Sous Vide and food safety....

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Zwiefel

Zwiefel

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OK, so the title is slightly misleading...I've been through the charts on time/temp for various food products and grasp them fairly well I think. My question is this: If I cook something SV, let's say it's a ready-to-serve product like soup, chili, possibly some fish, confit, etc....for the particular product I choose, let's say that it's pasteurized at 2 hours, but I hold it there by some multiple, let's say 6 hours.

Could I store this product at room temp safely?
How long safe in a fridge (at 34F, let's say)?
How long in a freezer (at 0F, let's say)?

Seems to me that with this approach, these things are nearly like MREs but w/o the chemicals...so wouldn't be safe as long, but should be room temp safe for a few days...a week?
 
I know nothing about SV, but my concern would be that since you're not relying on a certain pH or a high enough temperature that any bacteria colonies present would rapidly multiply even in the absence of oxygen.
 
Too late to edit but obviously not ALL colonies would thrive, but some nasty ones could.
 
chinacats said:
Too late to edit but obviously not ALL colonies would thrive, but some nasty ones could.
Click to expand...

There is certainly plenty of biology going on here that is well beyond my understanding. However, all of the SV recipes I've used take food well beyond the point of pasteurization. In the case of pork ribs, it's about 30X beyond that point. As I understand it, that means that the amount of viable bacteria present is vanishingly small. But yes, certainly not zero...I'm not sure about the PH question...I've not noticed shelf-stable products like MREs being particularly acidic or basic, but they are probably using another mechanism?
 
It's still stored in vacuum right? I'd be worried about anerobic spores multiplying, no?? These aren't killed by the low heat/long time like bacteria are. And while they wouldn't effect you when you eat the thing more or less immediately, couldn't they be really bad news if you give them a chance to grow??
 
gic said:
It's still stored in vacuum right? I'd be worried about anerobic spores multiplying, no?? These aren't killed by the low heat/long time like bacteria are. And while they wouldn't effect you when you eat the thing more or less immediately, couldn't they be really bad news if you give them a chance to grow??
Click to expand...

I have absolutely no clue about this at all. zero. :)
 
gic said:
But the spores can only be killed in a pressure cooker apparantly or acidic conditions, long, low heat has no adverse effect on them
Click to expand...


God, I hate using my phone on the forums. Tried to fix that...
 
The Cooking Issues podcast, a few back (I think it was 189), had a good section on safety.
 
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