Given the long time in the bacterial danger zone and the inherent risk to other foods from having a concentrated hot mass in fridge, I would probably start with a vac seal directly off the grill, then shock it in ice water until the ice is all gone before even considering putting that in the fridge.
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Potkettleblack The problem with doing that is it sucks the juices right out of the cut when it's still hot, and you end up with dry meat. I did that my first time when I began the home-made lunchmeat thing (which is what these two turkey breasts are destined for). But I do need to find a way to crash cool... -
DaveD piggybacking on what Potkettleblack said…. Put the turkey in a bag large enough to hold, put in an ice bath. Clip the bag to keep the opening from getting to the surface of the ice/water. Don’t seal the bag. Then when it’s cooled enough, vacuum seal to cool the rest of the way.
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Hey, got an update on this situation, taking the suggestions on crash-cooling techniques. Two key takeaways: Crash cooling works; my fridge temp needed to be set lower.
I fired up another one of those Butterball turkey breast roasts I use for lunchmeat and prepared a tub with ice water and several freezer packs. I also had two hunks of eye round in the sous vide all day, and took advantage of the coals in the kettle after the turkey came off to sear them with. So I had three hunks of meat in the tub.
Turkey roast:
Eye round pieces:
Everything in ziplocks in the tub, immersion method to squeeze out most of the air around the meat.
I have six of those freezer packs, so I could rotate in fresh ones and keep that water cold. Here's the resulting temperature profile. I've blanked off the channel for the kettle grate temperature. The plot from the first time is pasted in below for easy comparison. Unfortunately, I can't force the X axis to be the same. The upper plot lasts about 21 hours, the lower plot about 30.
They got down to about 43/6 in just a few hours, much improved over just leaving them in the fridge. I put them in the fridge uncovered at about 11pm, the black dot right where the curves go flat. This is how they looked in the morning.
Note the cuts were still at 40-42/4.5-5.5 overnight, which made me immediately question the temp in the fridge. So the rough red curve added in the morning is the fridge temp measured thusly:
It's a straight probe going through the gap between the two shelves, and the tip pokes out between the sour cream and the cottage cheese. It's in just about the dead center of the fridge box.
So I started measuring temps of stuff in there with the insta read, and everything is 39-40/3.9-4.4, but I'd feel a whole lot better if everything was even one degree cooler. Went to the settings on the fridge (GE Profile) and dialed the fridge temp down from the 37/2.8 it was set at to its minimum value, 34/1.1 In the plot above, you can see the raggedy profile, simply because we're in and out of the fridge all day. I'll set the probe back up tonight and see where it gets to after having all night undisturbed.
The plot thickens...Last edited by DaveD; June 16, 2026, 05:29 PM.Comment
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And the overnight fridge check is good: It held between 34 and 35 all night. Should be fine going forward.
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That's the way to do it, DaveD . I admire your persistence in getting your food temps into the safe zone and keeping them there. You'll hit just the right combo soon, if you haven't already. I'm really enjoying following your progress here.
It's amazing how quickly the fridge can heat up when you put even small warm loads into it. That affects everything else in the fridge. Of course opening the door doesn't help either, but it's got to be done.
You might end up getting a second fridge for the garage (one that is made for garage temps) if you haven't got one already, stocked with beer.
It gives me a lot of peace of mind to keep a second fridge in the pantry at around 32°, and have larger open areas on the coldest shelves to park the warmer stuff with an assist of gel packs around said warm stuff to get the chill on. No soft cheeses, yogurt, eggs, etc. are allowed in that fridge, and it's not opened as much either. I do stock a fair amount of bottles of beverages and filtered water there, which helps, I believe, to stabilize any temperature swings more efficiently. 
Just my 2 pennies' worth, while they last.
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yakima --in that pantry fridge where I put hot dishes to chill down as fast as I can get them to (and store water, beer, etc.), I don't want to store foods that can be vulnerable to spoilage or can grow bacteria quickly. To make sure they stay consistently cold, I keep soft cheeses, eggs, yogurt, etc in my main refrigerator where the temperature stays pretty constant.
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Thanks Kathryn fzxdoc - I do in fact have a second fridge down in the basement that I use to store beer and sandwich meat (the cuts like the eye round that I slice up and vac seal), as well as a chest freezer beside it, so we take advantage of those spaces fully.
