[Avodah] Sous-Vide cooking (before) over Shabbos: A Tshuva from Rav Asher Weiss

[Isaac Balbin via Avodah]

I had asked whether people had a view on the halachic propriety or otherwise of using a sous-vide machine over Shabbos and received no response.
The sous-vide is a method of cooking which one might call very slow cooking. Bags with the food (e.g. meat) are places in a bucket or the like, and the machine is placed inside the bucket together with water which covers the plastic bag(s).
It can take a really cheap cut of meat and make it tender and delicious.
It’s buttons can be covered if someone is worried about Shehiya, I think the issue is Harmono. It can’t be both.
One thing I noticed is that nobody seems to fiddle or touch the bags until the “given time period”, and then one just pulls the plastic bags out.
One can pre-program to turn the machine off, or it can continue keeping the water at the set temperature.
There are various scenarios.

Where the food is ready on Friday night.
Where another bag of the food has a different texture is left till lunchtime on shabbos
Where the meat is Mamash Raw (let alone not Maachol Ben Drusoi) on Erev Shabbos but will be good on Shabbos
Where the concept of Mitztamek Veyofe Lo has nothing to do with Mitztamek, but rather a quantitative improvement that is still possible without it shrivelling
The final issue is whether you say that since it might have had another 12 hours cooking and the temperature does not rise, that the meat is of a different VARIETY as opposed to quality. For example cooked versus roasted steak.

Either way, here is a link to the only Tshuva I know of on this issue. I’m interested in reactions. There is a touch of Choddosh Ossur Min HaTorah from Rav Asher Weiss, but in the main, I can’t think of a reason why it’s not Hatmono.

Disclaimer: I have not reviewed Hatmono for many years, and started to in dribs and drabs with the Aruch HaShulchan.

This is the link to the Tshuva

http://preview.tinyurl.com/kvxswnp

or

http://tinyurl.com/kvxswnp

I spoke to Mori V’Rabbi Rav Schachter about it, and interchanged with his son Rabbi Shay, but they haven’t managed to show him the device and he won’t pasken until he has seen it (of course).



"It is only the anticipation of redemption that preserves Judaism in Exile, while Judaism in the Land of Israel is the redemption itself."
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Rabbi A.I. Hacohen Kook




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