 Hey all welcome back to the fire and water cooking channel I'm Darren and today we're gonna do our part four of our series and sous vide basics and we're just gonna go over how to combine sous vide and barbecue together and actually it's quite easy actually if you think about it sous vide is more of a lower and slower way of barbecue than barbecue is barbecue when you're cooking on a grill is smoking or cooking something very at a lower temperature for a longer period of time and that's exactly what sous vide does except it's actually for a longer period of time and a lot lower temperature that you can control precisely so instead of throwing a brisket or a pork butt in the smoker for 8 to 12 to 15 hours depending at a 225 or 250 temperature cooking an air you're actually cooking in a water bath at a lot lower temperature for a longer period of time so you're accomplishing pretty much the same result you're breaking down tougher meat proteins collagen fat muscle tissue and you're breaking it down over a longer period of time under a lower temperature so you're not burning it up or you know evaporating all the moisture out of it so that's basically what you're doing and that's why they work really well together we're complimenting each other real well because they're they're pretty much accomplishing the same thing but just a little bit different sous vide is a little bit more efficient at it than cooking in air and a smoker so but the best way to use them both is to combine the two so you get the benefit of the smoky flavor from cooking on that smoker and the low and slow moisture holding abilities of the sous vide cook so we're going to talk about how to combine those two to make it a pretty much a perfect so the biggest one of the things people want to understand is when there's different ways to cook barbecue or grilling or what have you they all kind of get lumped together but there there is different ways to use your grill grilling is more hot and fast where you're cooking a hamburger really quick or a steak really quick you're not doing a really long cook you're using the heat and the flame to you know cook something really quick and get that smoky flavor to it get the heat of the fire to it searing it getting grill marks all that so barbecue is more low and slow longer period of time get smoke penetrating trying to get that smoke to get a nice flavor to the meat so you can do both of those sous vide actually will you know help both of those on the hot and fast side you sous vide your steak for two hours at 132 you can actually turn it around take it out of the sous vide bath and then seared on your grill hot and fast to get that grill marks or the sear the myriad reaction on the crust to compliment each other same goes with low and slow with smoking it you can actually sous vide your pork butt your pork belly brisket things like that or ribs you normally would cook a long time on your grill at a lower temperature you can sous vide them and actually break the meat down better and not lose as much moisture and then turn around and throw it on your smoker for a couple hours at a hotter temperature to develop that crust and that smoke flavor and that bark and it actually works for you. One of the things I want to talk about is avoiding myths and traditions you'll see some links below to some different articles and on different various websites one of them one of the websites I frequent a lot is amazing ribs calm one of the reasons I do is because he avoids getting trapped into traditions or what what I've always heard of doing instead of you know science-based fact what really works a lot of things and barbecue are based on tradition just give you an example you know a lot of people swear by putting mustard all over the meat to get the rub to stick well it doesn't really make sense because any moisture will actually let get the rub to stick to the meat and it won't fall off people use you know all kinds of stuff people use oil water mustard Worcestershire sauce and none of it really affects the taste of the meat so why bother using spending money on mustard or oil or Worcestershire sauce when you can just you know rinse the meat off and use the water and it'll stick just the same so make sure you check out some of the links below to amazing ribs and kinds of go it goes over a lot of that stuff and you know what's tradition what's myth what's actual fact and make sure you're using fact-based you know information instead of just what I've always heard or you know what my father used to do or you know I got a buddy of mine who competes in barbecue and he always puts mustard or whatever yeah what works best to combine sous vide and barbecue not grilling this is barbecue in particular where you're doing the longer low and slow stuff and what I found it actually works perfect for just about anything you would cook low and slow ribs pork butt brisket beef roasts anything you know you know chuck roasts anything that you would normally cook on a grill for a longer period of time to try to break down the toughness or the collagen or you know the muscle tissues to render fat you can actually do it sous vide and then finish it on the smoker a lot better I haven't found anything yet that doesn't work well one of the things I found that really works even better than the traditional way is doing like a brisket or a chuck roast when you want to have it done this of like a medium or medium rare but you still want to get some smoke and you know smoke to it and so maybe some of that bark I've cooked a couple briskets where I've actually made them medium to medium rare done this on the inside and not having to cook it you know well done that you know works real well you cook it sous vide for 48 hours at 132 take it out chill