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I love this site for the wealth of information available for those of us that have inquiring minds. Looking at this thread and processing the comments provided thus far on the effects of putting hot/warm food into your refrigerator, my first thought was that doing this will cause the air temperature in the refrigerator to rise by a several degrees, but not so much in the other food in the refrigerator. So, using the BRAVE browser on my computer (Leo AI) I asked this question: "What are the temperature swings in food in a refrigerator compared to the temperature swings in the refrigerator air?". I got back this answer, which confirmed my original thoughts that the other food is not going to see a significant temperature swing that would create a health concern for me when consuming the other food.
And as the last sentence above says, please verify critical facts. I've been putting warm foods after cooking in my refrigerator for decades and have yet to ever suffer from food poisoning. On the other hand, I encourage you to follow whatever process that satisfies your comfort level in this regard.Refrigerator air temperature can fluctuate significantly, with normal cycling swings of ±2 to 3°F (±1–1.5°C) and occasional wider swings of up to ±5°F (±3°C) during door openings or defrost cycles. In contrast, food temperature swings are much smaller and slower; food items act as a thermal mass that retains cold, meaning their internal temperature varies only slightly compared to the ambient air.- Air Fluctuations: Driven by the compressor cycling on and off, these changes happen rapidly in minutes.
- Food Stability: Food temperatures remain relatively stable, buffering against the rapid shifts experienced by the air.
- Safety Implication: Because food temperature changes slowly, maintaining an average air temperature within the safe range (35–38°F) is more critical than worrying about momentary air spikes.
AI-generated answer. Please verify critical facts.
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When I go to the classes at Mason Dixon BBQ, I’m faced with a 2-3 hour drive home afterward. I’ve wondered: should I try to keep it hot on the drive home, or should I try to keep it cold?
The times I’ve tried to keep it hot, eh. Eric has held it in his cambro for me, and I’ve wrapped it in foil, then put it in insulated bags, wrapped it in towels, and then into an RTIC cooler. It stayed above 140°, but then I have the issue of cooling it down when I get home. I just shifted the time that I had the problem from there to here.
When I tried using frozen gel packs, that was the worst. The food cooled down some, but not much. It was around 100° when I got home.
The best, for cooling, was to vac seal the food and put it on ice. It got cold fast, From the heat transfer of melting the ice, and stayed cold the whole way home.
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This is my dilemma when I pick up Chinese food from a fave restaurant 1 hour away from home. I always go with the "keep it hot" option and pack the food in cambro-like conditions in coolers in the trunk of the car. Sounds like you do much the same. Looks like I'm in good company.
K.Last edited by fzxdoc; June 17, 2026, 03:13 PM.
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dubob , your AI makes some good points. Food may not spoil on the spot, but it may not last as long either. The shelf life of opened containers is on the order of days to weeks, regardless of an item's expiration date.
The brainy Modernist Cuisine site had an in-depth article about refrigerating hot foods a few years ago. They did experiments not unlike what Dave is doing in this topic, and even more rigorous ones. One point they made was that not all refrigerators are created equal. Newer refrigerators may handle temperature fluctuations much better than older ones do. I remember seeing their graphs of how quickly the temp of large areas of the fridge can increase and stay there for a while when a hot container is placed in the refrigerator. Your AI talked about "momentary air spikes". That's not what concerns me-it's a hot dish next to other items that may slowly warm as the hot dish cools. Many fridges routinely keep food at 39° or 40°, and even a couple of degrees increase in that food temp over time may not be something that I would be comfortable with.
The same article noted that even newer refrigerators can have warmer pockets of air. I have two probes in each fridge and freezer. I can see the temps go up when I place a hot casserole in it, for example. I wouldn't want to eat, say, soft cheese that had been parked next to that casserole overnight. The 4 hour time limit for food kept in the danger zone of 40° to 140° is cumulative, so the quicker it moves out of that zone, the better.
The concern is of course for the more vulnerable people-- immune-compromised, elderly, pregnant, or babies/children. Our family hits all those buttons at one time or another as they come and go.
My goal is to get whatever food I put in the fridge out of the danger zone as rapidly as possible and keep all other foods already there at a safe temperature. It's how I roll.
