Sous Vide OT

plumbfir01

So alot going on in my kitchen tonight with the "Chicken in the pot recipe" and trying to sous vide some chiken thighs with a new sous vide machine and a new food saver.

I browned the chicken for the pot and set it off to the oven for the duration and focused on sealing the thighs for the sous vide. 

Read that i need to cook poultry dark meat at 176 i think for it to be done so i set it and let go for the time allotted. I pulled them out after timer went off and noticed all three bags lost seal somewhere and let all the water and juices mix so all got trashed and i was pretty aggervated at this point. I read on NomNom paleo where she started using an alternative bag because of leaching with the plastics and such but its not the same with holding the flavor in without vacuuming, but it is safer and doesnt leak either. 

This is the link to those bags and they seem pretty all purpose for many things so ill be trying one out soon. I am wondering thought why my bags leaked.... did i heat them to high at 176? not sure here.. Thanks in advance for the insight. 

http://www.lekueusa.com/Fresh-Cooking-Bag-Clear-1-qt--plu3400800B04U004.html

baychilla

How long after you sealed/created them did you toss them in the water?  I've found if I dont let my bags rest after sealing/making the seals will fail - even if they just get tossed in the freezer.  

/of course there could be something wrong with my food saver

caliking

Those bags look cool, but $15 each? 

allsid

I have done carrots at 180 and not compromised the seal on a bag.  I recently read about double sealing or sealing twice, but cannot yet figure out how to do that with the model of food saver I own.  

If you are worried, seal as normal and then go with a zip top bag as a second layer and suck the air out manually, or do a air decant dipping it in water.  That should work-

Have fun with the SV!  I went gang busters when I first got mine and am just now getting back into it.  Here is a link (if you care to look) to a SV Chicken thigh play on one of my favorites; chicken cordon blue  https://www.eggheadforum.com/discussion/comment/1292805/  you can see I double wrap the chicken but if you read the article, its for a different reason-  cheers!

plumbfir01

i put them in the sv within 10 min after sealing... i must say, pretty bummed out and trashed them so i dont want to deal with that again. 

caliking

Sorry about the fail, but give it another shot. Tons of people do SV cooks with the Foodsaver setup. Maybe you have a bad unit? I hear there is a bit of a learning curve with figuring out how to use the FS units optimally. 

FearlessTheEggNoob

I have a manual seal button on my gamesaver. With moist stuff I go automatic mode, then before I remove it I give it a second hit with the seal button.

Little Steven

Did you have a lot of juice/moisture from the chicken parts when you did the seal? I haven't had a problem. I do double seal if there is moisture on the first go.

Canugghead

Make sure it's not wet and absolutely no wrinkle at the seal line. I also use the manual seal button for extra 'heat' when it appears wet (you see liquid starts creeping into the unit) but I usually power the unit off before the 2nd seal completes, kind of like 1.5 seal cycles, to prevent potential melt through.

Lit

Yes wipe the inside of the bag where its gonna seal and hit the button to stop the seal as soon as you see the juices heading towards the seal. I use the pulse function on mine alot its nice to be able to start and stop the suction then start again if need be.

plumbfir01

ahhhhh the juice was my problem i bet. thanks all

Little Steven

Are you sure you had water inside? Some stuff sheds a lot of liquid in the cook. I just dumped about a cup and a half of liquid that I cooked a beef roast in

plumbfir01

yeah at first i thought it was just the juices but when i turned the first bag to seal side down it poured out of the bag... i could stick 2-3 fingers in each bag through the seal break area

Little Steven

Are you using rolls or bags? I sometimes use a little extra from the roll to keep the seam out of the water.

plumbfir01

rolls