Reheating (regenerating)

As discussed throughout our site, sous vide means bringing food to the optimal temperature you want it to be cooked at - never hotter. So when you reheat it to around the same temperature, you won't overcook it or dry it out.   Plus, you can leave the food out until you need it, an absolute lifesaver when making multiple courses/dishes.

How do I reheat meat with sous vide?

To heat your meat without overcooking it, place your vacuum-sealed food bags in water that has been heated to just below the original cooking temperature (about 2 degrees lower). Smaller portions take about the same amount of time to reheat as they do to cook. Larger portions don't take the full cooking time to reheat - you've already broken down the muscle and achieved the desired texture. When reheating large roasts, the goal is to heat the meat just long enough to warm the center.

Want some more precise guidance on reheating that piece of meat you kept in the fridge after braising it? We have some guidelines below. Keep in mind that the size and shape of the meat will determine how long it takes to reheat. And as always: measuring is knowing! If you really want to be sure whether the meat has reached the correct core temperature, we recommend using a sous-vide thermometer.

A flat steak

Thickness 10 mm: 20 minutes heating time
Thickness 25 mm: 1 hour heated warm-up time
Thickness 50 mm: 3 ½ hours heating time
Thickness 60 mm: 5.5 hours heating time

A cylindrical roulade

Thickness 10 mm: 11 minutes heating time
Thickness 25 mm: 40 minutes heating time
Thickness 50 mm: 2 hours heating time
Thickness 60 mm: 2 ½ hours heating time
Thickness 75 mm: 3 hours heating time
Thickness 85 mm: 4 hours warm-up time

A spherical shape

For example, a meatball or a round roast.

Thickness 10 mm: 8 min. heating time
Thickness 25 mm: 25 min. heating time
Thickness 50 mm: 1 ½ hour heating time
Thickness 60 mm: 2 hours heating time
Thickness 75 mm: 2 ¾ hours heating time
Thickness 85 mm: 3 ½ hours heating time
Thickness 105 mm: 5 hours heating time
Thickness 115 mm: 6 hours heating time

These are not pasteurization times!
All the above calculations assume that the temperature of the water is between 45 ° C and 80 ° C.

Why regenerate meat at a slightly lower temperature?

Why reheat one or two degrees lower than the original cooking time? Why not heat up to the same temperature? You can completely reheat food to the same temperature you originally cooked it at, especially if you plan to use the food as soon as it is ready. However, after a certain time the food will start to change. This happens much more slowly than if you use a traditional method and cook at a much higher temperature, but if you leave food in hot water long enough the food will eventually overcook. Heating up to a slightly lower temperature gives you a longer runway, so you can leave your food in the water without worry.

Buy a good thermometer

SousvideKenner offers a number of high-quality thermometers that are indispensable for the serious sous-vide chef: https://www.sousvidekenner.nl/en/sous-vide-products/sous-vide-accessories/thermometers-en/

Reheating sauces, soups and stocks?

Sauces and soups are ideal for reheating with sous vide. When heating in the traditional way you always have to be careful that nothing burns or sticks to the bottom, with sous vide you simply place the product in a water bath and you no longer have to worry about it.

Reheating sous vide is the only way to preserve flavor, texture, and color—three incredibly important qualities of any worthy sauce (or any food, for that matter). Like puree, divide your sauce into smaller bags and place them in a water bath (usually at about 60°C) to heat evenly. If you are in a hurry or have a lot of sauce to reheat, you can knead or shake the bags every few minutes to speed up the process. Try preparing your sauces in advance for your next big dinner. Reheat when you're done, and watch your day of cooking become so much easier.

Pork chops and roasts

The new recommendation for whole cuts of unground pork is 63°C, measured with an accurate food thermometer in the thickest part of the meat, after which the meat rests for three minutes before cutting or consuming.

This is an important breakthrough for the quality of pork. Pork is simply juicier and more tender at the new "safe" temperature of 63°C (they will probably rise to about 65.5°C while resting). At that temperature the pork will be very pale pink. You can make pork chops even better with about 30 to 60 minutes in a 5% salt solution.

