How do I reheat cooked meats? Multiple meats in the bag?

Anova Precision® Cooker
1

Hi everyone. I’ve only had my Anova for a week but I’ve already cooked steaks, fish, and ribs. Cook times has ranged from 1hr to 36hrs!! I love how all my cooks have turned out. Now I’m planning to cook the bulk meats that I’ll be getting from Costco. Can the frozen “cooked” meats go straight in the preheated water or do they need to defrost in the fridge over nite? Also, vacuum bags are quite pricey. Can I put multiple meats in the bag if the there is a gap between them after vacuuming?


Thanks in advance, 
Bonn
2

You DO know that freezing cooked meat is quite different than raw meat, right?  (also, if it’s already been flash frozen, that minimizes the amount of damage the freezing process does to the meat).


When you cook meat, it loses a lot of its natural fat content.  Fattier meat tends to freeze better (that is, the quality of it seems much more similar to fresh after it’s thawed).  As cooked meats are much leaner, they’ll be much different when thawed (especially the longer they remain in the freezer - due to freezer burn) - you DO minimize freezer burn by getting all of the air out of the bag and using good, thick bags though.

If the meat IS already frozen when you purchase it, I’d leave it frozen and cook them as needed.  (but, I’m a bit of a purist in terms of wanting to maximize the quality of my food) :) 

To answer the other questions - I’d put the frozen pre-cooked items directly into the bath and yes, you can have multiple pieces of meat in a vacuum packed bag, but they’re likely to close that gap when you cook them.  (should be fine though).

3

I have frozen cooked sous vide steaks when company canceled. I actually thought they might have been better. No defrosting necessary.

But it doesn't save a lot of cooking time. Maybe 30 minutes?

I usually use Ziploc these days but if I was cooking in advance I prefer vacuum bags. Try both before you heavily invest. And AFAIK cooking time varies according to thickness so two steaks side by side are the same as one and two 1 inch steaks stacked are the same as a two inch steak. Could be wrong but does seem to work.