Sous Vide "freezer jam"

[Owly055]

Sounds like a contradiction in terms....... freezer jam that is not frozen.... It will not be a cooked jam, nor will it be a "raw" jam. I would use radiation if I could, but I do not have any way to generate and contain gamma rays ;-)

I have a bumper crop of raspberries this year, and I always make my low sugar raspberry freezer jam this time of year and give nearly all of it away.

My basic proportions are:

2 parts berries (measured crushed)
1 part sugar
1/6 part bulk pectin from Nuts.com..... I buy it in one pound bags.

I make it in my big Ninja food processor with the dough hooks, not over blending

I will be switching to Pamona pectin next year, as it is a calcium setting pectin suitable for low sugar. I've been doing it this way for years and the results are always good, but I do not get a really good "set".... who cares?

Tomorrow I plan to make half a gallon of jam, but rather than freezing it, I will put it in pint jars, and sous vide it at 135F for 4 hours It's been shown that 135 for an hour kills all living microbes, to the same extent as standard pasteurization. Hopefully this will keep at room temp, I do not see why not, and processed at such a low temp should retain the fresh berry taste of normal uncooked freezer jam.

H.W.

 

[Kent88]

I thought minimum pasteurization temperatures were above 140F. I guess I was mistaken?

How quickly does a sous vide get things up to temp? Is there any reason to be concerned that any unwanted bugs will be able to mess with it while the jam comes up to temp?

If it was me doing it, I'd start off by bringing the jam to 165 for a few minutes instead and see if I detect a cooked flavor.

 

[Owly055]

The object here is to do the minimum possible temperature. There is a government time temperature chart for pasteurization that can be found at this URL:

https://polyscienceculinary.com/blogs/news/17215983-food-safety-with-sous-vide-cooking

I'll sumarize:

130 Hold time: 112 min
140 Hold time: 11 min
150 Hold time: 1 min
155 Hold time: 5 seconds
158 Hold time: less than one second (instant)


It will come up to temp pretty quickly... quickly enough that I'm not too concerned. I cook meat at 130 all the time.. that equals medium rare.

Food poisoning is a catchall term. Foods can carry infectious microbes, that make you sick by infecting your body. Salmonella being the most well known of these. There is no risk with these at all, as they will be killed, and cannot infect your body. Another is Clostridium Which actually produces a toxin within the food that make you sick. Staph is another such bacterium, and E Coli is infectious (though most varieties of it are not). Needless to say infectious bacteria are not of concern as I said before, only those that produce toxins. Botulinum is probably the most dangerous, but cannot live in the acidic environment, and tends to be a problem only with non acidic canned goods like beans or meat. There should be two terms...."food borne disease", and "food poisoning" They are distinctly different things.

In any case, dropping pint jars into preheated water at 135, they will quickly pass the activity temp of the microbes in them... far too quickly to be of concern. Nearly all microbes have temp zone where they are very active, and either side of that they are not. Yeast being a prime example

H.W.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Just a bit of pedantry, if you're holding it at 135 for 4 hours, is it truly correct to not call it "cooked" jam?

Is this just a convention I'm unfamiliar with that you call it uncooked to differentiate it from a style of jam that discernably is altered because of the cooking process?

cook
1
[ koo k ]
||
SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR cook ON THESAURUS.COM
verb (used with object)
to prepare (food) by the use of heat, as by boiling, baking, or roasting.
to subject (anything) to the application of heat.
Slang. to ruin; spoil.
verb (used without object)
to prepare food by the use of heat.
(of food) to undergo cooking.

 

[Owly055]

Just a bit of pedantry, if you're holding it at 135 for 4 hours, is it truly correct to not call it "cooked" jam?

Is this just a convention I'm unfamiliar with that you call it uncooked to differentiate it from a style of jam that discernably is altered because of the cooking process?

cook
1
[ koo k ]
||
SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR cook ON THESAURUS.COM
verb (used with object)
to prepare (food) by the use of heat, as by boiling, baking, or roasting.
to subject (anything) to the application of heat.
Slang. to ruin; spoil.
verb (used without object)
to prepare food by the use of heat.
(of food) to undergo cooking.

130 is not a "cooking" temp...... I'm not concerned about "correctness", only with results. Today I will be trying the process. The proof is in the pudding. Remember, I'm the local iconoclast...... who smashes convention at every opportunity. 135 for four hours is far different than boiling at 212... Take a piece of meat and seal it in a bag and boil it.... take another and drop it in the sous vide for 4 hours at 135........... You will immediately see a VAST difference. I was once kicked off this group briefly for referring to a side boil of hops as a "hop decoction", which offended some purists......... Smashing conventional thinking is my stock in trade.