There is good reason to make this change

It was once easy to get the parasite trichinosis from undercooked pork. Today, trichinosis has been nearly eradicated in developed countries. Trichinosis is caused by eating raw or undercooked pork and some game that is infected with the larvae of a species of the parasitic worm trichinella. The annual average is now less than 40 cases per year in the US, most associated with eating undercooked game such as bear. Trichinosis from pork was around five cases per year in 2006, mostly from eating uninspected domestically raised pigs. The number of pork cases has decreased due to improved farming and processing methods, as well as public awareness of the importance of proper cooking. Trichinosis is killed at 59°C.

Poultry

The USDA has not changed its recommendations for poultry products, including ground chicken and turkey, that remain at 165°F. Salmonella is common in commercial chickens, and is often found in organic and free-range chickens, and every technical reference I've ever seen says this temperature is quite heavily weighted, with one small exception, sous vide, which I'll discuss below. White poultry meat, such as "the other white meat," also benefits from a brief bath in salt water before cooking.

Red meat

Unfortunately, the USDA still tells us to cook and broil steaks, lamb chops to 150°F (63°C) with a 3-minute rest. This is actually a step back because they added the three minute rest, during which the temperature of the meat will rise. This was not the case with previous recommendations. At 63°C a steak is medium rare, usually brown/gray with a hint of pink. At this temperature it takes more effort to cut through the muscle fibers with your teeth. Many of the juices have congealed and those juices provide the flavor, so the meat is less tasty. If it rests for 3 minutes, it's close to well done, a terrible waste of good meat.

The optimal temperature for tenderness, juiciness and flavor of a steak is medium rare, approximately 54.5 to 57°C. Most steak lovers know this and no steakhouse could continue operating if they followed the 63°C plus 3 minute guideline.

VooAs far as I know there is little risk when eating red meat, as long as hygiene and food safety are taken into account.

Food Safety

Harmful bacteria such as e-coli can occur on the surface of meat, but do not get far into the meat. When frying steaks, for example, the temperature of the outside of the meat will be exposed to temperatures above 63°C, which will kill harmful bacteria. This makes it a bad idea to use a tenderizing device/gadget or fork, as these push the bacteria to the center of the meat by perforating the outer layer.

Grinded meat

Ground meats, except poultry, should be cooked to 165°F (71°C) and require no resting time. This temperature has not changed and it means that you should not serve pink burgers, especially to children and the elderly. E-coli is not a trivial opponent. It can weaken people, damage kidneys and even kill people.

The problem is that if meat is contaminated in the slaughter process, when it is ground (unlike steaks) the dirty stuff is spread everywhere. So ground meat simply needs to be cooked warmer or longer to kill the bacteria in the middle.

Now I know a lot of you like to eat red or pink burgers, but let me ask you to do a blind taste test the next time you're at a steakhouse. Order two burgers, one medium rare and one at 71C. Put on a blindfold and taste the two. It will be very difficult to tell them apart. That's because the meat is "pre-chewed". It is made super soft by the mill. Unlike well done steaks, well done burgers are not significantly tougher. And since the best hamburgers are not made from lean meat, as they contain about 20% fat, even a 71C hamburger can be deliciously juicy.

But if you really must have those weird or pink burgers, sterilize the meat yourself before making mincemeat: food scientists say that if you dip a piece of steak in boiling water (100°C) for 10 seconds before grinding it yourself, it will be safe is made. Although the outside turns gray, it grinds well and makes delicious, flavorful weird burgers.

Moral: cook burgers to 71°C unless your meat is sterilized. Why take the risk? Also, remember to put on your seat belt and not to smoke in bed. The same.

