i see mentions of medium rare, what about rare? ive never understood FDA cooking temperature of 145 / medium well. i assume raw meat/seafood/eggs mostly involve where it comes from and how it is handled.

Bacteria collect on the surface of meat. If you're cooking a rare steak, even though the internal temperature may only rise to 125 degrees or so, there's not as much of a concern because the surfaces of the meat typically reach much higher temperatures (i.e. when you sear them for a quick minute). When you grind a piece of meat, that bacteria gets distributed all throughout. That bacteria may now be living smack dab in the middle of your hamburger patty. That's why it's important to cook ground beef to a higher temperature than you would a steak.

It's also an argument against jaccarding a given cut of meat. Though you tenderize, you potentially introduce bacteria from the surface into the interior of the cut, where searing won't touch it.

OTOH, even medium-rare sous vide temperatures typically pasteurize away the majority of harmful bacteria at recommended cooking times. I recall some lengthy discussions as to the logarithmic reduction of bacteria at each temperature/time combo, and it seemed the nasty stuff usually got nuked within 1 to 4 hours.

This has to do with a particular phenomena in heat/cellular biology, which involves the Arrhenius equation. Simply stated, cellular death is a function of TIME and TEMPERATURE. A few examples:

Take a 1000 DegF iron rod, touch it firmly for just 0.001sec...you will get burned.
Take a 212F (water boiling) plate, touch it for 0.5 sec- probably OK
Take a 130F Sous Vide bath, plop you hand in it for 30 seconds, fine.

HOWEVER, on this latter point- leave that meat for 3 HOURS and every bacterial cell in the meat will be dead. It is pasteurized.

It isnt JUST the temperature, it is how long the cell is exposed to that temperature.

THIS is the magic, IMO, of sous vide. Chicken, pork, Hamburger- all meats that have some risk of pathogens, can be pasteurized and made safe for consumption, but at a temperature that will yield a much different taste experience.

The FDA recommendation of 145 is predicated on 'it will only be at 145 for a few minutes, maybe 10 minutes, between measuring the temp and consuming'. But if you can get it to 130 for 3 hours (or 128, where I put rare) you will have the same level of safety.

(Ive spent a good many years working in tissue heating as a component of medical device development....this science is critical in calculating thermal dosimetery for creating heating zones to kill tumors and such. Also for understanding heat based sterilization of medical products.)

I have the Anova, and it my preferred way to cook most meats and fish. A cast iron skillet is very useful for adding a sear to the surface, meats have very unappetizing grey appearance out of the sou vide.

I don't think that's entirely correct for salmon. Yes, meats which are cooked beyond a certain time frame will see the growth of certain bacteria... but the issue with salmon is that it has a couple of different "done" points (the chart for salmon looks a bit like an "M" for optimal time/temp combos). If you cook it too long at a given target temperature, it can overshoot and get a dry or rubbery texture, even though you could cook it at a higher temperature and still it medium rare.

I have never experienced any problem with salmon other cooking too long which results in a rubbery texture. Salmon is the most common meat I cook sous vide.

A local supermarket had bone in pork roasts for 87 cents a pound. These were all pretty big. We got a 15 pound one. My wife slow cooked some of the bones with attached meat into a nice soup.

Then she cooked the rest in 4 separate packs in my sous vide, 36 hours at 145 degrees. She pan fried some meat, and made some super duper stir fry. Top 5 dish of the year. She then baked some of the pork in the over.

Probably 8-9 pounds meat, after cooking and removing the bones.

Isn't 36 hours a really long time? All the juices would eventually come out

That’s the time frame I found online for pork roasts. Was super tender, and tasted great.

What do people do when freezing vacuum-sealed steaks for future (likely, weeks away) use; season before sealing or before searing? I've found articles promoting either of these options and am curious to see what others do. TIA.

At a minimum, I season with salt and pepper. Usually also tarragon.

Depending on how hard of a sear I give the steak afterwards, I likely resalt a bit and may make a butter and herb sauce.

My bil uses it on Salmon and every time it turns out awesome. Always enjoyed my visits pre-covid.