Food preparation under water bath for several hours before cook

Wifi version is attractive for controlling the PC out of home so that I can prepare my meal a hour before back.

I am concerning about hygiene of food under the water bath for several hours.
Assume that I am leaving home from 8am and I place chicken breast to water, and then I will back to home at 5pm so I would start PC with Wifi at 4pm. That is, chicken breast would be placed under water for 8 hours before cook.

I would like to ask a question, is it a good practice for such food preparation? Is there any good idea for better treatment?
What I can do at the moment is, freeze the chicken breast overnight and place to water with several ice. It seems work.
Thank you very much :slight_smile:

I would not use a metal container for the water bath. Ice would melt too fast. Cambro to should be OK.

I find this scary not from a food safety viewpoint but from a convenience one. Will it be ready when you want it to be.

For food safety the more ice the better and an insulated container might work better. Wrapping any container in bubble wrap works for me.

From a convenience view point if you want to eat the minute you get home (which I never do) fill your container with ice and water and see how fast it melts when you are not working.

Other than that, I would start the water bath remotely with the chicken in the fridge and plop in the chicken when I got home. Get the side dishes ready or cooking and sit back and relax for 1/2 hour.

Depending on the insulating properties of your container you may be trying to warm up an ice slurry bath. It may take longer to warm the water than you think delaying your meal time. I am with Helen on this one I would leave the food in the refrigerator and turn on the Anova remotely so that it is ready to go when I get home. I never do long cooks for a working day dinner anyway. Lately it has been fish fillets, chicken breast and the occasional steak. I leave the longer cooks for weekends often starting Friday evening for Saturday or Sunday dinner. We normally have dinner at least 1.5-2.5 hours after I get home due to different work schedules.

> @Helen said, I would start the water bath remotely with the chicken in the fridge and plop in the chicken when I got home. 


This is a much better idea than leaving the food in the water bath all day. Why risk getting sick? Only takes a second to drop the food in the water bath.