# Reheating sous vide



## Lucusd88 (Feb 11, 2018)

Hi Chefs
If I sous vide my steaks and Ice bath. How long would it take to reheat in the sous vide for service?
Thanks


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## don rich (Jun 1, 2015)

Lucusd88 said:


> Hi Chefs
> If I sous vide my steaks and Ice bath. How long would it take to reheat in the sous vide for service?
> Thanks


Don't reheat in the sous vide. Take them out of the bags, pat dry and let temper. Then use a cast iron hot skillet to finish or what ever way you choose to finish. A couple of minutes in a pan verses another hour or so and degraded quality in the sous vide would be better.


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## don rich (Jun 1, 2015)

don rich said:


> Don't reheat in the sous vide. Take them out of the bags, pat dry and let temper. Then use a cast iron hot skillet to finish or what ever way you choose to finish. A couple of minutes in a pan verses another hour or so and degraded quality in the sous vide would be better.


You can speed up the process with clarified butter or ghee.


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

Lucusd88 said:


> Hi Chefs
> If I sous vide my steaks and Ice bath. How long would it take to reheat in the sous vide for service?
> Thanks


There's too many factors to give you a time. It depends how big it is, what your bath is set to, etc. I set my bath to a lower temp than what I cooked the items at, this allows me insurance that something won't overcook and I can re-therm things with different cooking temperatures in the same bath.

I would say my ballpark best guess is 20-30 mins, but again this depends greatly on size, shape and bath temp.


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## sgsvirgil (Mar 1, 2017)

If you have the time, reheating the steak in the sous vide is fine. However, the answer to the question depends on the size of the steak and its thickness. If your steak is 1-2 inches thick, you are looking at 1.25 - 3.5 hours of reheat time. Doable, but, not very convenient, especially if your kitchen in busy. 

For my part, the question that I have is why would you want to reheat a steak in the first place? The meat should be removed from the sous vide when done, finished in a hot cast iron pan or better yet, over open wood flames and served immediately.


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

sgsvirgil said:


> If your steak is 1-2 inches thick, you are looking at 1.25 - 3.5 hours of reheat time.


That is absolute nonsense. It does not take hours to reheat a steak sous vide. Stop with that. It doesn't even take that long to COOK it in the first place. Maybe if you're talking about a cote de boeuf or something, but still not anywhere near 3 hours. You can re-therm a cote in like 45 mins, tops.



sgsvirgil said:


> For my part, the question that I have is why would you want to reheat a steak in the first place? The meat should be removed from the sous vide when done, finished in a hot cast iron pan or better yet, over open wood flames and served immediately.


The gist of reheating is convenience and consistency. You can cook multiple steaks at a time, chill, and store in the fridge. Then re-therm them as needed for service, and finish as desired...like in a cast iron pan or a grill. There is no discernible loss in quality with this method.

If you cooked everything to order (which I'm sure some places do) then you'd need a water bath set to several different temps (one for steak, one for lamb, one for fish, etc). With cook/chill, you can cook ahead of time at desired temp, chill, then re-therm everything together (chicken and a beef, say) in a bath set to 125F and finish on the stove.


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## sgsvirgil (Mar 1, 2017)

I think you could've found a more friendly and polite way to express your disagreement.


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## Lucusd88 (Feb 11, 2018)

Thanks guys, the main reason I want to reheat is to cut down on the wasteage of guessing how many steaks I'll need per service. The steaks are generally 1.5 inches thick. I also read somewhere that to use the reheat method you need to pasteurise the meat to 54c, is this true?


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

sgsvirgil said:


> I think you could've found a more friendly and polite way to express your disagreement.


Apologies, didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I was just gobsmacked at the time frames you posted.



Lucusd88 said:


> Thanks guys, the main reason I want to reheat is to cut down on the wasteage of guessing how many steaks I'll need per service. The steaks are generally 1.5 inches thick. I also read somewhere that to use the reheat method you need to pasteurise the meat to 54c, is this true?


You should pasteurize the meat, yes. This is pretty easily achieved. I would suggest you google the information, it's probably a little narrow for this forum--but the info is easily out there. Remember that pasteurization is a function of temperature over TIME, not just temperature. So if you cook your steak to 54c (to use your example) you need to not only have the core reach that temperature, you need it to stay there for X amount of time to hit the bacterial reduction levels you need.

