The Food Safety and Home Kitchen Hygiene/Sanitation Topic

[Judy Wilson]

Hi Mikemac,

When puncturing a piece of meat, you can no longer just sear the outside of the cut, so you would need to increase the time/temperature in order to fully pasteurize the meat.

We talk about that (and much, much, more!) in our article on food safety tips here: http://www.food52.com/blog/4562_7_essential_food_safety_tips

[MikeMac]

that is a great article and a web site I did not even know existed.

Thank you

[Michael Yoon]

The other day I prepped 2 lbs of short ribs to try the momofuku 48 short rib recipe. The ribs I had gotten from the market were frozen. I had let thaw on my kitchen counter for a couple hours before putting them in the fridge for another 4-5 hours. At which point they the marinade went in and they were vacuum sealed. The meat was not completely thawed through.

At this point the meat went into the water bath @ 136.5F, about 15-20 minutes into the cook my SideKIC got all wonky. Sufficed to say I had to pull the meat and not knowing what else to do with it, threw it in the freezer. In the end the meat had been on my counter for a couple hours, in the fridge for another 4-5, and in the water bath for approximately 20-30 minutes.

Question is, assuming the meat stays in the freezer up to a week, would it be safe to defrost and attempt to sous vide? or another cooking method (braise maybe)? or is isafe to eat all or is it just trash at this point?

Edit: If it matters, meat is frozen in marinade, two separate bags each with six 3-4 ounce chunks of meat w/bone.

Edited November 27, 2012 by Michael Yoon (log)

[Chris Hennes]

From a food safety perspective you are probably fine, I'd be more concerned about the texture of repeated frozen and thawed meat.

[radtek]

Beef is pretty resilient safety-wise. The fact that it has been in marinade makes me more confident that the environment has been reasonably cold, salty and acidic and would inhibit bacterial growth.

I don't care for refreezing raw meat if it has thawed out already. You lose a lot of juices that way and end up with a dry mealy product. Since it was semi-thawed... Might as well give it a try though. Report back and discuss any quality issues.

[JeffDDS]

I've been playing with immersion circulator cooking for a year now, and really enjoying it. Up to this point, I've been using ziploc bags and water displacement for cooking. However, I have a developing food safety concern.

We have four young kids, and to keep things running smoothly at home I do the cooking for a week at a time on the weekends. MC seemed to be all about the chamber vac; MC@H showed the foodsaver and ziplocs. If I'm cooking with the intent of storing food in the fridge for up to 6 days, how should I be thinking about food safety? Ziploc? Food saver? Chamber? Or are all of these moot points if one is working with a standard home refrigerator rather than a professional model? (That was my theory on why MC@H didn't push the chamber vacs at all.)

Thanks!

[rotuts]

if your food was time-temp'd to be pasteurized, and your bags do not open, and your refirg is cold enough you are good for 6 days.

[JeffDDS]

What is "cold enough"? Somehow I have 34F stuck in my head, but I don't know where I got that number. Is a standard fridge/freezer thermometer sufficient to measure "cold enough" in this instance, or should I be tossing my thermopen in the fridge every once in a while?

[rotuts]

PedroG has posted these number in the main SV thread. cant say I know how to search for them. you might have to scroll through a few months of this thread.

also wise words would be: if in doubt, toss it out.

Edited May 20, 2013 by rotuts (log)

[Ttogull]

A slightly different direction on your question, but you might consider freezing and then reheating sous vide. There was a thread on that not too long ago. I myself was dubious at first, but try it a few times. I've put GRILLED chicken in ziplocks and SV'ed to reheat, and they were fantastic for a no-hands meal (not as good as straight off the grill, but a small price to pay for the insanity I can only imagine with 4 kids). If you go this direction, from experience I can tell you that you should rebag everything. I guess freezing pokes small holes in the ziplocks and water gets in or food gets out if you do not.

[PedroG]

See here.

So if you can make sure your fridge is always below 5°C with your Thermapen, you are OK for a week.

P.S. The coldest zone in the fridge is at the bottom, and temperature swings by opening the door are minimized within the drawers.

Edited May 21, 2013 by PedroG (log)

[nickrey]

I'm with Ttogull here. Freezing and reheating is very effective and the use of already (mostly) air-free bags dramatically reduces the chance of freezer burn.

[Mjx]

See here.

So if you can make sure your fridge is always below 5°C with your Thermapen, you are OK for a week.

