Sous Vide Workflow, Holding & Wastage in a Restaurant Environment

Dennis_Lee_82456

Hi! I'm a culinary student wondering about the intricacies of using sous vide in a restaurant setting.

So if there're any restaurateurs or chefs here, would really appreciate your experience

Assuming a fast moving restaurant serving lunch and dinner, where sous vide is being used for poached chicken breast, grilled chicken breast (with skin on) and grilled beef steaks,

using two sous vide baths (one for chicken, one for beef):

1. Would the best workflow be cook-serve while cook-chill-serve is used only for reserves, in case the day's orders surpass expectations?
   
2. How do restaurants handle sous vide wastage esp chicken? Let's say the vacuum sealed chicken was dropped frozen in the bath late morning (10 am) to prepare for a lunch service at 12.30 pm and since I've heard that it's best not to go above a 4 hour cooking/holding time for poultry, what would happen to the remaining chicken in the bath after lunch service? Can it remain in the bath until the end of dinner service? And beyond that, to be frozen again and reused the next day?
   

Appreciate any input on this. Thanks lots!

Patrick_Galiardi_94562

Dennis

I'm not a pro but Chicken breast temp should be 140-147 F for 4 to 12 hours without deterioration according to the book "Modernist Cooking - Getting Started" . I highly recommend this book, put it on your ipad it's an awesome bit of info on all, sous vide, molecular gastronomy, Your equip needed etc. 

Just rotate your cooking times, thats the hardest part, forecasting your sales of a specific item. good luck, hope this helped