How many steaks can I safely cook sous vide simultaneously?

[Bojana]

I need to cook 18 steaks of ~180-200gr each sous vide at 54.4. I have Vac Star's Chef II type of circulator and a box that can fit them all. I would cook them for 3-4 hours and then directly pan sear and serve. Do you see any safety issues here? Um, and it is a bit of a last minute question, the dinner is tonight and I have few hours whether to do it in one or two batches. I hope some of you fantastic eGulleters are around and can help me out.

cheers

Bojana

[Keith_W]

Hope this is not too late. Yes it is safe to cook them ALL at once, the only issue is whether your circulator can provide enough heat.

If it is a tender cut of steak, you don't need 3-4 hours SV. All you need to do is bring it up to temperature - I would suggest 60-90 minutes. If your circulator is struggling to maintain temperature, it will need longer.

[Shalmanese]

Should be fine. Two issues to watch out for: If the box is too big, the vac star might have struggles getting to temp and if the items are placed poorly, circulation might be an issue.

Both are trivially solvable. Once the bath gets up to temp, drop the steaks in, and after 10 minutes, if it's not back up to 54.4F, pour in some boiling water to help it get back up to temp. Check again after another 10 minutes to confirm that it can hold the temp. Once the steaks reach an internal temperature of 54.4, the heater should have no problems holding.

For the second, just give the bath a manual stir once every 10 minutes or so during the first hour of cooking. This will eliminate any hotspots etc. Again, once the food gets up to temp, you're essentially just holding so you don't need to mind it anymore.

[rotuts]

eventually move to an insulated box ie a 'beer cooler' note the top is not insulated as its a cooler. but thats easily fixed.

then the sky is almost the limit once up to temp.

[Bojana]

Thanks guys. I am about to start in few hours. I have tender meat but want to pasteurize. Got marbled entrecotes. They should be allright after 3-4 hrs, shouldnt they?

[rotuts]

back when, there is a ref. here from PedroG, a Master of SV with a .pdf that you print out and use to get the pasteurization time by thickness of the meat.

try to find that.

for a tender steak its been mentioned that 1 1/2 hour is enough probably for both issues at 130.

[Bojana]

Hey guys, just to report back that the dinner went really well. My sous vide had no trouble at all to maintain the temp. The steaks were super tender and tasty. I am on a high for pulling it all off.