Are my short ribs ruined?

48 hours into a 72-hour sous vide cook at 131F, the breaker apparently tripped while I was away for about 3 hours. The water temperature got down to 103. Before beginning the cook, I dunked the sealed short ribs in boiling water for about 10 seconds, for what that's worth.

Any guesses on whether they're salvageable?

Thanks,

-Jed

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Comments

Johan_Edstrom_5586

If they don't smell, most likely.

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Jed, check out Douglas Baldwin's tables for the required time to pasteurize the protein. I think that the first 48 hrs at temp should be more than sufficient and the pre-bag boil will help with any surface pathogens. I'll let the pros here on CS weigh in on this, but I suspect that you'll be fine.

FrankM_3301

@jed...I am not a trained professional, so take this with that caveat. I would think that 48 hrs, in a sealed bag at about 55C probably killed anything harmful of note on your short ribs. In fact, they probably had a larger risk of contamination by you removing them, and dunking them (though the dunking would have dealt with that), than if you left them. I might think twice if this were a restaurant situation, but for me, at home, I would have left them in the bath, reset the breaker, and restarted the circulator and proceeded as normal.

jed

Excellent, thanks for the input fellas. I just pulled them out and portioned them this morning. The bag stayed tightly sealed. No funky smells and they look beautiful.

I can't find it at the moment, but in a comment somewhere Grant or Chris shared a recommendation for now freezing the portions briefly, deep-frying them, then re-bagging and bringing up to serving temp just prior to serving, with a final quick flash fry to freshen up the crust. So that's where I'm headed now. Lots of work, but seems an appropriate way to finish something that's already had 72 hours of cooking.

Pepijn_31744

I'd love to see some pictures of the result!