It can be Trichy making those medium rare bear steaks

[logola512c]

Anyone else on here a sous vide afficionado and done any research on the effectiveness of sous vide pasteurization to eliminate trichinella? The article at the following link is pretty detailed and informative, albeit also pretty dense. 

https://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Safety

[nwwanderer]

If it has not been frozen, the colder the temp the less time it takes to kill the parasite, a sustained temp of less than 140, 137 is often cited,  will do the job.  All day in a 140 degree water bath would certainly be safe.  Most quoted sources say 160 or 165.  Big margin of safety and a good idea, you do not want it.  By far the worst source is bear meat these days.  Not unusual for many areas reporting 100% incidence in old bears.  Be careful out there

[Rob]

I made all mine into burger and stew meat.  Tried the tenderloins but they were so tough after having cooked them to well done that it was not worth it.

The flavor is surprisingly good, just really tough.

Bear tacos however have been most excellent!

[NRA4LIFE]

I read one time where the trichina in bear meat is different that that in pork and you can not use the same guides to freezing/cooking.  With pork, based on the thickness of the meat, freezing for certain times at certain temperatures will kill the trichina.  However, this is not the case with bear meat.  Just be cautious.  Nearly 100% of all trichinosis cases in this country come from bear, wild hog and walrus meat.

[CP]

I won't take the risk.  Love bear pot roast, nothing left alive after several hours in the Dutch oven.

[logola512c]

This is all good feedback.  I generally grind all my bear meat and add 15-20% pork back fat to it, and then use it in the place of ground beef for recipes that call for ground beef (but only for recipes that result in the meat getting thoroughly cooked -- so no ground bear burgers, for example).  Sometimes I'll cut it into chunks for stew meat also.  And my general rule has been to cook the crap out of it to make sure.  But I came across the article above and it got me wondering, because for beef, deer, elk, and lamb, I almost exclusively sous vide the meat to 134.5 degrees and it is absolute perfection, every time.  Was just curious if anyone was using their sous vide for bear, because I generally like the taste of bear meat a lot. Thanks   

[aaronoto]

I tried to sous vide some bear and it turned out surprisingly bad - as in tough.  I had read about pasteurization but was scared to try it so I just took it to 160F.

I've found bear in the Instapot to be amazing though, and gets done a lot quicker then the crockpot.

[Rob]

Instapot bear fell apart.  Mississippi pot roast!

I am still chewing the bear steaks from last month.

[dilleytech]

I made all mine into burger and stew meat.  Tried the tenderloins but they were so tough after having cooked them to well done that it was not worth it.

The flavor is surprisingly good, just really tough.

Bear tacos however have been most excellent!

That’s an older bear thing. The younger the bear the more tender. Under 4 years old and they are pretty tender. When they get over 300# they get to be really hard to chew but all the extra fat marbling makes it worth it. My favorite bear to kill and eat is around 150-250#.

[Angry Perch]

I read one time where the trichina in bear meat is different that that in pork and you can not use the same guides to freezing/cooking.  With pork, based on the thickness of the meat, freezing for certain times at certain temperatures will kill the trichina.  However, this is not the case with bear meat.  Just be cautious.  Nearly 100% of all trichinosis cases in this country come from bear, wild hog and walrus meat.

My understanding is that freezing is not considered a reliable method to kill it. but cooking is. 137 is the magic number. With Sous Vide, I'd be 100% comfortable with a long soak at 140, and double checking temp with a good thermometer. But bear ham and corned bear are pretty damn good too!