50 Shades of CVap

Have you ever had one of those experiences where your chance encounter far exceeded your expectation? The corporate chef of a chain restaurant asked me for a solution to increase the yield on their prime rib. Their average yield ranged from 75% to 82%. Increasing beef prices had them pretty concerned about profits. They were trying to avoid raising prices.

Pumping Up the Yield

The chef wanted to cook and hold the prime rib overnight because that created their lowest yield. While the chef seasoned the prime rib, I set our CVap® Cook and Hold Oven to 135°F Doneness, 7 Browning, High Yield ON (new CVap 135°F Vapor/210°F Air) and cook time of 5.5 hours. We loaded up the meat and left for the evening. The next morning we did the weigh-in. After a 5.5-hour cook and 11 hours holding, the pre-purged yield was 93.32%!

He invited The Boss to the cutting. After some delicate inspection, it was time to give it a try. “Wow, it’s almost too tender…wait I don’t think I meant to say that.” Needless to say, we had a good laugh.

During our rather long meat-eating session, they talked about how they needed to find a way around water bathing, doming, and rotating cheesecakes in their convection oven. It was an operational headache. I was ready for dessert so I said, “let’s make some cheesecake.”

We baked two cheesecakes. One, as usual, was placed in their convection oven (water bathed, domed, and rotated). The other was baked in the CVap oven at 200°F Doneness, 0 Browning, Constant Cook ON (new CVap 200°F Vapor/200°F Air), and a three-hour cook time.

Testing CVap on Their Menu Favorites

The Cheesecake Challenge

The CVap cheesecake used no water bath, no doming, and did not need to be rotated. My guests described it as “very creamy; silky; a quarter taller; the crust is better; cuts cleaner.”

I expected them to be happy with the labor and operational savings, but my goal was not to create a better cheesecake for them. The convection oven cheesecake was great but was “drier on the tongue” and “a pain to make.”

Over the next few days we just got lost in the CVap oven. The chef prepped the items, and I set the oven. The days just flew by while we compared CVap to their current items.