Guidelines for restaurant sous vide cooking safety in British Columbia sousvide

I just came across this document and thought I would share.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Sous vide is a style of cooking under vacuum that allows slower and lower temperature preparation of foods in vacuum sealed bags. It requires very precise control steps and monitoring to minimize food safety hazards. Foods cooked in the sous vide style for service in food premises are acceptable if the following food safety criteria are met:

(1) Recipes and preparation methods must be written out in a food safety plan. Information in the food safety plan must include:

a. Time and temperature of immersion circulator (or steam convection),

b. Internal temperature of food, and duration (time) food is held at that internal temperature during sous vide pasteurization,

c. After food is removed from pouches, and immediately before service to the customer, the internal temperature of food is measured for the recipe. This will account for additional changes in temperature from finishing steps,

d. Recipes are assessed for temperature/time combinations that provide a minimum bacterial destruction of 6.5-log 10 for all sous vide pasteurized foods, except poultry, which requires a 7-log 10 reduction of bacteria.

(2) Internal digital probe tip thermometers accurate to ±0.1°C must be used to monitor temperatures. Thermometers should be calibrated, traceable, and certified.

(3) Food grade sous vide pouches (polyethylene, polypropylene) must be used to package foods.

(4) Vacuum packaging machines should be set to deliver enough pressure that sous vide pouches do not float – machines should be able to deliver 90 to 95% pressure.

(5) All sous vide pouched foods stored under refrigeration must be labelled with date, time, discard date and identity.

(6) The minimum acceptable sous vide cooking temperature is 55°C for all meats, except poultry for which the minimum acceptable sous vide cooking temperature is 60°C.

(7) All sous vide pouched foods must be stored in the refrigerator, at temperatures of 3°C and lower (using ice or equivalent). The food safety standard maximum acceptable refrigeration temperature for sous vide packaged foods is 3.3°C.

(8) The maximum storage time for refrigerated raw (un-pasteurized) sous vide pouched food is 2 days.

(9) Sous vide pasteurized foods must be used within 3 days of refrigerated storage. The food safety standard maximum storage time for refrigerated fully pasteurized sous vide pouched food is 7 days.

(10) The optimal cooling rate for sous vide pouched foods after pasteurization is to bring foods to below 3°C within 2 hours using a 50:50 ice water slurry. Food safety standards for cooling rates are to bring foods to below 4°C within 6 hours (2 hours from 60°C to 20°C and 4 hours from 20°C to less than 4°C). Due to the risk of botulinum in vacuum packaged foods, the food safety standard must be further reduced to cool and store at a minimum of 3.3°C.

(11) Seafood sous vide style cooking that does not meet a 6.5-log 10 reduction of bacteria requires an additional control of freezing for parasite destruction.

(12) Sous vide cooking below 55°C must not exceed a period of 4 hours. Foods held at temperatures below 55°C for longer than 4 hours must be discarded.

Submitted November 08, 2017 at 10:37PM by AdventureSeeking http://ift.tt/2iEuJCh sousvide