Name: Sous Vide Guinness Beef Stew
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 1 d
Total time: 1 d 20 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Irish
Ingredients: 3 pounds Beef, chuck roast, trimmed; 8 ounces baby carrots; 1 cup of pearl onions; 3 cloves garlic; 2 t tomato paste; 2 bay leaves; 3 T flour; 12 ounces Guinness beer; 4 cups beef stock

This is the sous vide version of the classic Irish Beef and Guinness Stew. Full of deep, rich comforting flavors the Guinness Beer is the star of this tender beef stew.

If you don’t have a sous vide, that is fine! I walk you through the stove top, oven and slow cooker instructions.

Why do you cook Guinness beef stew in a sous vide?

As the saying goes, you can… but SHOULD you? This applies to sous vide cooking. There are many instances that sous vide cooking is preferred for speed such as homemade vanilla or picked vegetables. But there are times when the controlled temperature will give you the most amazing poached eggs or sea bass perfection. When cooking your Guinness stew with sous vide the beef is steak like but also falls apart in your mouth as you bite it. But unlike cooking in a crock pot, you are going to need to do some separation if you are wanting a specific doneness for your meat.

Sous Vide Guinness Beef Stew served over mashed potatoes in a white bowl, horizontal image

Guinness Beef Stew Ingredients:

Beef, chuck roast, trimmed
Guinness beer
baby carrots
pearl onions
garlic
tomato paste
bay leaves
flour
beef stock

Guinness Beef Stew in a sous vide bag, top down image

To separate or to combine?

If you are looking for a medium rare beef in your stew you are going to want to set your water to 135 but when you do that your vegetables will not cook through. That is a problem when you want to eat cooked vegetables. So you can either precook your vegetables in a pan or set up a separate sous vide for the vegetables.

If you combine all the veggies, meat and stock in the sous vide bag, you are going to want to set the water to 185. This will ensure the vegetables will cook but the beef will be more done than if the water was lower in temperature. But the 185 is lower than a slow cooker on low. This combined with a 24 hour cook will still give you a tender, fall apart meat but less steak like than if you had cooked the meat separate at 135.

So it is up to you. Go low and get a steak like, meat but have to cook the vegetables separately or cook everything at a higher temperature and your meat will be closer to a slow cooker texture.

Guinness Beef Stew in a sous vide bag cooking

How to make Sous Vide Guinness Beef Stew:

Trim the beef and cut into cubes.
Season with salt and pepper.
In a dutch oven, working in batches, sear the meat on all sides.
Transfer the meat to a clean plate.
Saute the carrots, onions garlic, tomato paste, for a few minutes.
Dust them with flour, add the bay leaf and stir to coat everything in the pan.
Deglaze the pan with a heavy splash of the Guinness beer, scraping up the browned bits.
Add the meat, vegetables, the liquid from the pan, the remaining beer and the beef stock to a gallon freezer zip top bag.
Heat the sous vide water to 185.
Using the water displacement method, lower the bag into the water, forcing the air out of the bag.
Close the bag and cook for 24 hours.
Once the time is up, remove the bag from the water and pour the liquid from the bag into a pan.
Heat on medium high to thicken the sauce. If sauce is not thick enough, add a mixture of 1/2 cup milk combined with 3 tablespoons of flour. Bring to a simmer.
Add the sauce back to the meat and vegetables. Stir to combine.
Serve with Irish soda bread and/or mashed potatoes.

Stovetop / Oven Guiness Beef Stew Instructions:

Follow steps 1-7 above.
Add the meat, vegetables, the liquid from the pan, the remaining beer and the beef stock back into the dutch oven.
Simmer on medium to medium low on the stove top for 2-3 hours or braise in a 350 oven for 2-3 hours.
Check sauce for consistency and add a flour/milk mixture as instructed above.

Slow cooker Guinness Stew Instructions:

Follow steps 1-7 above.
Add the meat, vegetables, the liquid from the pan, the remaining beer and the beef stock into a large slow cooker.
Cook on high for 3-4 hours or on low for 6-8.
Check sauce for consistency and add a flour/milk mixture as instructed above.

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Yield: 6