What to do in a power outage?

Hi, first post here. I was wondering what the consensus is on what do do during a power outage? I’m currently 10 hours into a 72 hour cook and the power just went out. I took my food out and put it in an ice bath and stuck that in the freezer (freezer is off too, but i figured its still cool enough to help). Is this the right thing to do? Can i just continue with the cook as normal once the power comes back?

Yep, you did exactly what you should have (hopefully you left it in the ice bath long enough to get the most cooling out of it). Hope your power is back on quickly!!! :slight_smile:

For short power outages, it’s nice to have a UPS to keep your cook from being interrupted (the default behaviour of the APC is to NOT resume cooking when the power has been interrupted). This is a safety feature, as the food could have dipped into the danger zone for too long without the cook being aware.

Had a thread on UPS’s here: Protecting your cook with a UPS

Once the power comes back on, you’ll just need to adjust your cook time for the amount of time it would take to thaw your meat…then resume the cook from there.

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Ok thats good to hear and a weight off my mind. Yea i think i’ll invest in a good ups if i can find one. Its funny cos the power here is generally stable. I haven’t had a power outage in years, but the one time i decide to try a long cook, and bam. Powers out.

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A UPS is a rather expensive way of dealing with something that’s rare in most places. And you won’t get more than maybe 40 minutes of run time (if that) before the battery is empty. Seems like overkill to me, at least for most people.

I agree. if you have a gas range or side burner on a grill and a thermometer to keep the temp in the ball field til power is restored I think it would be more practical.

I guess it depends on how often you use your APC when you’re not around. I had one cook when I first got it (pork ribs) that I had to throw them away due to a power outage.

You’re really not expecting to protect against prolonged outages (40 minutes is lots) - you’re mostly protecting against the little “blips” - which tend to be a lot more common.

Anything longer than 15 or 20 minutes, I’d likely do the same as Jotsy - chilling and freezing until the power comes back on.

My UPS has potentially saved my cooks at least half a dozen times since.

I guess if you are living in an area where short sub-minute power outages happen fairly often, it might be worth it. I guess it would help for long cooks that take a day or two. I don’t want to be sitting there watching the APC all the time, just in case.

Fortunately, this doesn’t happen all that often where I live.

I wonder how hard it would be to implement a feature where if the anova was switched off without using the power button or if there was still time on the timer, then the next time it switched back on then it should send a notification to your phone about what had happen and maybe even the last known reading on the timer.

I think implementing a feature where you are alerted regarding any cooking disruptions would make sense. But as @fischersd mentioned, the APC does not resume cooking due to safety.