Crock Pot modification

[(*steve*)]

Good point Kris.

 

[jpanhalt]

I happen to be using by Hamilton Beach slow cooker today for a pork loin roast. What I am cooking is irrelevant, but smells good.

My old fashioned mercury-filled thermometer reads a very constant 70°C (about 158°F) on low. So, maybe the simplest solution is another slow cooker.

John

Edit: I bought the cooker late Fall, 2013. Modelo 33567

 

[(*steve*)]

Mmmmmmmmm Pork. How long are you planning to cook that?

 

[jpanhalt]

$2/pound on sale. I bought the whole loin. The recipe calls for 10 hours on low, which both my daughter and I think is way too long. I will be testing at 5 hours. It is just a salt, pepper, and ginger rub. Ginger is a spice I had to buy for this recipe.

There is a bit of a thing in the US with pork. For most people, pork is pork. For those who have lived near Iowa (dead center USA), nothing beats Iowa pork. It is extremely mild, "like chicken." This is not Iowa pork.

John

 

[(*steve*)]

I will be testing at 5 hours. It is just a salt, pepper, and ginger rub. Ginger is a spice I had to buy for this recipe.

Email me some and I'll let you know.

Tell me how thick the meat is at the thickest point and I'll let you know what the internal temperature profile will be assuming the outside temperature remains at 70C.

If the meat is 10cm thick, the center will hit medium rare (63C) after about 270 minutes. So, yeah, I'd go for 5 hours. Longer will of course degrade the collagen a lot more -- perhaps that's what they were going for with 10 hours (either that or thicker meat, more safety margin, or both)

 

[jpanhalt]

10 cm is about right. The chunk is about 3 #. The recipe is for pulled pork, so the time is longer. Temp has slowly risen to 78°C. Savoy cabbage and corn bread will be the side dishes. If it is not done in 5 to 6 hours, this will be an evening of fast.

Curious, how did you calculate the internal temperature? When I cook a roast, such as rack of lamb, I put my T.C. in the meat, then do a rough calculation about midway of degrees/minute to get a finish time. That allows me to calculate when to start veggies, and so forth. Is your calculation with a spreadsheet? Are you will willing to share?

BTW, I am a retired chemist. Every chemist I have known likes to cook.

John

 

[(*steve*)]

Curious, how did you calculate the internal temperature?

I'm using a little web app (it's behind a paywall -- free but limited availability) that models heat transfer as a diffusion process. (But see below, it's available elsewhere)

When I cook a roast, such as rack of lamb, I put my T.C. in the meat, then do a rough calculation about midway of degrees/minute to get a finish time. That allows me to calculate when to start veggies, and so forth. Is your calculation with a spreadsheet? Are you will willing to share?

I believe the calculation boils down to considering the thing to be heated as a series of very thin slices (a-la an onion) (and also slicing the time thinly, then using the simple diffusion calculation to determine the temperature of each slice.

It uses the diffusion constant for water since meat is mostly water.

Here are some images from the app for the case I mentioned:

BTW, I am a retired chemist. Every chemist I have known likes to cook.

It's a science thing

The tool I'm using is really good at modelling what happens in sous vide cooking (but also in grilling meat, or even deep frying ice-cream!).

You can read a bit about the development of it here. And a link to the demo here. And you can download the tool (I think it's a java applet).

And this neatly brings the discussion back on topic for the original poster of this thread as he might find all of these links interesting for his sous vide experimentation.

 

[KrisBlueNZ]

BTW, I am a retired chemist. Every chemist I have known likes to cook.

I guess you're talking about cooking food... I've watched so much Breaking Bad that when I hear the word "cook", I think of something else Any other Breaking Bad fans here? (Since we're already somewhat off-topic.)

 

[jpanhalt]

Steve, Thanks for that follow-up. I will try the download later today.

Kris, Yes, organic chemistry -- not the something else. I do remember when a single-step synthesis for THC was presented at an ACS national meeting. It was a well attended session, and almost immediately, the starting material could no longer be purchased. I was never even tempted to do that type of cooking; although, I was asked by a grad student in literature to do it. My answer was short.

John

EDIT: Steve, I have been playing with that demo. It is kind of neat to be able to compare cooking methods. It is now part of my cooking resources.

John

 

[(*steve*)]

My answer was short.

One word or two?