The FDA guidelines are usually "instakill" temps, that is, they tell you to cook chicken to 165f for safety. At this temp the bacteria is killed instantly, so there is no real time component once you hit that temp. Obviously, if we sous vided at this temp we'd be wasting our time because it would have no benefit. Remember, again, pasteurization is a function of TEMP/TIME so you can achieve the same safety level at 140f as long as core temp is help for like 1.5 hours (that is just an example, not a reference).

But yes, you should familiarize yourself with the tables and make sure your sous vide SOP provides coverage for this. In my kitchen I made a chart for all the proteins we cook so that everyone knows the proper time/temp for each item. If I am cooking something new I make sure to do research and figure out the proper pasteurization method for it.

One additional benefit is this increases the shelf life considerably as well.


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## sgsvirgil (Mar 1, 2017)

someday said:


> Apologies, didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I was just gobsmacked at the time frames you posted.


No feelings were hurt here.  We all have our experiences and none of us know everything there is to know about food and cooking. With that being said, my experience with a sous vide in reheating chilled meat is that it takes a long time to reheat the meat to an even temp throughout. The thicker the meat, the longer it takes. This is why I scrapped using the sous vide for reheating steaks and stayed with preparing steaks to order. I offered strip @ 1-1.5inch, ribeye tomahawks @ 2+ inch and when the price was right, porterhouse at 1.-5 - 2 inch.

I would very much like to hear about your experience that differs from mine. Were you using a higher temperature to get faster results? Thinner steaks?


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## chefandrewl (Jun 25, 2017)

We sous vide our steaks and run similar times to sgsvirgil. Our 2 inch tenderloins go at 121F for about 210 minutes. We then blast chill them down 41F. We finish to order in hot cast iron with clarified butter about 3 minutes a side for medium rare with a 10 minute rest in 135F clarified butter.


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## don rich (Jun 1, 2015)

Uh pasteurizing? Guess I’ll go to micky d’s


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## don rich (Jun 1, 2015)

KEEP IT SIMPLE!!!!!!!!!!!


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## don rich (Jun 1, 2015)

don rich said:


> KEEP IT SIMPLE!!!!!!!!!!!


You know West Point started this whole "boil in a bag thing "


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

don rich said:


> Uh pasteurizing? Guess I'll go to micky d's





don rich said:


> KEEP IT SIMPLE!!!!!!!!!!!





don rich said:


> You know West Point started this whole "boil in a bag thing "


I'm confused, what exactly is your issue? What does mickey d's have to do with what we are talking about. It's OK to ask questions if you don't know what we are talking about just FYI.


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## don rich (Jun 1, 2015)

someday said:


> I'm confused, what exactly is your issue? What does mickey d's have to do with what we are talking about. It's OK to ask questions if you don't know what we are talking about just FYI.


Reheating sous vide. I'd rather eat micky d"s


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

don rich said:


> Reheating sous vide. I'd rather eat micky d"s


You can go eat wherever you want.

Do you have anything to contribute? Any knowledge of what we are talking about? Have you ever done it?


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## chefbillyb (Feb 8, 2009)

I agree with 99.99% of what "Someday" Says about Some Vide cooking and reheating. If I have a question on Sous Vide I would ask them.....Just Sayin'


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## don rich (Jun 1, 2015)

Yes I have and yes I do and if you would read all the posts I did contribute. Sous vide I don’t think was made to be a time saving mechanism but another tool to use for a chef. For Army cooking and faster service I think degrades the food and profession.


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

don rich said:


> Yes I have and yes I do and if you would read all the posts I did contribute. Sous vide I don't think was made to be a time saving mechanism but another tool to use for a chef. For Army cooking and faster service I think degrades the food and profession.


Ok. That's not the discussion we're having here. I also don't recall anyone mentioning sous vide being a time saving mechanism, which it isn't.

If you want to have a discussion about the implications of sous vide vs degrading food culture feel free to start another thread and I'll join you there for some vigorous debate.


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## don rich (Jun 1, 2015)

If I sous vide my steaks and Ice bath. How long would it take to reheat in the sous vide for service?

