Template:How to cook sous vide meat to different levels of doneness

It takes a little longer than usual as each piece of meat has to be cooked separately but it is possible to cook meat in a sous vide bath to different levels of doneness. Cookipedia User Julia Balbilla explains how:

You want one steak well done [70 degrees] and one rare [49 degrees] and the are both 25mm thick.
See Sous_vide_cooking_times for other degrees of doneness and other types of meat.

Cooking each steak individually

Pre-heat the water bath to 71 degrees
Cook the one you want to be well done for 1-2 hours (it is now cooked) Reduce the temp to 49 degrees - best to do this by taking away some of the hot water and adding cold so that you can get to 49 degrees fairly quickly Add the steak that you want to be cooked rare and cook for 1-2 hours (it is now cooked and the well done is still hot but not over cooked). This method is probably only suited for two different types of doneness.
HOWEVER to cook more than 2 types of doneness you can also use the cook-chill method which is where you cook 3-5 different types separately in advance. As soon as each type is cooked, you plunge into cold water a chill (still in the vacuum bag).

Reheating the pre-cooked steaks

When you want to consume, just heat the water to the temperature at which the least done of the steaks was cooked, add all of the steaks to the bath and heat for about 20 minutes. Simple :-)
You can also use either method if you want to cook both meat and veg in the bath. Start at 82 degrees or whatever it is for the potatoes and work you way down the temperature scale for each item.

See also