nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Sous Vide seems....wasteful?

athomson

I just took delivery of an Anova Precision and I'm loving the results, convenience, consistency etc. But an unexpected side effect of cooking Sous Vide is how wasteful it appears to be.

Heating 8 litres of water to cook a couple steaks seems wrong, especially given drought conditions in parts of the world. Is it safe to re-use this water or must it be disposed after every cook session?

I'm also very aware of wasting zip-lock bags. Is there a safe way to clean / sterilise these after each use as they seem perfectly re-usable to me (provided they're clean)?

Anyone have any tips / comments on these points?

Find more posts tagged with

Everything Else

Comments

matthew.snyder77

Couple things:

You can re-use the water in the bath almost without end if you keep the bath covered. The food never comes in contact with it, and if you heat the water to 140°F and hold it there for a brief time, you are effectively pasteurizing it, anyway.

Plus, you're using electricity to heat the water, vs using the gas in your cooktop. (Presuming such) A gas cooktop only has about 20% efficiency; that means that 80% of the energy consumed (and output) by a gas burner goes to heating the air around the stove, rather than heating your cooking surface. The electricity required to heat the water is about 800w at peak consumption, and that will take anywhere from 20-45 minutes. But once you get to that temp, the power to run the unit drops way off, well under 200w/hr. I saw a thing where that's basically ~ 3 cents per hour to use. We have ceiling fans in each bedroom that we keep running during the day to keep the house (and our cat) cool and comfortable vs running the AC, and we leave one table lamp on throughout the day. That probably consumes as much if not more energy than a 2-hr cook cycle with your Anova.

As to the Ziplocs, I store the cooked food in the same bag in which they were cooked. So if you were going to use that Ziploc for storage, anyway, it's not big deal.

Disclosure: I'm an Anova customer, myself.

tshewman

I tend to agree with Mathew. Keep in mind, 8 L of water is not always necessary however (try a smaller pot). So, the ability to reuse water is a non-issue (IMHO) and although technically you could reuse the bags, my concern would be the potential for bacteria etc. So for steaks, if I use ziplocs, it's a single use. For eggs and such, I reuse. The vacuum bags are obviously much less expensive per bag (and better for cook and chill). As you continue your SV journey, I suspect you will realize the benefit will strongly outweigh the limitations outlined. I have a Anova and PS.

SteveM_20803

Another Anova user here, and I have 4 different containers that I cook with starting with a 1 gallon container for eggs up to a 7.5 gallon "tote" for large roasts. One of my most used containers is a Playmate cooler as it holds enough water to cook a couple chuck roasts and it is insulated so it uses even less electricity to maintain temperature. The main thing you are looking to do is maintain the cooking temperature, especially when you first put the food in, so you need enough volume of water to keep the temperature from dropping too much. As for the water, we use it to wash dishes at the end of the meal, or save it for the next cook. Normally we use vacuum seal bags, but when we don't - my wife is super conservative - we initially use them for SV left overs and she will wash them in the dishwater and dry them for reuse in various other ways, including left overs from other meals.

Christoph_12752

I cook sous vide frequently, so I don't dispose the water every time. I'd say once a week. I keep one large cambro container on the counter. I think people often overcrowd their bath and prevent good circulation. If I am in a hurry and want to heat up the bath quickly, I top it off with boiling water. The main reason why I am not concerned about food safety is that the bath temperature and cook times in my case are usually high and long enough.

athomson

Very useful info, thanks everyone

artstype

I do not believe that keeping water at 140 F for any period of time makes it "pasteurized." Water is sterilized by boiling. Pasteurization takes place in a vacuum (under pressure) at a particular temperature for a particular-to-that-temperature time period; it will pasteurize the food inside the vacuum sealed bag. Ziplock bags are not vacuum sealed in most cases, BTW. The only way I would store the food cooked in a bag in that bag is if it had been put immediately into an ice bath to lower its temperature to @40 F and then put into the fridge or freezer. If you open the bag, forget it. There may be a way to sterilize the bags, but I would be more concerned about their safety for food afterwards due to potential chemical processes at work. As to waste and energy efficiency, the water can be reused in a number ways, including cooking sous vide, water plants, etc. The amount of energy consumed is also far less than any other method of cooking that requires an input of energy, and the amount of food by weight that results is larger cooked sous vide than by any other method, so more edible product is produced by cooking sous vide. Therefore, the only waste is the bags. On balance, sou vide is a more environmentally responsible way to cook.

Manfred_18311

The containment of the products and its sanitary handling are the only point of concern.

You use more water on your morning shower than on a souse vide bath. You can reuse the water, period! it’s a simple calculation. If you heat your products to an extended time to kill off anything you consider as harmful so it will be with anything of matter in the water. I cook a whole week until i exchange the water, might some bags (Zip lock or others non vacuumed bags) release some liquid in the water and that would be of concern on temperatures of 20° C - 28° C "the themperature your not cooking".

If using only vacuumed bags you can use the water for almost an infinite time, in respect of vaporizing of course refilling is required.