Sous Vide Water Displacement With A Twist

[rgsparber]

Sous Vide is a cooking method involving the placing of food in a sealed plastic bag with most if not all of the air removed. It is then immersed in water held at a constant temperature. When done, the food is removed from the bag and "finished" using a torch or on the grill.

The Sous Vide water heater I bought cost me $75 and was well worth it. The killer is the vacuum sealer. It is easy to drop over $100 on such a machine. The lower cost sealers can use bags that cost as much as $1 each. A far more economical path is to use Ziploc Freezer bags. The challenge is to remove most of the air.

This article presents the two most common methods of removing most of the air from the bag and then offers a third way that addresses problems I have had with these methods.

If you are interested, please see

https://rick.sparber.org/SousVideWat...lternative.pdf


Your comments are welcome. All of us are smarter than any one of us.

Thanks,

Rick

[Zaakoc]

Rick here's a 4th way to do it.
Put a straw into the ziplock and close the ziplock up to the straw.
Suck out the air and finish zipping up the bag as you pull out the straw.

[DIYer]

Thanks rgsparber! We've added your Sous Vide Air Displacement Method to our Culinary category,
as well as to your builder page: rgsparber's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Sous Vide Air Displacement Method by rgsparber

tags: air

[CharlesWaugh]

Howzabout this:
1) put your food-filled bag (with its zipper about half-closed) into a another bigger non-zip-lock plastic bag lying flat on the counter top
2) wrap the outer bag's open end around a tube that is about the same opening size as a wine bottle neck
3) suck out the air that YOU can with lung-power
4) stick one of those pump-pump-pump wine bottle vacuum sealer things (for keeping a half-open bottle of wine fresh) into the tube and pump out all the air
5) you can now finish the seal on your food-filled bag by pressing it down through the plastic outer bag
6) VOILA! a vacuum-evacuated food-filled bag ready to cook!

[rgsparber]

Howzabout this:
1) put your food-filled bag (with its zipper about half-closed) into a another bigger non-zip-lock plastic bag lying flat on the counter top
2) wrap the outer bag's open end around a tube that is about the same opening size as a wine bottle neck
3) suck out the air that YOU can with lung-power
4) stick one of those pump-pump-pump wine bottle vacuum sealer things (for keeping a half-open bottle of wine fresh) into the tube and pump out all the air
5) you can now finish the seal on your food-filled bag by pressing it down through the plastic outer bag
6) VOILA! a vacuum-evacuated food-filled bag ready to cook!

I have tried something similar. Instead of me sucking the air out, I used the partial vacuum created by connecting the tube to the top of a 2L bottle filled with water that had a small hole in the bottom. As the water drained out, it sucked air out of the bag. I found that the larger bag would seal around the smaller bag and leave air in there. Pressing down did help but not enough. Not sure why it didn't work better.

Rick

[rgsparber]

Rick here's a 4th way to do it.
Put a straw into the ziplock and close the ziplock up to the straw.
Suck out the air and finish zipping up the bag as you pull out the straw.

If you look at the instructions for one of the hand pumps that draws air out of a Ziploc that has a one-way valve, it says to wash the pump after every use. This is because microscopic bits of raw food get drawn into the pump and will support bacteria growth. I wouldn't want that stuff getting into my lungs.

Rick

[CharlesWaugh]

You are emptying the secondary bag by sucking, not the food-filled bag per se.
And, raw food bits are in the air when we chop, grind, etc. anyway.
Our lungs are good at handling those little bits of stuff, but a plastic surface that then gets tossed in a dark drawer for a month aint so good at handling it - unless you WANT the biology experiment aspect of it!

Maybe I'm too cavalier. I Dunno.
:- )

[rgsparber]

You are emptying the secondary bag by sucking, not the food-filled bag per se.
And, raw food bits are in the air when we chop, grind, etc. anyway.
Our lungs are good at handling those little bits of stuff, but a plastic surface that then gets tossed in a dark drawer for a month aint so good at handling it - unless you WANT the biology experiment aspect of it!

Maybe I'm too cavalier. I Dunno.
:- )

Some of the air being sucked out has to be from the food-filled bag or this wouldn't work.

I found this warning at the CDC:

https://www.cdc.gov/brucellosis/transmission/index.html

I have no idea how common this is.

Rick

[CharlesWaugh]

Low risk in my mind:
(from the USDA)
"Ninety eight cases of human brucellosis were reported in 1997 . . . More recently, approximately 100 cases of brucellosis in humans are reported
annually to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention"

"Death occurs in 2% of cases" (from NCBI site) = 2 per year in the U.S.

By comparison: (from some foodie site)
"Did you know that on average, homefires started by cooking equipment end up killing 480 people per year? Those same fires injured almost 5,000 people and caused $724,00,000.00 in damage. "

= 250 times the risk of death as outcome.

Do you have a box of Baking Soda next to your stove?
: - )

WAIT! You're smart - Sous Vide is a rather low-temp way to cook.
Score!

: - )

[rgsparber]

Low risk in my mind:
(from the USDA)
"Ninety eight cases of human brucellosis were reported in 1997 . . . More recently, approximately 100 cases of brucellosis in humans are reported
annually to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention"

"Death occurs in 2% of cases" (from NCBI site) = 2 per year in the U.S.

By comparison: (from some foodie site)
"Did you know that on average, homefires started by cooking equipment end up killing 480 people per year? Those same fires injured almost 5,000 people and caused $724,00,000.00 in damage. "

= 250 times the risk of death as outcome.

Do you have a box of Baking Soda next to your stove?
: - )

WAIT! You're smart - Sous Vide is a rather low-temp way to cook.
Score!

: - )

My example was poorly chosen. Yes, it is extremely rare. Not sure there is any data on people that huff food ;-)

Rick