KathrynLast edited by fzxdoc; June 17, 2026, 03:12 PM.Comment
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Excellent counter points. We can all benefit from this discussion and choose a routine that fits our individual circumstances. Because our environments are different, (you deal with fluctuations in population in your home and probably have a full refrigerator; I live alone and have a somewhat empty refrigerator), our food handling methods can be different to accommodate our level of comfort for food storage.
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You might want to try putting your probe in a glass of water that has been in the fridge overnight. That would eliminate the swings from warm air entering the fridge and give you a better idea of what is happening to the food. A blast of warm air over the probe will make it seem like the temps are swinging more than the actual food temps are.
Of course our friends over a ThermoWorks have a solution for this as well.Comment
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Thanks for all the great engagement on this thread! Some excellent commentary and input. One thing I don't buy into is "it's never been a problem before so it won't be a problem in the future." As the saying goes, past performance is no guarantee of future success. I have the world's most persnickety digestive system, so making the effort to get that couple extra degrees of cooling is valuable to me.
The second fridge, which is typically loaded with thermal mass in the form of cold beer, would be a good option here. But it's down in the basement, down a set of 14 stairs, and as I get older, the thought of carrying something hot and potentially heavy down the stairs becomes less and less appealing (and Kathryn understands this better than anyone!). I think between working to cool foods prior to refrigeration and use of those freezer paks, I can go forward with the kitchen fridge for this.
Putting some freezer packs in along with the hot foot ought to help on the overall thermal mass budget - adding a big cold signal to offset the heat. Sounds plausible to me, but I'll let the physics doc call me on it...
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This makes me wonder about the large pot of spaghetti sauce I put in the fridge overnight before storing in portion bags before freezing. I usually leave out at room temp for a few hours and then in the fridge overnight. This tells me I may be in the danger zone. Thanks Dave. I need to take measurements like yours.
I put it in the beer fridge so little danger of spoiling the 🍺Comment
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Boy howdy, do I know about the risk of falling down a staircase. 😱 Good call, Dave, not to carry hot foods down 14 steps.Originally posted by DaveD View Post...The second fridge, which is typically loaded with thermal mass in the form of cold beer, would be a good option here. But it's down in the basement, down a set of 14 stairs, and as I get older, the thought of carrying something hot and potentially heavy down the stairs becomes less and less appealing (and Kathryn understands this better than anyone!). I think between working to cool foods prior to refrigeration and use of those freezer paks, I can go forward with the kitchen fridge for this.
Putting some freezer packs in along with the hot foot ought to help on the overall thermal mass budget - adding a big cold signal to offset the heat. Sounds plausible to me, but I'll let the physics doc call me on it...
Finding the coldest shelf in the fridge (the lowest, usually) and using it for quick cooling needs is a help too.
I like using freezer gel packs stationed under and around the hot food placed in the fridge, even if said food has been ice-bathed. Might as well make those gel packs shoulder some of the load so you're not paying for the electricity for the fridge to do every bit of the quick cooling. After all, it's not like those gel packs have anything else to do, much of the time. 😄
K.Last edited by fzxdoc; June 19, 2026, 05:27 AM.Comment
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Many years ago, Cooks Illustrated recommended letting the Dutch Oven sit out for no more than one hour before putting in the fridge. A few years later they amended that, recommending, IIRC, that you add some chilled broth (using less in the cooking process) or other cold liquid or frozen broth cubes to the pot before storing it in the fridge pretty quickly. I never liked the dilution idea much, but then I've never tried it.Originally posted by smokenoob View Post
FWIW, as soon as I portion out the servings (if I'm sure no one will want seconds), or just after finishing the meal, I transfer the hot food to casserole dishes, so there's more surface area for cooling. I then place the filled casserole dishes on freezer gel packs on the counter. Sometimes they sit like that while we eat. During cleanup, I loosely tent the dishes with crumpled-then-straightened aluminum foil (not letting the foil touch the food) and put them in the fridge with more freezer gel packs if necessary. The foil is crumpled and roughly straightened out because it holds the tent shape better. The tent allows heat to escape without the fear of condensation dripping from the overhead shelf if the food is still steaming. As soon as the food is cool, I cover the casserole dishes with their lids.
Kathryn
P.S. Most of my family laughs at my get-it-cold-fast focus on food safety. But then some of them eat dicey gas station hot dogs, too.
Last edited by fzxdoc; June 19, 2026, 05:31 AM.Comment
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