Sous vide reheating

[Kent Wang]

I usually sous vide large portions, like a 4 lb brisket. What would be a convenient way to reheat smaller portions?

Certainly I could slice the pieces I want to eat, put them in a vacuum bag and reheat it to temperature, but getting out the FoodSaver is inconvenient and the bags aren't cheap.

Would it be possible to just put the pieces in a tupperware or other waterproof container and drop that into the vessel (I'm using a rice cooker controlled by a Sous Vide Magic)? It seems like having some air in the container would be fine as I'm just reheating it. But would the tupperware melt at 135F? I have Tellfresh brand tupperware but couldn't find anything online about what temperature it can handle.

[sygyzy]

This is a good question. The waterbath would be ideal. Could you put it in a dutch oven with some foil and put it into a low oven?

[slkinsey]

Just put it into heavy duty ziplocks for reheating.

[KennethT]

You can put your slices into a ziplock bag (much cheaper than foodsaver bags) and just press the air out before zipping closed. If you want to make sure no air is in, you can plunge the bag (with the zipper open) into a pot (or sink) of water - the water will help push the air out very uniformly, then with the top of the bag at the waterline, you zipper the bag.

Another idea (which takes a little more thought in the beginning) is to portion your brisket (in chunks, not slices) before initially cooking into portions that you would want later, putting each portion in its own bag. Once fully cooked, you can rapidly chill all the pieces you don't want to eat immediately in an ice bath and either keep in the fridge per Douglas Baldwin's info on his site, or freeze. Then, when you want to reheat, just set your circulator to 125degF or so, and put in your single serving bag - either directly from frozen or refrigerator. The warm waterbath is certainly the best way to defrost anything!

[Kent Wang]

So any ziploc bag is safe at that temperature? In my experience, the Ziploc brand bags with zippers leak a little water through the zipper. I have some no-name brand heavy duty freezer bags that seal better. Would that be safe?

I'm worried not just about melting, which would be pretty easy to spot, but about the plastic giving off toxins or off-flavors that would be difficult to visually detect.

[KennethT]

The ones with the actual plastic zipper do leak a little bit... I use the ZipLoc Heavy Duty Freezer bags - with 2 blue/pink seals... there is no actual zipper... and I've used them at 185F for 8 hours with no leaking or mechanical stress problems... They're made from Polyethylene so there shouldn't be a problem with leaching chemicals - although it's hard to get a straight answer out of SC Johnson... I'm debating/looking around at having an independent test lab test a few bags under some varied situations... From what I understand, usually it's the hard plastics (like tupperware) that are prone to leaching because they require plasticizers to make them stiff... the flexible bags or saran wrap don't seem to have those chemicals in them... plus, as I've said in some other posts, I know several NYC restaurants that exclusively use ZipLoc bags for their sous vide and haven't had any problems.

[yosemit3]

I just started using generic freezer "ziplocks", sealing by submerging to the last corner. Seems to work just fine. Off hand, I would thaw at pasteurizing temps, ie. over 130F.