P.S. The coldest zone in the fridge is at the bottom, and temperature swings by opening the door are minimized within the drawers.

PedroG, in a refrigerator/freezer combo unit, is the bottom the coldest area, regardless of where the the freezer is, relative to the fridge (i.e. top, side, bottom)?

[nickrey]

As an observation my freezer is at the bottom and the coldest part of my fridge is the top. I know this because liquids sometimes freeze on the top shelf but not at the bottom (I keep it very cold).

[ChrisZ]

If you have a digital thermometer - and I'm guessing that most of us interested in sous vide have at least one - then just leave a few glasses of water in different parts of the fridge overnight (to equalise) and then test their temperature. When we bought a new fridge I found its default settings to be a bit warm - up to 8C in places. I lowered the thermostat until it was about 4-5C max, with some liquids freezing if they're near the rear of the fridge at the top (like Nickrey).

As others have said, IF you don't open the bags and IF you cooked at a time / temperature to pasteurise then your food will be safe for quite a while in the fridge. I actually had some pork ribs that I had cooked for 3 days at 58C, and they were kept sealed in the fridge for over 6 months. They reheated fine and I ate them with no ill effects, although I realise now that was a bit silly. But 6 days is certainly no problem as long as your rig is accurate.

I bought a cheap foodsaver clone for $44 from an online store, it works fine. It's been useful for me to get the hang of vacuum bagging food. You don't need to spend a fortune on a chamber sealer to make the step up from ziploc bags.

[rotuts]

the zip-lock bags may not do so well with the freeze-thaw as the seal may open. only a guess.

once you really get the hang of SV and its safe storage you might look for a heat seal system. many sure your bag is at least 3.5

mil and you will not get freezer burn. toss frozen in a small reheating SV set up and you are all set.

I do this all the time. have had no freezer burn with 3.5 mil bags some ( green coffee ) are at least a year in the freezer.

Test Kitchen did a seg on this a while ago and seeing their results moved me away from the food saver to a more expensive unit

I do large quatities of the same item and then freeze. saves time, $$$$, and energy.

[KennethT]

I've never had a problem with zip locks and freeze-thaw... and have had no issues with freezer burn either - I've had stuff in my chest freezer for over a year.

[rotuts]

interesting.

[JeffDDS]

Thanks! I can see where freezing and reheating would work really well for individual chicken breasts, hamburgers, etc. My six (okay, I'll admit it) to ten day questionable storage issues come up more frequently with pork loin or shoulder, or other large cuts of meat that get cooked and then taken out and sliced over the course of the week.

I guess there's no reason I couldn't break down those cuts into smaller pieces in the first place before cooking though; that hadn't occured to me before now.

[rotuts]

that seems like a good idea. for 'dinner' I about 2 generous portions in each bag: two fairly hungry adults or maybe just me.

its easier to decide how many bags I use / dinner

for sandwiches, I might make a bag with a fairly large chunk of turkey breast, and slice that for sandwiches, knowing that when I

open it I put the remainder in the same bag and fold over the cut edge and use a few rubber bands to keep it closed and put it in the

coldest part of my refrig. its then treated the same as cold cuts from the deli, just better ones!

[KennethT]

Once the bag has been opened, then the standard "leftover" rules (not only to SV) apply - once the bag is opened, you're typically more concerned with spoilage bacteria than pathogenic ones - so even in a very cold refrigerator, I wouldn't want to keep anything longer than about a week. But with this situation, the nose knows best...

[Anonymous Modernist 19180]

I was reading the food safety section of MC and it mentioned about officials deciding to issue recommendations only by temperature, not temperature and time. It occurred to me that one possible reason for this is the ability to regulate it. Its quite easy for an inspector to check that foods have been cooked to the proper temperature. Checking that they have been held at a lower temperature for a minimum amount of time is much trickier. Unless they witness the whole process, they have no way of knowing it was actually held at that temp for that amount of time.

[ElsieD]

Yesterday I had taken a hanger steak out of the freezer to thaw for dinner. This steak had previously been cooked sous vide, chilled in ice water and frozen. Due to a medical emergency, it ended up out of the fridge for some 12 hours and was at room temperature when we got back from the hospital. Is this thing safe to it? It was, of course, vacuum sealed but I don't feel comfortable eating it. My husband has asked that I pose the question here.

[dcarch]

Don't think it's safe.

The sous vide temperature was around 135F? Not high enough to sanitize everything.

dcarch

[Martin Fisher]

No, it's not safe.

Toss it.