# Cooking guide by thickness

**URL:** <https://community.anovaculinary.com/t/cooking-guide-by-thickness/17561>\
**Category:** Anova Precision® Cooker\
**Created:** [November 18, 2018, 11:38pm UTC](https://community.anovaculinary.com/t/cooking-guide-by-thickness/17561 "2018-11-18T23:38:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![MLev](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@MLev](https://community.anovaculinary.com/u/MLev)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2018, 11:38pm UTC](https://community.anovaculinary.com/t/cooking-guide-by-thickness/17561/1 "2018-11-18T23:38:36Z")

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Hello, just got the device and first time trying this out… I have a 2 lb pork tenderloin that is about 3.5 inches wide by 2 inches high. How long do I cook it? Recipie is for 1 lb. this is 2 lbs… is there a guide that lists cooking time by thickness?

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**Author:** ![Ember](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.anovaculinary.com/ember/32/729_2.png) [@Ember](https://community.anovaculinary.com/u/Ember)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2018, 11:58pm UTC](https://community.anovaculinary.com/t/cooking-guide-by-thickness/17561/2 "2018-11-18T23:58:02Z")

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A rule of thumb guide is 30 mins of time for the warmth to penetrate half an inch of thickness. This is not truly accurate because the process is actually non-linear, but it’s an ok approximation. Most people will add a bit of extra time anyway. Sous vide is like that… time is flexible.

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**Author:** ![chatnoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@chatnoir](https://community.anovaculinary.com/u/chatnoir)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 2:12pm UTC](https://community.anovaculinary.com/t/cooking-guide-by-thickness/17561/3 "2018-11-19T14:12:52Z")

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Maria, welcome to Community. Your question illustrates the difficulties experienced with many SV recipes. They co-mingle conventional cooking thinking in recipes, most of which is wrong, with the precise nature of SV cooking.

To answer your pork tenderloin cooking question, always use the lesser dimension, 2-inches. Using Table 5.1 in Douglas Baldwin’s excellent work you will discover that at 140F cooking time will be 2 1/2 hours. That will result in medium doneness, tender and juicy. Cooking temperature can be adjusted according to your preferred degree of doneness, Medium-rare (130F) to well-done (160F). Your cooking time can be extended to 4 hours to add tenderness.

Here’s your link:

[http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Pork](http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Pork)

Jason Logsdon developed a fairly useful ruler based on cook time tables developed by Nathan Myhrvold and Douglas Baldwin.  
Here’s the link:

> **[Sous-Vide-Thickness-Ruler.pdf](https://www.amazingfoodmadeeasy.com/sousvide/Sous-Vide-Thickness-Ruler.pdf)**
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> 1101.70 KB