I am new to Anova and wanted to know if Anova was used to reheat foods? If so, what kind of success have you had.
@leroyn3691 Great question - you can store leftovers in the fridge or freezer and drop it right back into the bath to reheat without worrying about overcooking 
My only concern with this is that if the vacuum-seal has been broken and it has been stored for a couple of days, you might wanna reheat it at higher temps 85C/186F just to kill the bacterias on the surface of the food but sure, at work we do this with meats, example a packet of fillet which has been heated to 55C/131F one day, can be heated again 1 more time the following day and keep the same quality (we sear it on the pan afterwards, so that kills off bacteria and gives a nice crust!)
I have used mine to reheat a chicken breast that we still vacuum sealed after cooking. I might make 3 at a time and reheat them over the next couple of days for lunch or differ. Regular leftovers I would agree that they probably should be heated to a higher temperature.
So if I made short ribs at 144 degrees, then freeze it in the freezer, when I want to eat it, do I drop it back to water bath at 144? Then leave it in for how long? Thank you.
@Aquacook said:
So if I made short ribs at 144 degrees, then freeze it in the freezer, when I want to eat it, do I drop it back to water bath at 144? Then leave it in for how long? Thank you.
I would say a little over an hour should do it. It is really based on how thick they are and if they have a bone or not. They first have to thaw then heat to 144° or a little less all the way through. You would then remove them from the vacuum bag season and sear the meat.
I’ve reheated vacuum-sealed steak in the microwave once. Once.
I used mine to heat up a vacuum sealed bag of smoked meat that I had brought home from Montreal - usually, I have to heat it up in the oven or microwave and risk drying it out. It worked beautifully.
@leroyn3691: I do this all the time. For example, I’ll vacuum seal a bunch of pork chops in separate pouches and cook them all at once. We will eat a couple for dinner that night, but the rest get thrown into an ice bath to cool down quickly, and then are labeled (including original cooking temperature) and thrown into the freezer. At a later date I heat water up to slightly less than the original cooking temperature – I want to reheat, not recook – and heat for an hour or so, then grill or sear for additional flavor and appearance. In almost all cases the food was already pasteurized during the first cooking session, and the bags remain sealed and intact until after the reheat, so I’m not concerned if the reheat temperature dips down toward the bacterial danger zone (note I’ve never tried this with foods like fish where you really care about the cooking time, as even reheating at a lower temperature will adversely affect the texture). I haven’t noticed any differences in taste or texture between the chops fresh from the first cook and those that have been frozen and reheated, although I’ve not done any sort of side-by-side testing.
@jimsteph I agree that with meat it works very well. I think a lot of times people have preconceived ideas and a blind taste test eliminates a lot of things. I have read that many tasters that say they prefer rare steak actually choose medium rare when they cannot see what they are eating. I have never tried reheating fish as we never have leftovers. Good fresh fish is a bit pricey here and we buy what we can eat. Or maybe we eat what we buy as I think sometimes a fresh salmon will look so good we buy too big a piece. I reheat chicken more than anything else. I also will quickly cool and refrigerate breast meat and eat it cold on salads and sandwiches.