Heating vac pouch


 
S

Steve Petrone

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The first two freezer to serve vac pacs took 20 minutes in simmering water...and still not heated through.

Method: heated pot of water to just shy of boil. Dropped in frozen bbq (between 3/4-1 lb. portion), simmered for 20 minutes and still had a firm center i.e. some still frozen.

Should I boil the pouch? This seems to be a long process....
 
It takes quite a while to re-heat a pouch to serving temperature, particularly if the pouch is well filled. I too was surprised at the amount of time that it takes the first time that I attempted it. I put the pouch into the pan of cold water and bring everything up to boiling, then reduce it to a rolling simmer. I re-heated a one quart pouch a few days ago. It took almost 45 minutes.

Something help speed up the process is to open the pouch after it has been in the water bath for 15 minutes or so and loosen the compacted meat with a fork. It will help to get hot air circulating around the meat that is still cold and will ultimately speed up the process.
 
I am only talking about frozen bags and a gas cooktop (instant on/off heat) in my response below.

I noticed that as well at first then I switched to always bring the water up to temp first before adding the bag. You can actually boil the water first then throw in the bags.

Once the water comes to a boil I throw in the frozen bags of food and cut the heat back to low/medium. The temps will drop down and I watch with a Thermapen and let that happen until the temps drop to about 140 then I maintain the burner level to keep the water temp at 140 degrees.

This process shortens the overall time in my experience.

When you throw the frozen bags into cold water and apply the heat, the overall time to come to temp take a lot longer. I did not do a direct comparison. But the difference was evident to the point that I never changed back to starting everything from cold.
 
I'm not sure how curious you are nor how technical you want to get, but I have been investigating sous vide cooking procedures (essentially what you are doing: vac packed meat + temp controlled water bath) and am somewhat familiar on the basics. The key to successful heating is the thickness of the block of meat. Time becomes an exponential function with thickness. A 5mm thick piece of meat in a 140* water bath will be at temp in 2 min, while a piece twice as thick (10mm) will take 9 min. Double it again (20mm) and it will take 38 min. I recommend vac packing the meat in a flat layer, its about the best suggestion I can offer. good vac packing puts pressure on the meat and limits moisture loss, breaking the seal on the bag while reheating will eliminate this slight benefit.

For more technical info (and the source of this data):

A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking
 
Plan ahead!

Yes, it can take a while to bring food from frozen to "hot." And in my experience, "warm" is better than "hot" when reheating any food.

Just a thought,

JimT
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Steve Petrone:
Would it make sense to soften the frozen pouch on medium in the microwave while the water comes to a boil? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Steve, You could do that. As j said, what I've found that works best, is to making the pouch as flat as possible, really helps with the even reheating. If you toss a pile of butt in the bag then just seal it up, it's really thick, esp in the center. I put X amount in the bag then flatten it so it's even before sealing, I use as much of the bag as I can. I always like to take it out of the freezer a day before. But If you forget, the even thickness really works well for even reheating from the frozen state.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">J, I did not know this type of cooking existed... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've been keeping tabs on it for over a year, and for xmas, I just received the Thomas Keller book that focuses exclusively on this technique. It's being promoted as revolutionary, and once someone develops an affordable consumer product, it'll be as common as a microwave in the kitchen. I'm still weighing my options as far as the equipment I plan to purchase so I can start experimenting, so I don't have a ton of first hand experience, but a couple of days ago, I tried a small trial with lobster tails in a temp controlled bath of butter (not exactly sous vide but it had similar aspects). It was very cumbersome the way I did it on the stove, but I saw a ton of potential, since despite it all, the tails came out perfect and we had 2.5 sticks of melted lobster flavored butter to dip baked taters in.

I was originally attracted to it because it works fundamentally similar to bbq (low and slow) without the downsides (overcooking, drying, etc.). One popular recipe calls for doing brisket at 140* for 36 hours! the result is pink, med-rare meat that melts in your mouth.
 
