muebe, you are a master at the dry aged grill - I do understand a lot of the advantages of sous vide. But, you seem really impressed with the texture / taste of the finished steak. Help me understand what you think sous vide gave you that your normal methods don't. And, since I KNOW you are already thinking about this, how are you going to get the benefit you see from sous vide along with some good grill marks?
Doc I could have went longer with the sear. I think if I went 2 minutes a side the steak still would have been good. Also there are some that use a torch to give the steak a crust. I may give that a try. Or a hot cast iron skillet would give a nice crust also.
Now about the taste and texture. First off the bag actually had very little juices in it. I have seen 3 times as much juice left on my plate after removing the steak from the grill. The moisture stays in the meat. The steak was practically fork tender.
The buttery mouth feel that a dry aged steak normally has was substantially increased. Each bite was the same as the last. Evenly cooked completely through the steak.
The Beer Hop smoke flavor was awesome. It took on great smoke flavor but was not bitter.
And I was impressed on the penetration of flavor there was from the Double Secret steak rub. Not just a surface flavor but almost part of the steak itself. 6 hours of slow cooking for the seasonings to become part of the steak. Very, very flavorful!
I want to thank Rummm for his link in the other post to this site
http://www.cookingsousvide.com/ It has a lot of great information and provides times and temps for various cuts of meat!
So I plan on buying a large roaster or rice cooker to do big cuts of meat in. And a simple aquarium air pump can be used with an air stone to help circulate the water so that will be another purchase. Those are cheap and easy to obtain.
My next Sous Vide cook I am thinking a Tri-Tip