Last night I successfully sous vide-ed a New York strip steak in my Instant Pot. This is the basic model, not the smart model. Heated up some water on the stove, poured it into the IP, and then added cold water until the desired temperature was reached via cheapo Amazon meat thermometer. Submerged meat and turned "Keep Warm" on until the temperature was uniformly back up to temperature (keep an eye on it because it'll go up about 1 degree per 2 seconds once it gets going). Turn "Keep Warm" off and put lid on. Come back in 20 minutes to heat it back up again. My IP loses about a degree every 5 minutes or so, so I heated the water to 138 (F) or so to ensure it was back at 134 when I came to check it again--then heated it back up to 138. After at least an hour, finished it with a quick sear in the cast iron skillet.
It's... not an exact science. It's not hands off as a sous vide cooker, but it's not like it needs tons of babysitting. The finished steak was closer to medium than medium rare, but frankly I'm shocked this worked at all. (I used
this chart to pick 134... in retrospect I should have probably done 130 instead.) I've never done any sous vide before, let alone experimentally in an IP.
A few tweaks to the process, and I think I can produce a pretty darn good steak. The idea being that I can buy much better cuts of meat and not worry about ruining them on the stove or grill (which I do more than I care to admit). Making fancy steaks at home means not going out for fancy steaks.
