Salmon Sous-Vide Experiments
We’ve been experimenting with fresh king salmon cooked sous-vide and I have a few notes that I want to record. These methods work well in a beer-cooler sous vide setup because the cooking times are short. For the beer cooler sous-vide, you’ll want to practice a few times to get the starting water temperature correct (the water temp will decline after you insert the cold fish).
First, the fillet cuts should be about 1.25” to 1.75” inch thick and weigh approximately 0.5 to 0.7 lbs. Thinner, smaller fillets results in mushier outcomes with these procedures.
Second, 20 minutes in an iced salt-water brine solution prior to cooking substantially helps with maintaining the color of the fillets. The cold salt-water helps prevent the discoloration of the salmon with albumen. To brine the fish:
- Pour 2 cups of kosher salt into 2 quarts of distilled or tap water in a container that will allow the salmon to be completely submerged. The water should be room temperature when mixed with the salt to encourage suspension.
- Add 2 to 3 lbs of crushed ice. Put the mixture in the refrigerator and wait until the water temperature drops to 35 degrees F before proceeding.
- Add the salmon to the brine.
- Wait 20 minutes.
- Remove the salmon from the brine.
- Rinse if desired.
- Pat dry.
- Vacuum seal the fish for sous-vide cooking. We seal the fish with maple syrup. Yesterday it was BLiS bourbon barrel aged maple syrup.
While the salmon is in the brine, prepare the water bath. To cook the salmon to rare (but just beginning to flake well), the water temperature should be set to 116 to 118 degrees F. To cook to medium rare, the water temperature should be 126 degrees F. To cook to medium, the water temperature should be 140 degrees F. If you want to cook the fish above medium, stop reading and just buy canned tuna. ;)
In the past, we’ve cooked the salmon to 122 degrees F and then immediately consumed it from the water bath. Yesterday, we pan finished it to encourage reduction and glazing from the BLiS maple syrup, so I set the bath to 119.5 degrees F. But even a quick sear in the pan brought the final fish temperature up too high. Next time we recommend trying 115 or 116 degrees F for the water bath if you intend to quick sear pan finish or crisp it with a kitchen torch.
Finally, the amount of time that the fish stays in the bath is very important. 12 minutes in the water bath is just on the edge of being enough. We typically cook to just shy of 20 minutes. 40 minutes is the absolute maximum and every minute over 20 minutes begins to make the fish lose its crispness.
Happy cooking!
