Sous Vide steak and freeze to take on a Grand Canyon river trip

Anova Precision® Cooker
1

Greetings! I’m an avid rafter and want to serve the perfect steak on my Grand Canyon river trip. Friend’s told me about SousVide and I am interested in giving it a try if it will succesfully meet my needs! I’ve done steaks on trips before but it’s a real challenge to get sixteen steaks perfect for sixteen different people especially when you are doing so on a charcoal grill and sometimes after dark! I am looking at cooking thick ribeyes. We will have a four burner propane stove with us with a griddle if that is better than warming on the grill for the warm/sear. I believe the stove would give me a higher and more controlled heat. We will also have a blaster (basically a direct torch) available which will give a very high heat for sear if that is desirable. Doing some research I have learned that I prepare the steaks, SousVide them, then quickly freeze them. I plan on using either a vacuum sealer or quality ziplock for the cooking of the meat. Research suggests cooling using dry ice. Also, suggests placing the meat in butcher’s paper for this process. After dry ice cooling I would then again vacuum seal and freeze. If this method is suggested I will SousVide the steaks four weeks before the serving date.

I appeciate any and all feedback!

2

Why do you need dry ice? i’d have thought that is a potential health & safety hazard with ramifications for any company operating with people around.

What is simply wrong with pre cooking (no salt to turn things mushy) in ziplocs via sous vide?
Store in a decent chilled environment regular ice filled cooler that presumably meets up with you at the end point & sets up the cook out, warm the meat through, finish with a nice caramelising butter & salt then serve?

And just go out & practise, butter gives colour & flavour, keep it simple & fluid, cook them rare in the bag to practise a warm & serve that allows the griddle to bring the thawed, cooked steak up to heat, so as this is new, practise with the kit, have someone de-bagging the steaks & pouring the juice into a container to maybe make a quick mopping sauce for all that bread you presumably serve with it?

Are you using a decent cooler in the first place to ensure safe temps wherever a vehicle is stashed with your cook kit? if so I cannot see any reason to use dry ice which to me is likely costly & unnecessary. if temp regulation has been ok thus far, don’t overcomplicate.