I am a big fan of Keller. I have been to Per Se and The French Laundry. My wife's daughter gave me a copy of Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide (Hardcover). I haven't read the book yet but a review that I did read said that the book was not very helpful to your Average Joe cook. Especially in light of the cost of some of the equipment.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I am a big fan of Keller. I have been to Per Se and The French Laundry. My wife's daughter gave me a copy of Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide (Hardcover). I haven't read the book yet but a review that I did read said that the book was not very helpful to your Average Joe cook. Especially in light of the cost of some of the equipment. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Your a lucky man. My wife's cousin lucked into a table at per se (through a last minute reservation website that erred but they honored the res anyways) and I guess the whole time, he and his wife were wishing me and my wife could have been there with them to appreciate the meal because neither of them are really into eating outside of their comfort zones. despite it all they said things like "well...it was the best rabbit we've had."

I kind of knew what I was in for when I requested a copy of Under Pressure, but I had heard the table of temps and times in the back was worth the price of the book. I imagine it'll be all over the net soon, if it isn't already posted somewhere. There are some good basic techniques listed in the back that look like they will come in handy. I followed Keller's instructions on how to prep lobster and poach it in buerre monde (spelling?) and I'm glad I did, because I definitely would have monkey'ed up $40 worth of lobster waaaay more than I did.

As far as sous vide goes, There's video's on Youtube of Grant Achatz sticking turkey in a ziploc and dumping it into a stock pot on an electric range. So it can be done on the cheap. Additionally, most people recommend pre-freezing any liquid component to be sealed in the bag to keep costs down further. However, from reading Keller there are some things that absolute precision is required (i.e. certain fish preparations). My plan is to cobble some stuff together and play around with it (and accept the limitations) until low cost consumer equipment becomes available.

Additionally, Keller has plenty of stuff in the book that require a chamber sealer (other than sealing meat with non-frozen liquids), which is another piece of equipment outside of most home cook's budget. But until I sample a piece of compressed watermelon and think "I got to makes this at home," I'm not really interested by these technique.
 
I have been doing a great deal of research recently about sous vide.

I am at the point that I am considering the purchase of a used laboratory circulating water bath to attempt a different kind of low and slow food preparation.
 
Back on topic after a very interesting sidestep.

I tried the zap (2-3 minutes on medium) in the microwave while the waterbath came to a simmer. This step "softens" a hard hunk of meat before the dip in the simmering water. This appears to be a quicker reheat when going from frozen hunk.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I am at the point that I am considering the purchase of a used laboratory circulating water bath to attempt a different kind of low and slow food preparation. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Awesome, it seems like the thing to do, however, from what I've read, used thermo-circulators are hard to come by these days with the increasing interest in the technique. Good luck, and post something if you ever get your kit together.

sorry Steve, but I thought the technique of sous vide had some relevance since its essentially the same thing (besides I've been dying to see if anybody's aware of it around this forum). You even admitted its interesting stuff.
 
I'm not much of a fan of microwaves, I own one and use it mostly for warming coffee and individual plates of food, a few other small jobs. What I dislike about them is unevenness, big jobs like defrosting a thick vac pack. A spot could get steaming hot and two inches away it's still frozen stiff.

(It might help if I bought a new one ... some of them are supposed to be a little better at evenness than my 20 year old one or so I hear.)

Having said all that, what I do with large bags of pulled meat is defrost in the fridge a few days or in the sink in cold water if I'm in a hurry. Not as fast as microwave but more even.
 
I pretty much do what Shawn does. I have changed out my convection/microwaves recently (died, couldn't get parts). The one I have is new technology (also convection). Interestingly defrost on this unit works much better from a functional perspective.

On most microwaves when you set the power level you are really only setting the cylce time or pulse of full power. They really aren't changing level of micrwowave itself. That's why you can end up with partially cooked edges, etc.

This is also the reason why when melting butter on lower power you can still end up with that pop and splash all over the inside
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On this one it actually varies the strength of the microwave instead of cycling full power. I tried it on defrost for some steaks and it actually fully thawed them without any browning or color changes.

Haven't tried it with bagged pulled pork yet, but might give it a try. I do what Bryan does though RE control the amount and thickness in the bags. I have also done the pre-soak in hottest tap water in a pot as well before setting on the range.
 
J, no need to apologise...that waterbath cooking is neat....

Yall have to be right...best to defrost in the frige...then heat. The water defrost is good too.
 
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