Eye-of-Round (Sous-Vide)

- August 01, 2020

EYE OF ROUND- EOR

(OP- 5/2017)I've been wanting to do this for a while but prefer other cuts for roast beef (I still do). Anyhow, after reading all the pontificating posts on E-O-R, I wanted to see what all the hype was about. After making about 5 of these E-O-R's, I have dialed in what I believe is the perfect temp and time.

The T/T was selected because it provides the highest moisture retention, texture (tenderness) for slicing using a Deli-Slicer. If you plan on slicing by hand or wanted to slice very thick to serve as an entree it might not work. The E-O-R will be cooked at 128f for 24 hours and sliced on my Berkel Slicer.

(Disclaimer located at the bottom for T/T). Note: The T and T are perfectly fine. The Log Reduction is exceeded 12.

If you plan on purchasing the E-O-R at Costco or another whole seller, I will suggest buying it cryo-vacuumed-sealed. If you don't, there's a possibility that it was mechanically tenderized. I'm not against mechanically tenderized meat, but there are precautions one should take which I outlined HERE (Sous-Vide and Mechanical Tenderization).

Make sure to remove as much fat and silver skin as possible. Save the fat for something else. I saved it for sausages, which I will make very soon.

For posterity, I decided to weigh. The purchase weight was 7.24 lbs or 3284 grams. I removed 618 grams of fat.

All Trimmed up!!! Now we have to decide what the T/T will be. After doing this 5x, I think I got it nailed down to 128f at 24 hours.

I always dry-brine my meats. There are many benefits to dry-brining meats (adding salt to protein). Here's a brief list as to why it is beneficial. 1- Flavor 2- Flavor (yes I wrote flavor twice on purpose) 3- Moisture retention 4- Helps denature protein strands which give the impression it is more tender 5- By unraveling the proteins strands the protein will not have the ability to squeeze (squeezing out moisture) as hard during the cooking process which gives us more moisture retention.

Choices- You can go with .60% Salt (I prefer Kosher Salt), 1% Fish Salt (by Redboat), 1.75%-2.25% Fish Sauce (Redboat my fav), or the bottled stuff like Montreal Steak Seasoning which I just love. In addition to the salt, if you want to, you can add additional flavors, but only the salt will penetrate. The addition of herbs or spices is mostly a surface treatment which I am ok with. How long to dry-brine? It will take at least 48 hours to make any real difference, and if you use any of the fish products no less than 72 hours and 96 hours is better because of the diameter of the E-O-R. Ahh, last but not least, you could choose to go nekkid.

Vac sealed and refrigerated. Notice the weights? I was concerned with the protein floating.

I double bagged and sealed.
Although I did not do it, I should have pre-seared. Pre-searing would have eliminated all surface bacteria (long cook) and would have made the finishing sear better. How to do? Place protein in a freezer for a bit (60-90 min) and pre-sear. This is where a Sear-Zall shines because all I am doing is killing off surface bacteria and browning a little.

After the SV bath, I shocked and placed in the refrigerator for a couple of days. Removed from the vac bag, dried, and placed in the fridge to dry surface a little more.

I combined a little mayo and BBQ sauce and smeared it all over and topped with some more black pepper. I wanted to prevent the possibility of a gradient color, so I stuck it in the freezer for an hour before the sear.

A cast-iron flat-top was used to sear. It was placed on top of my weber genesis and cranked all the way up.....temps hit 725F. You could sear the EOR many many ways.