I said don’t reheat it in sous vide


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

don rich said:


> If I sous vide my steaks and Ice bath. How long would it take to reheat in the sous vide for service?
> 
> I said don't reheat it in sous vide


And then you started yelling "KEEP IT SIMPLE" and talking about mickey d's and the military. If you want to link those ramblings into coherent thoughts I'll certainly respond...but just spamming 3 nonsensical replies in a row to a thread isn't contributing.


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## don rich (Jun 1, 2015)

Your discussing how to. I don’t want to steer him in the wrong direction. If you start on the path of least resistance to make things easier you start down the dark path of cooking for money and quicker service. = micky d”s. If you know your temps for cooking and reheating and peak and lag times of bacterial growth pateurization causes molecular changes that not only deteriates nutritional value but possible creation of freee radicals, not to mention very possible flavor deteriation.


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

don rich said:


> Your discussing how to. I don't want to steer him in the wrong direction. If you start on the path of least resistance to make things easier you start down the dark path of cooking for money and quicker service. = micky d"s.


Sigh. All right dude.

I'm discussing "how to" do what? I answered the OP original question with my opinion on the matter, and then answered his follow up question about pasteurization to make cook/chill/reheat safer. Your comparison to what we are talking about in this thread and a path of least resistance leading to McDonald's shows your complete lack of practical understanding of the methodology we are talking about.

Cooking for money is not a dark path. We all cook for money. One of the top 3 things that a chef has to do is to be financially successful, as defined by the parameters of the specific job. There aren't too many chefs that have the luxury of not worrying about money. I fail to see your point...maybe if you weren't so hyperbolic and reductionist in your arguments I could better understand your point?



don rich said:


> If you know your temps for cooking and reheating and peak and lag times of bacterial growth pateurization causes molecular changes that not only deteriates nutritional value but possible creation of freee radicals, not to mention very possible flavor deteriation.


You lost me here. I think you are applying the idea of pasteurization of things like milk, juice, etc. to the idea of pasteurization as it applies to sous vide. Pasteurization for some of these items can indeed have an adverse effect on some things like nutrient value and flavor. This is usually reserved for items that we consume "raw" but still go through the pasteurization process. So, yes, raw milk from the udder has a different, more complex flavor than pasteurized milk. Orange juice that has been pasteurized does indeed taste different than fresh squeezed juices. So for things that we eat fresh I agree to an extent.

However, the term pasteurization simply refers to reducing the number of viable pathogens so that the consumer won't get sick. There are many ways to achieve this, and as I stated above, pasteurization is a function of both time and temperature.

The most commonly known FDA guidelines suggest cooking chicken to 165F to make it safe to eat. This is essentially the insta kill temp for chicken. Anytime you roast a chicken to 165F you are pasteurizing it, i.e. reducing the number of bacteria to make it safe to eat.

Now, sous vide allows us to achieve the same results of cooking a chicken to 165F at a temp of, say, 140F, as long as we hold the core temp steady for 45 minutes. (I'm not going to bother looking up the actual time temp right now, not really inclined. Just know this is an ad hoc example) So sous vide allows us to achieve a juicier, more tender chicken breast, that is just as safe to eat, that is practically impossible to do with any other method.

The idea behind the pasteurization of said items is to increase both their food safety and storage potential. For something that is going to be cooked (chicken breast, beef, etc) there is no flavor loss, no molecular change (other than the ones present when you cook any food by any method) and no additional nutritional value loss...there is actually evidence that sous vide IMPROVES nutrient retention due to inability of nutrients to escape to the cooking medium like water.

So the danger of "molecular changes" that you point out in your post are moot, since the food we are talking about anyways are going to be changed molecular-ly (i.e. cooked). There is no added nutritional deterioration that I'm aware of, and please, if you know of any about sous vide please link me, and no flavor deterioration since the item is going to be cooked anyways. It would be like me arguing that a roast chicken is going to have it's flavor deteriorated because you changed it molecular makeup by cooking it.

I'd like to not hijack this thread any longer. Again, please feel free to start a new one or PM me.


