Go to the Article: Storage
lacking ice, I am used to move bags to cold water bath right away - what's the benefit of cooling down on a wire rack first?
Convenience more than anything else. With a ice bath, you can drop the food in and leave it until you get back to it – but at the cost of a lot of electricity making all that ice. With cold water, it's good practice to change the water when it's no longer cold (say, 10 °C / 50 °F). By leaving it on the counter for, say, 30 minutes, it'll cut down on how often you need to change the cold water.
For storage durations following the above guidelines, I have previously understood that the food should first be cooked for a temp and duration that pasteurizes it. Pasteurization was not mentioned above--is pasteurization required in order to store for 30 days at 34 degrees?
You're absolutely correct, the food must be pasteurized if you want to store it for 30 days at 34 °F / 1 °C.
I like to place my vacuum packed, cooked food in some cold tap water for 10 minutes to remove some of the heat before i plunge it into the ice bath so my ice doesn't melt so quickly. Is there a downside to my technique that I might be missing. I still make sure to get it through the danger zone in less than four hours.
That's a great way of cooling down your food.
I often pasteurize my sous vide meats in a freezer zip lock bag and ice cool when it's done. How long can I keep the sous vide meat in the fridge? I assume it would be different because I don't use the vacuum seal or special sous vide bags.
I think there might be a typo here:
"But if the food is cooled slowly, then these spores regenerate and become active bacteria that grow and multiply. Cooling the food prevents..."
Did you mean "cooked"?
[Can't seem to start a comment thread so I'm trying a reply instead.]
From the "Losing Your Cool" section, how is "...reheat...until it's heated through" quantified?
I understand, of coarse, that it can be checked and verified using a thermometer. But utilizing a thermometer will break a vacuum seal. That is when not using a ziploc bag.
Based on Dr. Baldwin's great website, is it actually true that I will need to heat a 1" thick chicken breast for 1 1/4 hours to effectively reheat it to the reference reheat temps above? (utilizing table_2.2, http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Table_2.2)
Great class, guys!
While browsing the internet and reading various books on Sous Vide, I have noticed that there is not too much of info on storage/reheat of products after cooking. Storage is explained here quite nice and simple, so I am wondering if you could possibly make some quick guide on possible techniques of reheating the products?
As I understood, the best way is just throw it a bath with smaller temp., but maybe there are other ways, that might fasten the reheating process? Would be really grateful for any info or advice. Thank you in advance!
The idea of cooking sous vide ahead of time, freezing and bringing the food back to temp for serving is appealing to me. If I process chicken (breast or thighs) by cooking sous vide, doing the ice bath and freezing, what steps do I take to serve it safely? From my reading, it appears that it must come back to the temperature that you used for cooking. And I have read that it can take longer to bring frozen items back to the proper temp. Any suggestions,tips or ideas for doing this would be appreciated. Thanks.
If for instance I take a cooked 2 inch thick 16 oz steak out of the fridge that is vac sealed and I want to get it back up to 133 degrees in the water bath at that same temperature how log should I expect that to take.
I have kept bottom sirloin flap at under 120'F for a couple hours before kicking it up to 135'F and did see a difference in tenderness by doing this- my understanding is the active enzymes that breakdown tissue become very active until the are deactivated at 122'F and so you get an 'aging' effect. Has anyone tried this? https://photos.app.goo.gl/uC2ovEz5uZ6LUZqD9
I haven’t, but it sounds really smart.