Organic is not a guarantee

If the meat is very fresh and if it has been handled very gently during slaughter and processing, there may be very few bad bacteria. This is indeed an important factor in food safety. The more bugs there are, the longer it takes, and/or more heat is needed to kill them all. But there's no way for most of us to know exactly how fresh a steak is and how the carcass was handled. Now I know some of you are going to tell me how safe you feel eating grilled chicken and their eggs, or a rare burger from the grass-fed organic steers you bought at the farmers market, but the fact is that pastured chickens are raised on polluted grass wander through bird droppings, voles, rabbits and deer, and it can be downright risky. Organic pastured chickens can be just as dangerous as factory-farmed chickens. The same goes for other fruits and vegetables. Everyone should be informed and careful about food safety, regardless of who their supplier is.

Sous Vide does not play by the standard rules

Heat kills bacteria, but bacteria don't all die at once once the meat hits 63°C. They start to scratch at about 54°C, and in theory, if you hold a piece of beef at 54°C for about two hours, you can kill all the bugs.

This is the whole theory behind the newest and most exciting emerging concept in cooking, sous vide. Yes, I know it's not new, but it's new and affordable. Sous-vide is French for "under vacuum," so called because the cook places a steak in a plastic bag, adds spices, perhaps a marinade, and sucks out all the air with a vacuum sealer. The bagged meat is then placed in a water bath and kept at, for example, 54°C for hours until it is boiled for two hours.n an even 54C, making it completely sterile and amazingly tender, because at that temperature enzymes activate that make the meat extra tender. The problem is that the meat lacks the rich flavor and crisp texture of the Maillard chemical reactions that happen with amino acids and sugars on the surface when you grill a steak, so sous vide chefs often sear the outside in a pan, under a grill, or on a grill a few minutes before serving.

Sous vide can even be used for hamburgers and poultry, making it safe at much lower temperatures.

Until recently, sous vide systems were bulky and expensive, suitable only for restaurants, but in the past few years, they have become smaller and cheaper. View our complete collection of sous-vide equipment.

The best way to stay safe: buy a good digital thermometer

You'll also notice that the entire system is based on the internal temperatures of meats at their thickest part. Good cooks use a thermometer as their guide, not a clock. A recipe that says "cook at 350°F for 2 hours" is a recipe for disaster, because your oven is probably anything but accurate. Even new ovens are often not properly calibrated. There is no substitute for a good digital oven thermometer in combination with a good digital meat thermometer. This is especially true for outdoor chefs. The dial thermometers on most grills, even the expensive ones, are worthless, often being off the actual temperature by 10°C or more.

The Internet and many cookbooks tell you that you can tell when a steak is done by poking it and comparing its resistance to the meat in your hand. THIS IS NONSENSE!!!! Unless you're a seasoned pro, you can't tell the doneness of a steak by poking it! The resistance of the steak depends on the cut of meat you are prodding, the quality of the meat, how thick it is, the age of the ox, the breed of the ox, the age of the meat and what the ox was fed, among other things. A prime filet mignon feels much more tender than a sirloin steak. A 3cm thick ribeye feels different from a 1cm thick ribeye.

Moreover, the resilience of our hands differs from young to old, from thin to fat, from athlete to couch potato. OK. It's true that top steakhouse chefs can guess the internal temperature of a steak just by poking it. But they have skewered thousands of steaks, all from the same supplier, all the same thickness, all cooked at the same temperature.

The rest of us need a food thermometer

Food is expensive. It's expensive and embarrassing to mess up. Friends and family are priceless, it's no fun getting them sick. Doneness and color are controlled by one thing: the temperature of the food. For home cooks, there's simply no substitute for a good digital thermometer.

Here's what the USDA says, and I wholeheartedly agree: "The color of cooked meat and poultry is not always a sure sign of the degree of doneness. Only by using a food thermometer can one accurately determine whether a meat has reached a safe temperature. Turkey, fresh pork, ground beef or veal may remain pink even after cooking to temperatures of 71°C and above. Smoked turkey meat is always pink chemical reaction with the smoke, rare-cooked burgers may be brown, and chicken cooked well above the safe temperature may still have bloody spots.