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Vacuum Sealing in Sous Vide Cooking

I was perusing through our website one day when I noticed one of our customer's commenting on a Cambro food storage container he recently purchased for sous vide cooking. I started thinking how great of a blog topic this would be for those who have never heard of such a process.

What is Sous Vide Cooking?

Sous Vide is French for “under vacuum”. This process is a method of low temperature cooking where by food is cooked at a very controlled temperature which is consequently the same temperature the food will be served. This differs from any other cooking method where high heat is used to cook your food products. For example, you would normally cook a steak on a hot grill or oven at 400-500 degrees and pull it off at the right moment when the middle has reached 131°F. This results in a bull's eye effect of burnt meat on the outside turning to medium rare in the middle; however, a sous vide cooked steak would be cooked at 131°F over a course of several hours. This will result in the entire piece of meat to be cooked medium rare.

Sous Vide cooking started in the 1970s in France and is the process of cooking vacuum sealed (hence the name) food in a low temperature water bath. The advantage of sous vide cooking is that it gives your food great texture and produces thoroughly cooked foods.

How does Sous Vide Cooking work?

You must first put your food contents inside a vacuum seal bag, like the Fleetwood Slicing Vacuum Pouches; these bags are specially made for sous vide cooking techniques and most come in 1000 per case. It's ideal to use a vacuum sealer at this stage. Vacuum sealers, like the EUROVM16, take the food inside of the bag

VM16 Eurodib USA Orbed Vacuum Machine

and remove the air from the bag. This is accomplished by a fan inside the sealer much like the fan found in a vacuum cleaner, which pulls the air from the bag and prevents any excess air from entering it. The plastic of the sealing bag will typically conform to the shape of whatever is being sealed inside of it. After this is accomplished, the air then needs to be sealed from the vacuum sealer to prevent more air from getting in. This is accomplished by the use of a heated sealing surface. The heated surface presses the bag closed and applies heat to the bag to slightly melt the plastic, which creates an airtight seal that can't be simply pulled apart.

Now that you have sealed your foods, it's time to heat the water bath. This process can only be achieved through a device that will allow a stable temperature of water, so the greater the volume and more even the heat, the better. Ideally, rice cookers, like the Admiral Craft RC-E50, or a slow cooker, like the Kitchen Aid KSC700SS, are used in this process.

A good example of Sous Vide Cooking are 72-Hour Short Ribs. Cooking meat at a low temp turns the meat's connective tissue into tender, mouth-coating deliciousness. The reason being the firm collagen proteins of the meat start to denature and turn into a softer gelatin. Cooking at high temperatures would cause the muscle fibers of the meat to toughen. The browning of all steaks are caused by high heat, so you'll be lifting a pale, soft piece of meat out of your water bath when it's done. Therefore, the browning part is done after the Sous Vide technique is finished. You would cook your meat at 55°C for 72 Hours. At the end of the cooking process, get a cast-iron skillet as hot as you can. Then remove the meat from the water bath and open the bag. Oil the skillet and immediately add the meat, turning it with tongs just until it is nicely browned on each side.

We at J.E.S. Restaurant Equipment have a great selection of sous vide cooking products available for our customers. If you have further questions regarding sous vide cooking, please contact us toll free (866) 200-6056.