Sous Vide Explained for the Masses Thanks to KenInk and Ink Bird. A review...

Not sure about the rest of the BBQing folks here but Sous Vide has always been a mystery to me.



KenInk with Ink Bird recently contacted me and asked if I would do a review on their Sous Vide unit. I responded that I was vaguely familiar with the term but had been wanting to give it a go.


Disclaimer: I have tested Ink Bird Products previously but am not affiliated with the company. I will always give an honest review. KenInk said that is what they wanted.



Being a retired Temp control (HVAC) guy I was interested. He sent me a InkBird Smart Sous Vide.



I had some homework to do.

1. Sous (Under) Vide (Vacuum). It's French.

2. It is basically a unit that heats water to an exact temp with a circulating pump to keep the water temp constant for the duration of the cook.
3. Precise temp control and time.
4. They are Smart now with Wi-Fi to phone etc.


I literally did 8-10 hours of YouTube and other research to learn about these rigs.


The unit:








The app that comes with it is Great! I did a test run and all 5 temp probes agreed.












Time for the test. As stated earlier Company came over. Here are the cook pic with some descriptions:


Today was my 1st attempt. What better way than to try it out on Company in from Tulsa? :becky:


I did go all in and purchased the Sous Vide container and rack set:


Picked up some prime from the Fancy Kroger!











Double vac packed the night before.


Here is the fun part of this Sous Vide gig. These steaks were over 2" thick each. My plan was to do them till 129*F in the Sous Vide then on the grill for sear. Company said they like 140*F steaks. My first cook on Sous Vide so we settled on 137*F.



No rest needed with Sous Vide BTW.


Here is the unit at work. Countdown timer on you phone with app alarm when time is elapsed.



Steaks in:








Steaks out:





They looks like boiled ribs coming out of Vac Pac but Wait!





Sear time on a screaming hot gasser! Many other way to finish sear. Important thing is to get a crust on the meat.









Got the "like Budda" and "melts in your mouth" "fork tender" comments etc. Still working on the sear part.

Feeling good about the first try. Looking forward to Sous Vide.


Thank you KenInk for the introduction.


This unit in my research has a 1000 watt element. I've not seen another brand close. The Wi-Fi is 2.4 Ghz.





Can't wait to try it again.

CookinAt225 said:

I built my own using this method here. I had a crockpot my ex-wife was kind enough to leave me with and the digital temp controller I picked up on eBay for $11. I just set the crockpot on high and based on temp from the probe the digital temp controller will turn the 110 outlet on/off as needed.

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Ain't even close to the same thing but novel.

pmad said:

Cooking that beautiful meat to 140* would make me cry.

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I wanted to go to 129 but it was company. Actually it was 137 but almost same difference.

pmad said:

Three Best Ways To Sear:

1. On rack directly over a vortex
2. On rack directly over charcoal chimney
3. Super hot cast iron - should be smoking a bit before putting it on.
make certain to dry the meat well with paper towels before searing.

Also, where did you get the metal rack? I want one.

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From Amazon. Ordered the racks with sous vide container at once. The manufacture is Vaeske.

redchaserron said:

I was a pretty early adopter on Sous Vide using Anova's original circulator and have had a lot of fun doing different things. For steak I like to cook at about 130 or slightly under for med rare, for the sear I almost exclusively use a cast iron skillet on a 20,000 btu propane burner outside, with about a half a stick of butter. That gets me that wonderful brown mallard reaction over the whole piece of meat, it only takes a minute a side.

Sous vide also shines for doing thick cut pork chops, normally a very thick pork chop can be hard to cook through without drying it out, I'm sure it would work as well for a whole pork loin.

I also like it for acomplishing some novel things that you can't do by any other method. Try doing beef short ribs at around 132-135 for 72 hours. I don't know of any other way you can produce fork tender short ribs at a Medium rare temp.

You can also do a chuck roast at around 135 for 36-48 hours, sear it, then slice it and pretend it's prime rib. It will be tender, medium rare and delicious.

Edited to add: For my sous vide cooking container I took a small igloo ice chest and cut a notch in the lid for the circulator to fit through. my feeling is that with less heat transfer the unit doesn't have to work as hard to maintain temps.

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Going to try that chuck roast cook tomorrow! Thanks for the idea.