH of the oil due to the cooking and ingredients. In short, I'd be guessing on how much acid to add.

3) I could pack the oil into a mason jar and give it a 5-6 minute process in my pressure canner. USDA says 3 minutes at 250F will kill botulism, I always figure an increased margin is needed for home equipment. This temp is well below the smoke point, so the oil should be ok. Not sure what will happen to the flavor here though.

Other treatments like irradiation aren't going to be achievable in a home setting.


So right now, I'm going with #1 on this test batch. If people have been making garlic confit in their SV setups for years and safely storing the cooked cloves submerged in oil in the refrigerator and they haven't died yet, I figure my odds of not having a problem are pretty good. And you are correct, I should have said "refrigerator stable" and not "shelf stable".

I probably will test out #3 soon enough though. Would definitely do it if I were going to ship a bottle.

I'll get back to you on the flavors once I've pressure processed a batch.
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I do believe that you are making excuses. :-)

I have friends in Livermore and I suspect that you do as well... :-)
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Thanks for the reply. It's a topic I have to keep in mind when making dry cured sausages.
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LOL. I actually do know someone at Los Alamos.

I've never made dry cured sausage. I do have a contact at the UC who teaches the meat processing program if you have any questions you want forwarded, PM them to me, it's no problem at all for me to pass them on.
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Tried slow cooked egg today - 4 large eggs - 65C for 60 mins in the sous vide supreme.

Failed - the yolk was firm and white still loose.

Conflicting info out there - lower temp for longer?

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Kinda surprising Neil, that the whites wouldn't set at that temp. You will always have some runny whites when doing sv eggs, in less you run a lot higher temp. Here's a great article that explains all the different times/temps for different consistencies.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/10/s...bout-eggs.html

Me, I do 145°f for 50 mins.
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Did a test run of tri tip at 16 hour @ 132.5F sous vide, finished on the santa maria grill. Came out at the upper half of medium when sliced, but super tender, almost too tender, if I had run this on the meat slicer rather than hand cut, I think it might have been too soft.

Happy with the results overall, but thinking that I might drop the temp a degree for next time.
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Got an Anova about a month and a half ago, just saw this thread. Love it so far but can't wait to read through this and get some ideas/tips.
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Anyone else with a searzall starting to see deterioration of the outer screen? I haven't even finished going through the first tank of propane and the outer screen already has a hole forming in it.
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Wow!

I will have o check when I get home.
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How to crank out 20lbs of tri-tip in less than 30 minutes on a grill that barely holds two at a time.

Not my preferred way to cook tri-tip, but hey, everyone there loved it, so whatever.

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