Sous Vide Cooking

Today I had time to experiment “compression” with my vacuum chamber sealer. To put a juicy fruit under vacuum is an issue with clamp vacuum machines as liquids can get inside the machine and break it. Vacuum chamber sealer machines are designed in a way that liquids can be put under vacuum. The vacuum is also much stronger with a vacuum chamber sealer compared to a clamp machine.
Compressing fruits such as watermelon is often described on cooking books or on some blogs. I was very curious to see the result on the texture of the fruit and also on the flavor.

Fo my first try I took a green apple I have cut in thin slices. I added a bit of gin inside the pouch, set the vacuum chamber machine at the maximum and here is the result. A fantastics translucent apple slice. I have also particularly appreciated the combination apple/gin.

My other tries were watermelon, melon and banana with rhum ans sugar cane. As you will se bellow, colors of watermelon and melon are getting very intense. The visual effect is fantastic!

On these picture you will realize how different is the color of compressed melon and watermelon compared to uncompressed ones. The texture is also very different, especially for the melon.

Then, what about the flavor? In my opinion watermelon compression doesn’t improve the flavor. I have added in the pouch some watermelon juice as I though this would raise the flavor…but it didn’t work.

Melon was in my opinion more interesting. The texture was getting more compact than with watermelon and the color became incredibly orange. In the mouth the compressed melon was unfamiliar. I can’t say it was better than the uncompressed one but this was an interesting feeling.

Jean-François

While checking if the Roner Compact has or not a PID temperature controller I found an interesting information provided by ICC Roner in one of its manual (pages 2 and 3). This document is in Spanish and I hope I did not make any translation mistakes (see the table below). Roner gives some information about the core temperature of some products and the time it should remains at this temperature.

ICC Roner’s information about core temperature and time while sous vide cooking

I have now the feeling that I have to take an interest in waterproof hypodermic probes…

Anyway, thank to Karl who was right. Roner compact water bath does not contain any PID temperature controller. Therefore the main differences between my basic water bath and a Roner Compact water bath are: a water pump, the heating element of Roner Compact is located in the water, a security water sensor, a temperature probe located directly in the water.

Jean-François