H.W.

 

[Jayjay1976]

I don't think fruit cooks the same way as a piece of meat. And you're not smashing any convention by comparing apples to filet mignon.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I'm not trying to argue... But I personally would call it "sous vide jam" or "sous vide cooked jam" to denote that it is a cooking process, albeit one that occurs using different methods and different temperatures than perhaps traditionally cooked jam, therefore the texture and results are different.

Just as if you sous vide a brisket to tenderness vs smoking/braising a brisket to tenderness, you'll get a VERY different result. But both will be "cooked".

 

[Owly055]

I'm not trying to argue... But I personally would call it "sous vide jam" or "sous vide cooked jam" to denote that it is a cooking process, albeit one that occurs using different methods and different temperatures than perhaps traditionally cooked jam, therefore the texture and results are different.

Just as if you sous vide a brisket to tenderness vs smoking/braising a brisket to tenderness, you'll get a VERY different result. But both will be "cooked".

I completed the project today, and put the "sous vide jam"...... I don't think the word "cooked" applies when the temp is 135F...... but where do you draw the line? The Sigmunds Voss Kavik yeast I used in my continuous brew experiment tolerated temps only slightly below this. To me "cooking" begins at a higher temp... The terminology is really a matter of opinion... It clearly is NOT freezer jam, but it clearly is not "cooked jam" either, which is brought to a boil.......Sous Vide Jam is a perfectly suitable description if not particularly appealing. Perhaps SV Process or French Process, or Low temp thermal process.... Let's find an appealing name....assuming it works. I have one jar in the fridge, along with the left over jam, which was frozen........Tomorrow is the "Electric Cool-aid Acid Test". I will try both side by side at the same temp. Appearance wise it is very different from "cooked jam".......it looks like freezer jam. Of course the taste test tomorrow, and the taste test 6 months down the road may yield different results.

Note that I am also repeating my "mad experiment" with sous vide steaks from two years ago........ to refresh your memory.. if it needs it, which I doubt... though mine does. It involved searing 3 steaks, vacuum sealing them, and sous vide cooking them for 48 hours at 130F, which is medium rare. Sous Vide will produce perfect medium rare all the way through, retain moisture, and tenderize to the extent that a chuck steak ends up like a ribeye. I torched the steaks with a propane torch in the first experiment. The idea was that the torch should kill off spores of bacterium like botulinum, while the extended processing at 130 would kill off living microbes. The three steaks were set in a warm dark environment (80F) for 90 days. The idea was that with a 90 day incubation period at that temp, bacterial action would be obvious. Inflation, discoloration, smell, etc.......... the operation was a success, but the patient died ;-)...... Two of the three steaks failed, but a 33.333% success rate really is pretty impressive for a first try result. As this is a ___ friendly forum, I will not tell how I determined that the two that failed were not toxic ;-). The third was absolutely perfect. It looked and smelled perfect.......... like a freshly cooked piece of meat.
This time I used the deep fryer to brown the surface, because the hot grease will penetrate the cracks typical of chuck, while flame is surface only....... the results will come in around Thanksgiving..... Bombarding with gamma rays would be idea, but I lack a pile of cobalt, etc...

H.W.

 

[Owly055]

The "Electric Coolaid Acid Test" was this morning.......... I opened both jams........ the same batch, one frozen the other "cooked" at Sous Vide temp. The sous vide jam cooked 7 hours before I pulled it out as I was delayed........... I don't think that made a significant difference, but it may have.

They are very similar, and very different from traditional cooked jam. The Sous Vide jam is slightly mellower, and while not as "fresh" tasting..........which is a very subjective observation.... still has that fresh picked flavor that cooked jam lacks. Next time I will process only for about 3 hours. I'm actually considering doing some in my LEM dehydrator in a ceramic individual casserole as a gift....... I may sous vide it first in a jar, then process it in the LEM at 135.

By the way I am extremely happy with the LEM, which I bought a few months ago and seem to have running most of the time........Currently I'm drying green juice pulp from my Omega 900 auger juicer.......... I use this pulp processed into a powder in numerous things.. the uses are limited only by your imagination. I even use it to make tempeh....... the ability to achieve precise temp control is hugely valuable.

H.W.