It may seem as though I have been quiet for some time but over the past few weeks I have been testing pre-searing the meat, post-searing, marinating, freezing and adding liquid smoke to steaks and ribs to get the most flavor and juiciest meat. I will be adding my favorite method soon, but here are a few things I have found.

Many recipes call for searing the meat after cooking sous vide, every time I have tried it, the meat has been dry (compared to pre-searing).

My favorite pre-seared steaks looked fairly burnt before cooking in the water bath. I used a cast iron pan heated under the broiler (on high) and seared each side quickly, sometimes with a little butter.

Post sear with a torch is not as flavorful as searing in a pan and creates bits of charcoal flavor. You can eliminate some of the off torch flavor by turning the torch flame down until the hissing stops to avoid depositing the fuel onto the food.

Liquid smoke is not bad at all... unless you are cooking fish in which case it is HORRIBLE. For a time I thought that it would be disgusting compared to traditional smoking (a lot of opinionated grillers in Texas) but it was surprisingly good.

Garlic powder often tastes better than whole garlic. Something about cooking sous vide with garlic brings out strong metallic flavors from the garlic but not so much with garlic powder.

I will give a run down of each of the above in detail later on as well as a few other tips I have found to be extremely helpful.