I've had a Chef's Choice slicer from Metro Kitchen for a number of years. It has an 8" blade and is reasonably easy to clean. For the number of times per year that I use it, it is more than adequate and it is easy to get parts for (although I have not had to do that yet).

My only complaint is that the sucker is heavy -- not an issue when using it, but it is an issue when I go to stick it up on an out-of-the-way shelf for storage :-)
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A different Sous Vide question:

When looking at cook times and temps on the internet I see huge variances -- some will say to cook at 135* for 2 hours and others will say 138*/140 for 45 minutes. I've seen this beef, lamb and now pork (1" pork loin chops). How do you know which time/temp combination to go with?
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The time/temp are minimums. I use the temp that I want for my doneness and am playing with the duration since it won't cook the meat any more but will affect texture.
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Michael, there is also a time vs temp equation for killing bacteria. You can pasteurize with high temp (165F and up) almost instantly, or you can slow kill over time at lower temps (above 130F).

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Sous vide brings up an interesting issue with low temp cooks, like the steak I cooked the other day was 45 min at 129F. 129 is below the minimum kill temp, and 45 is no where near long enough to pasteurize at the minimum temp. The grace there is that whole muscle is less risky since bacteria live on the surface and can't penetrate the meat and that I sear with a blowtorch. Ground, on the other hand, every bit of it is exposed to air during the grind and could become contaminated.

I don't know the numbers of cases, but according to my contact who runs the butcher program at the university, most cases of bacterial food poisoning are due to improperly handled and improperly cooked (under-done) ground beef. Most people are scared enough of salmonella on chicken and turkey that they over cook those ground meats. Beef, people think of medium rare hamburgers. While they taste great, they are, unfortunately, potential risks. Almost no one gets bacterial food poisoning from a medium rare or even rare steak though.
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Thanks, Adam!
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I made some pork loin chops (from Costco) seasoned with salt and crushed garlic at 140* for an hour, then seared 60 seconds on a side in lard:

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I think these are my best Sous Vide dish so far.
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Mark, what I did was cook the veggies and potatoes first.
After I pulled them out, i put them into an ice bath, then the refrigerator.
Then when I had about an hour left in my protein cook time, I put them in the lower temp water bath to reheat them. They were perfect.

I've considered doing a cook with 6-10 bags of potatoes, freezing them in the vac sealed bag, and then throwing a bag in with the lower temp meat to reheat.
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I just select a temp that I want my meat to be cooked to.
I already know that I don't want my beef cooked above 135° and my pork above 140°.
From there I use the minimum time, and if I cook it a bit longer; no worries.
Using a 1" Pork chop as an example, I don't think there would be any noticeable textural differences between a chop cooked for an hour vs one that has been cooked for 3 hours.
With that big of a window, I don't see any reason to really worry about the cook time. As long as I hit the minimum, I'm fine.
If using a more delicate piece of protein, like fish, I would pay more attention to the time.

As for the pasteurizing the meat, I read the min temp is 130° and the food needs to be held there for 112 min to completely kill all bacteria.
As the temp goes up, the time needed to pasteurize comes down.
When I did the rack of lamb, I cooked it at 130° for this reason.
I prefer my lamb at 125°.
I am finding with the sous vide method, since the doneness is edge to edge, I can actually cook meat to a higher temp, since I don't have to worry about the outer portion being overcooked while trying to reach the desired temp in the center.
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That's what I was thinking as well, Dom. Didn't pan far enough ahead to do it yesterday so will have to buy more steak to perform more experiments. The things that I do for science.

But the carrots and sugar peas will be cooked!
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Thanks for the info!
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Looking forward to any creations that you guys whipped up for Christmas dinner.
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Santa must have seen this thread. Took good care of me this year.
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My presentation is for sh!t, but the prime rib roast was delicious

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Looks fantastic, Vin!
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No pics, but did another turkey breast. Turned out fantastic. 4 hours at 145. Nice and juicy. Didn't even need the gravy I made.
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Did flap steak 139 for 11 hours great fajitas. Two mor packs still in going to go till tomorrow and see how much better they are.

Santa bought me a searzall so will see the difference tomorrow
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Hopefully you got the searzall before the price went up. :-)
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Looks good, Vin.
Did you carve it with a chainsaw? I hope you asked Santa for a knife sharpener. :-)

Did a rack of pork for Christmas dinner.
4 hours @ 138°
Finished exclusively with the new Searzall that was under the tree.
There's going to be a bit of a learning curve with the Searzall, but overall I was happy with the results of the sear
I used the same fresh garlic and rosemary seasoning I did on the other porkchop I posted here.
The finished product was spectacular.

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Looks great, Dom!
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Brisket underway. 24 hours.
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