# Reheating Sous Vide



## mv239 (May 14, 2017)

Im planning on taking half boneless chickens and cooking/chilling them with our circulator, my plan is to be able to store them in the walk-in labeled and dated, My question is I would like to reheat them directly from the cooler and not from water bath because we will be already holding other meats so space is an issue, and i dont want to be searching for random proteins everytime we get a order. Is anyone reheating directly from a cooler? Im worried that it might dry the chicken slightly. thanks


----------



## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

Naw my dude, your best bet is to make it work in the circulator.

Your fear is justified, I don't see a good way to re-heat them from the cooler and not lose the benefits of sous vide.

What is your method and time/temps for the chicken halves? Are you separating the light and dark meat and cooking at different times/temps? You might be better off doing something like that, as dark meat and light meat are each better at different temps.

I think if you are just going to go right from the cooler to the oven after sous videing, you might as well just do a straight, classic style pan roast.

You might have some success if you put a chicken half skin side down (after sous vide and chill i mean), crisp up the skin then into a gentle oven to re-heat. This method would depend on you reaching pasteurization when you sous vide.

But again, I think your best method would be to re-therm in the bath then pan finish. My recommendation would be to work out a solution for doing that.

When we get busy we use different color clips to keep proteins separate. I don't know how big your menu is, but poultry could be clipped to the water bath with yellow clips, fish with blue, red meat with red...etc. This helps reduce "fishing" and might be something to think about.


----------



## mv239 (May 14, 2017)

Thanks for your reply, I plan on doing a full half chicken boned, 150 degrees for around 3 hours. I might just try cooking sous vide, rapid chilling then reheat in the bath prior to service. maybe we can drop more in as needed ?

I absolutely love your idea of the colored clips I will look into finding those.. Thanks again for your response any info helps


----------



## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

So here is what I'm going to ask you...why are you sous viding a half chicken at 150F? If you sous vide the dark meat and the leg meat together you are going to compromise for both, lending it pointless to sous vide. As you know, the benefit of cooking this way is to accurately control the temperature of the final cook in a way that is consistent and almost impossible to do with any other cooking method (and indeed, sous vide offers ways to cook things that are impossible with any other method). 

If you cook the breast at 150, this is too high. You should be cooking your breast no more than, IMO, 140F. 140f is too low for leg meat ( I prefer 165 for leg meat, which is a great temp for juiciness and tenderness). So, IMO, essentially you are compromising on both types of chicken meat without utilizing the best parts of sous vide. 

My advice would be to take the chickens apart, cook them separately at their best temps, then re-combine them on the plate. 

Now, I'm not saying that your food can't be or won't be good the way you are proposing...to me it just doesn't maximize the benefit of the technique. 150 is a decent compromise temp, and might still be juicier than a traditional roast chicken, so maybe in the end you'll come out on top. I'd think about what I said though, I've done a lot of poultry sous vide and think I've dialed in a lot of good techniques.


----------



## mv239 (May 14, 2017)

I definitely get what you are saying and I really appreciate the advice. Im going to run some trials separating the chicken as your suggestion, Ive cooked it a few times at 150 and like you said its better than a traditional roast method but if I can improve it in any way I will adjust..  

In your opinion if we have any extra chickens after service and we rapid chill in a ice bath would the chicken still be as moist after a second water-bath at a slightly lower temp the second day? Im just a little more cautious with poultry because they get dry fast, and I dont want extra wastage.


----------



## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

MV239 said:


> I definitely get what you are saying and I really appreciate the advice. Im going to run some trials separating the chicken as your suggestion, Ive cooked it a few times at 150 and like you said its better than a traditional roast method but if I can improve it in any way I will adjust..
> 
> In your opinion if we have any extra chickens after service and we rapid chill in a ice bath would the chicken still be as moist after a second water-bath at a slightly lower temp the second day? Im just a little more cautious with poultry because they get dry fast, and I dont want extra wastage.


You should be fine. I would try my best to not have too many leftover proteins in the bath at the end of the night (some are inevitable) but absolutely, quick chill and use first should be fine. The dryness will be mitigated because of the technique of sous vide and not having the need to reach pasteurization temps since it will have been there in the initial cook. Just as an added precaution I wouldn't let anything spend more than 4 hours in the bath total (after the initial cook). I also wouldn't go beyond one second re-therm (did that make sense?). In other words, I wouldn't cook/chill, retherm, chill, retherm, chill, retherm, chill. I would cut it off after the 1st retherm/chill. If you don't use it the 2nd time, toss it (or feed to family).

BTW, I always retherm in a lower bath than the cook temp. This ensures I can retherm any number of things at once (for example, if my bath is set to 125F, I can retherm duck I cooked at 135, beef I cooked at 131, and chicken I cooked at 140F). Then everything gets finished in a pan/grill or whatever. This is great because it allows you to only have 1 bath set for service.

During my initial cook on chicken it is important to reach pasteurization temp/times on your initial cook. This will basically ensure that the chicken is free from food borne illness and is OK to consume at the lower temp. 150F for 3 hours should be more than enough, but if you are going to sous vide breasts at a lower temp (say 140F) then you should look up the charts to make sure you are covered. Remember that the charts are for times after the core temp reaches the bath temp, so you must account for that.

Anyways, yes, I would do some experimenting. You may find that the 1/2 chicken at 150 works for you, or you may find you like a 145F thigh better than a 165F thigh. It's subjective. I like a bit more pull apart/tender texture on my thighs, so I go for a bit higher temp. But you sacrifice a bit of juiciness for that.


----------



## chefteneal (May 18, 2017)

Sous vide makes a great brick chicken!


----------

