Bags bursting when cooking more than 2 hours

I have tried my new cooker twice and both times the bag broke while cooking. I am using Ikea ziplock bags. What am I doing wrong?

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If I use Ziplock style, I always use Ziplock. The cheaper bags are made from thinner plastic that isn’t meant to handle higher heat!

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I have read elsewhere that IKEA bags are not recommended as they do have the tendency to burst. Try ziplock type bags. I prefer to use the freezer ones.

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+1 for the freezer bags. Do NOT use the sandwich bags! The plastic / seams on these are way too thin…most definitely will fail on you.

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I’ve only used Ziplock Freezer bags (quart, gallon, and two gallon). I’ve had only two failures at 165°, but far many more successful cooks. If it smells like soup, check it immediately. It may be a pin hole in the bag, but more likely you didn’t zip seal the bag completely. Also you may just have something smeared on the outside of the bag, or the seal.

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Thanks, I am pretty sure the bag was clean. Could it be that the bag rested on the bottom of the pot, or touched the sous vide machine?

I was using the Ikea freezer bags, this surprises me as they seem so much better than most bags I have used before (admitted for other reasons) I’ll try the ziplock next though

Hard to say at this point, but the anova unit externally shouldn’t be that much hotter than the water nor should the bottom of the pot. In my case, the roast had a bone in it, that might have poked through. In any event, since there was no excess pressure, And the bag didn’t rip, I was able to transfer the contents to another bag, rinse out the anova, change the water, and continue cooking. :wink:

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