I have been pre-cooking for a party and decided to do some sous vide chicken. I was using an igloo cooler as my container, and did 10 at a time lined along the sides. After reading o the internet to cook chicken to 150 for 1 hour, I set the sous vide to warm and started seasoning and bagging the chicken. I guess the chicken was too cold, as it dropped the water temp to 138. We worked with the water by scooping and replacing with hotter to assist the sous vide in getting to temp. The chicken was in this water as it neared 150 for about 40 minutes, and then left in at 150 for an hour. It was then removed and the next batch cooked for an hour without having to worry about the temperature drop. HOWEVER, and this is where I really screwed up - I did NOT check the internal temperature of the meat before putting in an ice bath and refrigerating, so I foolishly have no clue what internal temp I actually achieved.
This morning I pulled a piece and put in a 140 degree bath to reheat for 30 minutes in order to try a test piece just to make sure it was going to reheat in the suggested time frame… Well - I guess my pieces are thick because after going straight from the refrigerator to the water bath, 30 minutes later the internal temp was 107. I let it go and at about an hour and a half the temp was 140. Sort of defeats the purpose of precooking, huh?
Can I take all of the “pre-cooked” chicken and cook at 165 for 2 hours just to be on the safe side and still have a quality finished product, or should I toss this chicken and start over?
My concern is pretty obvious - If one piece only got to 140 after 1-1/2 hours with the temp set to 140 for my test reheat, then I’m guessing 10 pieces at 150 for an hour probably got to somewhere between 120-130, if that… EVERYTHING went in an ice bath immediately after removing and then went in the frig overnight so nothing sat in the danger zone for too long.
Thanks everyone.