Lets see what Cook My Meat says about it

http://up.csail.mit.edu/science-of-cooking/

  3cm Steak starts at 72°F
  250°F and 250°F for 20:00
  72°F and 300°F for 4:00
  300°F and 72°F for 4:00
  72°F and 72°F for 5:00

Prior to searing, 250F at a 3cm thick steak takes 17 minutes to get to an internal temperature of 200°F.

The transition from medium to well at the innermost part takes place at just over 10m when cooking at 250°F for the 3cm steak.

If, however, the steak is 5cm thick, that the 115°F in the inner part isn't until 16m.

Your method may need to be adjusted for the size of the cut, though if you're ordering the same thing it probably does work for you.

Only chumps eschew an in-oven thermometer.

Why rely on calculated estimates when you can just measure the internal temp?

Mostly because you can run experiments on simulation to see "how much does it change if I do..."

The difference between a 5cm thick and a 3cm thick was rather surprising to me that it changed it that much for what a 250°F cooking does for some duration.

It also provides a "cooking for 70 minutes says it should be X in simulation while the oven is providing Y" that something is off between the simulation and (unmeasured) reality and one of the assumptions of either the simulation or reality is off.

mixing cm and F is evil.

TFA blithely mixed F and grams. I guess we should be happy the North Americans are slowly catching up with the rest of the world.

The thickness appears to be constrained to measurements in cm. The thread was working in °F - so I kept the same units as the thread where possible.

This guy gets it.

I too think that sounds shockingly fast, but maybe I should re-visit my approach for oven temp. I throw steaks into a regular oven at 200F and I might wait 70+ minutes for a ribeye to hit 120F.

Seventy minutes?! Turn your oven up. Wow.

How thick are your steaks and what temperature do they start at? My steaks take almost two hours following the Kenji method D:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4ez9pz35wrn7j1o/steak.png?dl=0

Assume a Whole Foods ribeye as the reference steak here. They should not take anything close to 2 hours (you'll note that Kenji's guide agrees). Turn your oven up!

I will give it a shot! Always excited to up my steak game.

If you have a toaster oven, I strongly recommend the toaster oven. They come up to temp fast, and they have a much tighter band of temperatures than an oven, which is always +15/-15 from your set temperature. Holding a tight, low temperature is all you're asking from the oven, and toaster ovens are built to do that (ironically, they fucking blow at making toast).

What are the reasons traditional ovens have such a wide band here? It seems like with modern technology one ought to be able to cut that down a bit. Is it just physically infeasible based on the size of the space to be heated? Or is it tremendous cost pressure for consumer goods? Or something else?

A variety of things. More space is definitely harder to heat evenly, especially without airflow coming from something like a convection oven, or keeping relative humidity very high, such as in a combi/steam oven, but a lot of it is cost pressure. If you go far enough up market to Miele, Wolf, etc., you can find ovens that will keep a much more consistent temperature.

Does the steak actually come out worse if it takes that long or is it just a question of not wanting to wait?

Have you tried measuring your oven temp? Maybe it runs cold.

Amusingly, having not tested it, prior experience would indicate that my oven runs hot. Will throw a probe in there the next time I bake something.

All this being said, other than requiring a bit of extra planning, I have been quite pleased with the results of this slow cook. Maybe try a small temperature increment the next time I do it.

I'm going to try this one night when I'm on my last 2 beers. Might just time out perfect!

>set toaster oven to 250, cook steak for 20 minutes

That seems really fast, at least compared to the time I get with a regular oven. Either you're using really thin steaks, or your toaster oven's temperature is way off.

I'm cooking to temp, not to time; I pull them when the Thermapen says the steak's near 115. But I set the timer on my toaster oven to 20 minutes (after preheating, starting immediately when the steaks go in) and watch out of the corner of my eye for the display to go blue when the timer expires, which is when I check the steak temp the first time. I guess every once in awhile I end up giving it another 5 minutes, but it's pretty reliable.

Two things:

1. The toaster oven is probably more efficient than your regular oven (put an electronic grill thermometer in your oven and watch the temperature fluctuations; do the same with a toaster oven, compare).

2. I've usually got the convection thingy on in the toaster (I just forget to turn it off).

It doesn't much matter either way, though: the point is, it goes in the oven and comes out when it reads ~115 when I stick it. :)

I'm jonesing to get my hands on a countertop combi oven like the Anova.

You could automate this entire process with much better temperature control and an internal probe to get the timing right. I've done engineering on professional combis and what you can do with those is pretty awesome.

Anova won't be the one to make it in the mass market but eventually one of them will step up to kick off the next air fryer craze (since combis can do that too)

I really enjoy my APO, but honestly, for steaks, between it, reverse sear, and the circulator, I still go for the circulator most of the time. I generally will be juggling a variety of things trying to get them all to finish at the same time, so being able to hold the steaks there if I get behind is nice. The APO could do it too, but it's generally handling something else for the meal that would suffer from being bagged.

I have used the APO's psuedo vide mode for steaks using the probe and it does work very well and is quite quick. It's also killer for bread - way easier and (for me) better results than the dutch oven methods.

Now that the APO has a new tank design it solves the only real complaint I've had it it though, so I do highly recommend it. Between it at my Breville SOA I haven't used my regular oven in years.

I am too, but I assume countertop combis are going to do the same thing circulators did and cost and arm and a leg now and then like 1/3rd as much 2 years from now for much better products.

The Anova is $600 so it's already reaching the asymptote. I don't know if I want an oven built much cheaper.

The one thing I wish the APO had was a controllable vent to purge the steam but it gets by with quick temperature swings.

>It doesn't much matter either way, though: the point is, it goes in the oven and comes out when it reads ~115 when I stick it. :)

But shouldn't the oven temperature matter? The hotter the oven is, the hotter the outside of the meat will get, even if you pull out the steak at 115 exactly. If you want the steak to be as even as possible, you want the oven temperature to be as low as possible.

If you read Kenji's reverse-sear guide, I think you'll see that I'm right in the middle of his suggested temperature range. I've also triangle-tested steaks against circulator cooks; I'm confident I'm getting even cooks. :)

I just double checked, and not only is my temp right, but my timings are just about his timings too. I'm getting his mid-rare result 5 minutes faster than he does, but again, I'm cooking in a convection toaster oven, and I'm guessing he tested in a "real" oven.

Quality convection makes a big difference. Think about the experience of a sub-freezing morning with still air vs. a strong wind and the thermal dynamics become obvious.

I haven't tried reverse-searing yet, but will give it a shot soon. I only recently started getting more into cooking, and bought a sous vide a few months ago.

Out of curiosity, what do you use the sous-vide for? Steak is the "typical" use case but you seem to think it's not as good for that.

The sous vide glazed carrots recipe on serious eats is incredible.

I’ve also used my circulator to make diy duck confit which is fantastic.

There is no better way to do duck or pork confit than a circulator.