An attempt at more rare, 131F rib eye steak, cooked for 21 hours

On Friday night, after having a few beers with a coworker, I found myself in the meat department of the Harris Teeter, wondering what I was going to have for dinner tomorrow. Most nights that my wife is out of town I find myself cooking a steak, and, I saw no reason for an exception.

The steak: 1.1lb Rib Eye, labeled as "Harris Teeter Rancher" whatever that is.

The preparation: salt and pepper.

Time and temperature: See the headline, 131F, 21 hours.

The results:

"Ooooh, steak in a bag!" you're saying to yourself. Yes, yes, I know, it's strange. It's sous vide, and that's why we're here.



Next, drying the steak:

If the steak isn't dry, you cannot form a nice crust on it.

Once that's done, it looks like this:

A bit pallid, but we can fix that with this:

Yeah yeah, professional use only.. Got it.
The flame that this thing puts out is epic. I was previously using a propane torch for this task, I will not be going back.

So, as I'm doing this with the wife away I did not have a safe way of photographing what I was doing in browning the meat. Basically: just move around the meat with the flame trying to get even browning. One thing I did learn is that the fatty bits really render a lot when you're doing this. To use this to your advantage, aim so that the flame is nearest to the fatty bits, and aim inward towards the (less fatty pieces of) meat. What this does is distribute the fat that gets melted onto the other parts of meat, enhancing both browning and flavor.

When finished:

But wait, there's more!

Notice the gradient of doneness... there is basically none. The entire center is medium-rare, and the outside is properly browned.

So, how was it?

Well, it's good, quite tender (as would be expected for the long cooking time), however it was underdone for my tastes, my experience with beef thus far has shown me that 133F is more to my liking.  For the piece of meat that I started with, it's quite good. It's not the best piece of beef I've ever had though, which seems to be what I'm always searching for. I've recently had much better luck with strip steaks from Costco. The strip steak has more connective tissue, but most of that dissolves during the long cooking, making it about as tender, and a bit more flavorful. Next time I'll try a tougher piece of meat.