it down throw it on your smoker for a couple hours and it's still got that medium done this in the middle but it's got a nice bark a nice smoke to it so that's the stuff that I think works best using a sous vide and barbecue now sous vide and grilling just about anything works chicken pork steaks burgers they all work really well especially if you want your burgers medium or medium rare you know and you want them thick they work real well I don't want to dress some things it comes goes back to the old what I was talking about earlier about tradition or what works best for you and what you've heard there's always going to be the question of what works best pre-searing post searing pre-smoking post smoking when you're doing these kind of cooks and what I tell everybody is try them all different ways and then find out works best for what works best for you and then do it that way going forward these type of questions all boil down to personal preference and there's not a right way to do it I started out pre smoking pork butts and then sous eating them and I found what I found was I get a better result me personally for what I'm looking to do when I actually sous vide the meat first on a pork butt especially chill the meat down in there either in the refrigerator overnight or in an ice bath and then smoke it for a couple hours that may be a little bit hotter temperature because what that does for me is it develops a better bark it develops more smoke flavor meat on wet because wet cold meat attracts smoke more because the way smoke works it sticks to cold wet surfaces more and then when you're smoking for that couple two or three hours you're actually the moisture that's on the outside of the meat evaporates smoke sticks to the surface of the meat if you spritz it after 15 or 20 minutes again with some moisture you'll get more smoke to attract to that meat so you're actually like painting smoke paint on to your meat so that's a good thing to if you want to develop more smoke flavor or develop a better bark you know that's why you'll see pit masters when they're doing competitions they spritz their meat not to keep it moist because it's drying out internally it's because they want to develop that smoke flavor on the meat so so pre-searing pre-smoking post-smoking post-searing it's all going to come down to a personal preference I say try it the way one way first see if you like it try it the other way the next time and then kind of you know see which one works best for you. Another thing I want to kind of touch on since we're talking about cooking you know barbecue one of the things that people love to cook with barbecue is the sides you know your beans your corn your potatoes and there are certain you know I don't do a whole lot of sides via sous vide but there are some that work really well one of them being potatoes mashed potatoes in particular people do asparagus I do corn occasionally there's all kinds of vegetables and potatoes and stuff like that that works really well sous vide I just I don't do a whole lot of it just because of the fact I find it easier to if I'm making potato salad I can make potato salad a lot easier the traditional way but I have made mashed potatoes sous vide before and they actually do come out pretty good you do got to cook them kind of hotter than you would on your meats but there are plenty of recipes out there for sides don't be afraid to you know buy another unit to do your sides in like I said I used that Gourmia GMC 680 which is the multi-cooker I'll use that as well sometimes for sides but you know they can be done it's I personally just don't I would say probably maybe less than 40% of the time do I do something that cooks sides via sous vide just for the fact like I said you know cooking rice or something like that's a lot easier for me to cook it on the stove doesn't take a whole lot of time sous vide doesn't benefit it as much on sides and I find that it does the protein in particularly but you can do it nothing wrong with it some people will argue with me that you know doesn't do doesn't do a whole lot for it but that's personal preference as well so one of the things I always tell people to do and that's why I started the Facebook group and the Facebook page and this YouTube channel is to experiment on their own kind of you know it's fine to look up times and temps and recipes and see what everybody else is doing and ask people what they're doing but make sure you try different ways if somebody tells you this is how I do it it's the only way to do it they're wrong you know there's going to be somebody coming right behind them and go no I do it this way and if you've been on Facebook long enough you've seen that a lot you know if you're on any of the cooking groups and Facebook you'll see where somebody will come in and say I do it this way this is the best way to do it then somebody will come right behind them and say no no I do it this way my way is the best way you have to discover what's the best way to do it on your own that's why I always say try different ways and discover how you like it how you want how the results come out you're the one who's going to determine what you like best so don't be afraid to experiment try different things look at a bunch of different recipes a bunch of different cooks and see how other people done it then you try it on your own then you can discover what you like best how it comes out for you what your family likes the best so I hope these videos help you guys out and I really hope you would subscribe make sure you like this video share it with friends follow us on our Facebook group we have a lot of interaction there follow us on our Facebook page but I'll see you on the next video make sure you follow us and subscribe thanks again