My Latest Attempt With Sous Vide Ribs

Spring Chicken

Once again I'm combining the science of Sous Vide with the Magic of the Egg. 

This time some ribs I found on sale. 

I also wanted to try the sample packet of Crossroads from Dizzy Pig. To give them a fair test, I also used some Tsunami Spin and Dizzy Dust, rubs I'm very familiar with. 

Here's the video. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i89PqutMN8 

Oh, I smoked the ribs for 3 hours before placing them in the sous vide bath. 

Spring "Keep Trying Until I Get It Right Wrong Or Ruined" Chicken 
Spring Texas USA

SoCalWJS

Looks interesting! A couple of quick questions - I haven't seen the soldering iron in the can of wood chips trick before - can you elaborate or point to a resource so I can learn a bit? (does the wood catch fire? How do you prevent it from doing so? Approx temp?)
Also, have you done it similarly with a bit of sauce and a final "sear" after pulling them out of the Sous Vide? (I would think fairly low temp 275-300 for 10-15 minutes a side). Do you think 24 hours was too long?

Thanks for the video!

RRP

Thanks Leroy! How did you select 145º plus the number of hours? Is there some chart for cross reference? What is confusing me is since I always cut my racks in half then the bend test which is popular with some folks won't work for me. Instead I try the toothpick test followed by probing the meat between the bones with my Thermapen looking for 197 to 202 reading. When sealed in a FS bag you obviously can't do a probe test. Can you enlighten me?

Spring Chicken

SoCalWJS said:

Looks interesting! A couple of quick questions - I haven't seen the soldering iron in the can of wood chips trick before - can you elaborate or point to a resource so I can learn a bit? (does the wood catch fire? How do you prevent it from doing so? Approx temp?)
Also, have you done it similarly with a bit of sauce and a final "sear" after pulling them out of the Sous Vide? (I would think fairly low temp 275-300 for 10-15 minutes a side). Do you think 24 hours was too long?

The soldering iron and chips was not my idea.  I think Frank from Houma first introduced it to me.  It seemed simple enough.  So I purchased a really cheap but metal protected low wattage soldering iron for about $6.  I found a real metal can (coffee can I think) and punched some vent holes all around the edge of the base, making one of the holes large enough to insert the soldering iron into.  Then I cleaned everything out of my fire pit, set the can directly on the bottom, inserted the soldering iron through the vent door and into the can far enough to get the tip well inside.  Then I filled the can with wood chips and plugged in the soldering iron.  Within about three or four minutes I had plenty of smoke.  I let it stay plugged in but I later learned that I could unplug it and just let the chips smolder.  Worked a lot better than trying to keep a charcoal  and chips fire below 100°. It was about 80° dome temp one time when I checked.  In other words, the normal Coop Temperature that day.

The sous vide method does not require you to reach 195° to 200° for tenderness like traditional bbq cooking.  You basically cook it to the temperature you wish to eat it.  Of course, the length of time and the temperature of the sous vide bath are critical to the cooking process, including the killing of any harmful bacteria in the meat.  You can learn more by doing a Google search on sous vide cooking.  It's quite interesting reading.

Spring "We Used To Call It Hot-Tubbing" Chicken

Spring Chicken

RRP said:

Thanks Leroy! How did you select 145º plus the number of hours? Is there some chart for cross reference? What is confusing me is since I always cut my racks in half then the bend test which is popular with some folks won't work for me. Instead I try the toothpick test followed by probing the meat between the bones with my Thermapen looking for 197 to 202 reading. When sealed in a FS bag you obviously can't do a probe test. Can you enlighten me?

Ron, as I posted above, the time and temperature of the sous vide bath is critical to the process.  There are plenty of charts that will tell you precisely the amount of time and the temperature of the sous vide bath for typical foods that benefit from the process.  

A Google search is highly recommended to better understand how and why the sous vide process works so well.  I would also suggest going to YouTube and doing a similar search.  Fascinating subject in so many ways.  

There's not a lot of Eggheads posting information or videos about their sous vide cooks on the Big Green Egg.  Being someone who prefers to detour from accepted recipes, I did not wish to just duplicate someone else's sous vide recipe, I wanted to modify it to work with the Big Green Egg.  Needless to say, not all attempts turn out well, but I'm learning.  One thing is for sure, with sous vide cooking I will never 'over-cook' anything.  

Spring "No Surprises" Chicken

Spring Chicken

Please note that I edited the video and the link above no longer works.  This is the new link:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oQXwEv04AM

I wanted to add photos and comments after mopping the remaining ribs with bbq sauce.  They were much better in both moisture and flavor, actually turning into some of my best ribs.

Spring "Now Square With The World" Chicken
Spring Texas USA

Skiddymarker

Must try the pre bubble smoke, A-Maze-N smoker should do the trick. We have sous vide ribs every week or so, grandkids here last night and as always great easy meal. 
My routine is temp of 147-148ºF (64ºC) with rub and about 60ml of BBQ sauce for each half rack for at least 18 hours. I remove from the Trés Booblay and plunge into an ice bath for 20 minutes and then into the fridge for an hour or so. Remove from sous vide bag and onto a 250ºF (120ºC) egg with smoke wood for 60 to 90 minutes with sauce added for the last 30 minutes if someone wants it. Even get a smoke ring using this cool down technique. 

Darby_Crenshaw

smoke ring is likely from some sodium nitrite in the barbecue sauce actually, as opposed to the smoke in the BGE.

you're definitely getting smoke flavor from the BGE though.