Blast Freezing of food & transportation from central kitchen
Hi
I am currently setting up my second outlet and plan to use a central kitchen concept and was wondering if I should invest in a blast freezer. I plan to use it mostly for chilling/freezing sauces to achieve better shelf life and consistency. I was thinking of portioning them in pouches( for easier transportation) but not being able to understand whether I should hot fill the sauce in the pouch and then put in the blast freezer or should I first chill/freeze the product and then portion it into a food pouches.
From what I understand hot filling is important to pasteurize the bag from within. If I am cold filling then what happens to all the bacteria inside the bag and does it really make a difference?
Also is it possible to vacuum seal chilled not frozen sauces in food bags and what kind of shelf life can one expect for a cooked cream sauce.
Best Regards,
SM
if you don't pasteurize, then as soon as the product is thawed, the bacteria will start to grow again (and not all are resistant to freezing temperatures), so you will either make people sick, or the food will begin to spoil, at best you'll have a shorter shelf life. Hot filling probably isn't enough. You need to fill (hot or cold) and then put the bags in a hot water bath to kill the bacteria within
Then, for transportation, yes blast freeze, but it's best to chill the product down to 4C before putting it into the blast freezer
This process is a bit more complicated than you're expecting I think
What sort of shelf life are you expecting/wanting to get?
Hi Scampi,
Thank you for the reply. So from what I read most restaurants cook their food and blast chill them in GN Pans. I plan to cook the sauces to 90 degree Celsius and bring down the temperature to 4 degree within 90 minutes using a blast chiller. The problem is arising that I have to transport the sauces to another kitchen so would prefer to portion them in sealed pouches instead of sending them in GN pans.
I have read that cooling is considerably slowed down if the sauce is first packed in a pouch and then blast chilled and therefore is not recommended. On the other hand if I rapidly cool down the sauce in a GN Pan using a blast chiller and then I fill the cold sauce in a pouch then the bag from inside does not get pasteurized and not sure if that is a safe/recommended method.
I am looking to achieve a shelf life of around 7-10 days for chilled sauces and around 30 days for frozen sauces. Also once the frozen sauce is thawed it will be used within 2-3 days. Are these shelf life possible with a simple cook-chill process ?
Best Regards,
SM
Hi
This has been an interesting discussion, did you find a solution to your situation Sharan?
I am going through a similar issue now
Thanks
AH