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## rollatinni (Apr 7, 2018)

someday said:


> Apologies, didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I was just gobsmacked at the time frames you posted.
> 
> You should pasteurize the meat, yes. This is pretty easily achieved. I would suggest you google the information, it's probably a little narrow for this forum--but the info is easily out there. Remember that pasteurization is a function of temperature over TIME, not just temperature. So if you cook your steak to 54c (to use your example) you need to not only have the core reach that temperature, you need it to stay there for X amount of time to hit the bacterial reduction levels you need.
> 
> ...





someday said:


> Sigh. All right dude.
> 
> I'm discussing "how to" do what? I answered the OP original question with my opinion on the matter, and then answered his follow up question about pasteurization to make cook/chill/reheat safer. Your comparison to what we are talking about in this thread and a path of least resistance leading to McDonald's shows your complete lack of practical understanding of the methodology we are talking about.
> 
> ...


Hi im new here, and i am interested in how to reheat 8 oz portions of salmon/seabass/halibut/lobster tail sous vide for a dinner service. as i understand from reading some of this thread the process is as follows: 
1. Sous vide whatever protein (par cook?)
2. Ice bath 
3. straight to walk in
4. fish special ticket walks in
5. place cooled down fish back in water at a lower temp then what was cooked at for x amount of time. (how long might that take for a nice restaurant quality 8 oz portion? 2nd if i cook a few per bag should i portion them into single bags once fully cooled so we can do it one order at a time?,will that affect anything?)
6. once brought back to temp finish as preferred: pan sear, grill,etc...
7. Happy customer?!?!

Now will pasteurizing be an issue for me or do i achieve this by doing the normal steps i have stated? a chart? im curious what that looks like? all fish orders will be sold same night or next day max. Thanks in advance for any advice.


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

rollatinni said:


> Hi im new here, and i am interested in how to reheat 8 oz portions of salmon/seabass/halibut/lobster tail sous vide for a dinner service. as i understand from reading some of this thread the process is as follows:
> 1. Sous vide whatever protein (par cook?)
> 2. Ice bath
> 3. straight to walk in
> ...


With fish you are better off and will get a better product by cooking to order. Fish is cooked "au point" and shouldn't need to be pasteurized.

Cooking seafood sous vide is great though. I like to do a cure on my fish (either Salt/sugar or just salt) to pull out albumin proteins and firm up the flesh, then bag with whatever fat and aromatics you like and sous vide.


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## rollatinni (Apr 7, 2018)

someday said:


> With fish you are better off and will get a better product by cooking to order. Fish is cooked "au point" and shouldn't need to be pasteurized.
> 
> Cooking seafood sous vide is great though. I like to do a cure on my fish (either Salt/sugar or just salt) to pull out albumin proteins and firm up the flesh, then bag with whatever fat and aromatics you like and sous vide.


Ok thanks for the info..however if I can't find a way to get ticket time to less than 20min it just won't work. I want to have respect for the fish and the sous vide technique so maybe its just not a right fit. But still I will experiment and try to find a way because it would really help the restaurant I work at get out of the sort of stagnant water we seem to be in with our fish specials. Thanks again.


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

rollatinni said:


> Ok thanks for the info..however if I can't find a way to get ticket time to less than 20min it just won't work. I want to have respect for the fish and the sous vide technique so maybe its just not a right fit. But still I will experiment and try to find a way because it would really help the restaurant I work at get out of the sort of stagnant water we seem to be in with our fish specials. Thanks again.


Depending on what fish you are cooking and to what temp you can do it in under 20 mins. A thick, 8 oz piece of Halibut for example might indeed take in excess of 20 mins, but if you drop it in the bath right when the order comes in, you might be able to make it. 8 oz is also a very large (IMO) portion of fish. I tend to lean towards 6 oz, and even then sometimes they seem too big.

If it is a thinner piece of, say, striped bass or grouper you could definitely cook in less than 20.


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## chefandrewl (Jun 25, 2017)

Have you tried an oil poach? Replace the water with a decent olive oil and set your circulator at 145F.


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## matqo (Apr 10, 2018)

How about a sous vide reheating a 2cm thick burger, since its a ground beef it wouldn't take long?


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

chefandrewl said:


> Have you tried an oil poach? Replace the water with a decent olive oil and set your circulator at 145F.


Seems it would be easier and less oil to just add sufficient oil/butter to the sous vide bag and seal, then sous vide normally in water. I like oil poaching but no need filling the whole circulator it seems to me.


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