Love my Anova unit.  Applies to all foods and a fun adventure.  It'll come into play on our 100 day dry age.  Check out chefsteps.  Given that, I'm a SV newbie.

I only use the SV for veggies and reheating leftover pork and brisket. It's worth it just for that alone. 

FWIW they go on sale fairly often. The anova wifi unit was down to $150 recently.  Camelcamelcamel will track it for you and send you an email.

Steak is my least favorite thing to do with SV. It's the delicate stuff like chicken, pork tenderloin, fish, veggies etc that are really different with SV. And call me when you can do 72 hour fork tender med rare beef ribs with a BGE (although I did finish them on my bge for the smoke.

been seeing recipes lately for in fused oils with the sous vide, might do something with all the thyme, thai basil, rosemary, hot peppers etc from the garden this fall. recipes like lemon thyme, sesame chili etc.  it does make things more tender, even a flank 3.5 hours at 118 degrees is more tender

Theophan said:

Meeeshigan22 said:

Appreciate the input so far, good stuff. We make a lot of great things on the egg, but steak seems to be the go to. Always looking to expand. 

Check out this photo that I borrowed from @Slabotnick, that he cooked reverse sear.  I DEFY anyone to do better edge-to-edge gloriousness with sous vide!  I might buy one someday for something other than steak, but I just don't believe that mostly cooking a steak in a plastic bag in a water bath can possibly taste as good as a steak 100% cooked over wood charcoal.

I agree..that is a beautiful steak. I also agree 100% that the steak in the photo probably tastes better than any steak coming out of my Sous Vide.
On the other hand, at times, it's nice to have a super easy cook that only needs a sear at end to finish off the Sous Vide cook. I'm willing to sacrifice, at times,  a little flavor for simplicity. You also have the option to eat the food and experience it's true flavor. Not being enhanced or changes by flame or caramelization from the grill. A great example is a good piece of salmon cooked Sous Vide to the Exact firmness every time. Perfectly cooked shrimp with just a tiny amount of butter and salt. The ease at which this can done time and time again from SV is a great timesaver. Grilled shrimp is also one of my favs but even a minute either way on the grill can have a big impact, Especially if the size of the shrimp vary.
For me and a steak, I prefer it cooked 100% on the grill even if it's not edge to edge the same color inside. I like the flavor from the caramelization from grilling that is added.
Again....Damn that is a beautiful steak. Especially after eating a Subway sandwich for lunch.lol

Meeeshigan22 said:

So since I picked up the egg I've been in this continuous vortex of buying accessories for my green buddy. I've read a ton about the sous vide machine's and put one in my checkout cart a time or two, even drunk, and not pulled the trigger.

Why? Because I don't think i can make a better steak than I've done a hundred times using the reverse sear method. Perfect amount of smoke, super tender, and great sear. The perfect steak in my mind.

So convince me to try the Amazon Prime 1 click. Will I miss the smoke?

Go with 1 click and buy some khakis. 

SV is a great tool to have, it's easy to cook a steak super rare with reverse sear and get good edge to edge, but if want something like medium-rare, you just aren't going get it as well as with SV. 

Theophan said:

J-dubya said:

SV is a great tool to have, it's easy to cook a steak super rare with reverse sear and get good edge to edge, but if want something like medium-rare, you just aren't going get it as well as with SV. 

Did you see the photo above?  That wasn't purple raw (i.e. rare) meat on the inside, but gorgeous pink medium-rare meat.  And it was reverse sear.

I've seen lots of advantages to sous vide in this discussion, and I get it, but the photos clearly demonstrate that it just flat isn't true that a carefully done reverse sear can't do every bit as well with edge-to-edge medium rare glory as SV.  Look again at that picture.

I'm not saying SV is bad, or even that I won't try it, sometime!  It's just that over the years I've seen lots of claims about it being the only way to get edge-to-edge medium rare meat, and (a) I've seen some really gorgeous SV meats on this forum, but many times I've seen gray edges MUCH deeper than the picture above, and (b) I've seen multiple pictures of reverse-seared meat that was as gorgeous edge-to-edge as any SV picture I've ever seen.

So I very well may try sous vide one of these days, but it ain't gonna be for steak, I'll tell you that.

every RS steak I've ever done, I've over shot.  Cause  I suck and can't cook. Not that it can't be done, but even without SV, I prefer just a CI pan. You're really adamant about not cooking your steak this way. Cool, but RS isn't the only answer. 

I don't bother with sous vide for steaks. The egg is easy enough. But for certain things, the sous vide is really good: poached eggs, scallops, beef short ribs, chuck roast. Try getting a nicely marbled chuck roast, put it in the sous vide for 72 hours, and then finish it off with an industrial blow torch in front of dinner guests. Make sure you do that under a well ventilated hood or outside. Should have added pork chops and pork loin.

Theophan said:

J-dubya said:

SV is a great tool to have, it's easy to cook a steak super rare with reverse sear and get good edge to edge, but if want something like medium-rare, you just aren't going get it as well as with SV. 

Did you see the photo above?  That wasn't purple raw (i.e. rare) meat on the inside, but gorgeous pink medium-rare meat.  And it was reverse sear.

I've seen lots of advantages to sous vide in this discussion, and I get it, but the photos clearly demonstrate that it just flat isn't true that a carefully done reverse sear can't do every bit as well with edge-to-edge medium rare glory as SV.  Look again at that picture.

I'm not saying SV is bad, or even that I won't try it, sometime!  It's just that over the years I've seen lots of claims about it being the only way to get edge-to-edge medium rare meat, and (a) I've seen some really gorgeous SV meats on this forum, but many times I've seen gray edges MUCH deeper than the picture above, and (b) I've seen multiple pictures of reverse-seared meat that was as gorgeous edge-to-edge as any SV picture I've ever seen.

So I very well may try sous vide one of these days, but it ain't gonna be for steak, I'll tell you that.

Ya, I saw the picture, good looking steak, not really sure what it means, it's one picture of steak you didn't cook and you have never tried SV (no offense). 

   It's not about getting one steak right, it's about consistency. I love RS, but it's absurd to think its superior to SV for edge to edge.