I know I'm not the only one who wonders about the safety of continuing to use plastic bags for sous vide given all the recent reports of plastic contamination. Years ago, the assurances were that if the bags contained no BPA or pthalates they were safe for sous vide. Now with the focus on microplastics getting into everything, sous vide-ing food in plastic has caused my family to question my frequent use sous vide with "food-safe" plastic bags.
I had tried silicone bags for sous vide in the past, and found them to be a huge PITAnkle. I could never get them to seal without fairly large air bubbles using the water displacement method. When placed in the sous vide bath, they would float, another PITAnkle. I'd use spatulas to hold them down. So I went back to my vacuum sealed plastic bags...until I saw this video on You Tube:
The lightbulb in my brain illuminated gloriously. I could do the same thing with the little clamshell Anova vacuum sealer (and Joule) that I've borrowed from my daughter while we are currently living away from our home. (Good thing I gifted them both to her years ago.)
I bought a couple of half gallon Stasher bags and, using the roll of vacuum bag material I also gifted our kid with, I sealed a couple of pork chops to my satisfaction.
Positioning the bag-in-the-bag:
Vacuum sealing step nearly completed:
At this point you push the silicone bag's sealing strip firmly to seal it off. Then you can cut away the plastic bag.
Final result:
This method is quick and worked well. After I sealed off the silicone bag during the vacuum process, I tried to catch the plastic bag before it was sealed, since I plan on reusing it, but I was a second or so too slow. So I just trimmed the bag just below the seal and put it away for my next sealing for sous vide endeavor. I plan on re-using that large plastic bag several times.
Here is the bag in my Dutch Oven:
You can see that it doesn't float. The downside is that these bags take up a bit more space in the pot compared with the vacuum sealer's plastic bags. Plus of course you have to wash them well after use, which isn't too bad. I wash them in a sink with hot soapy water, turning them inside out at the end of the process for a good scrub to get the insides really super clean. They stand up by themselves to dry which is also nice. The ads say that Stasher bags are dishwasher safe but I can't imagine a dishwasher can get all the gunk out of a bag used for sous vide.
I also purchased some larger silicone bags from Anova, which I have also used this bag-in-a-bag sealing method on.
Picture provided by Anova:
Using the bag-in-a-bag sealing method with these big bags that do not have a sealing strip was more of a challenge, since the little vacuum sealer that I used had a hard time pulling a vacuum in such a large bag, but I helped it along by initially rolling the double bags up to get rid of as much air as possible before hitting the Vacuum Seal button. That worked OK. I ended up leaving the silicone bag sealed in the larger plastic bag for the cook. I plan on re-using that larger bag for future cooks as well.
The best part is now my family feels that I'm not poisoning them with plastic bits for every sous vide cook I do, and not poisoning the environment because I reuse the large plastic outer sealing bag.
Kathryn
I had tried silicone bags for sous vide in the past, and found them to be a huge PITAnkle. I could never get them to seal without fairly large air bubbles using the water displacement method. When placed in the sous vide bath, they would float, another PITAnkle. I'd use spatulas to hold them down. So I went back to my vacuum sealed plastic bags...until I saw this video on You Tube:
The lightbulb in my brain illuminated gloriously. I could do the same thing with the little clamshell Anova vacuum sealer (and Joule) that I've borrowed from my daughter while we are currently living away from our home. (Good thing I gifted them both to her years ago.)
I bought a couple of half gallon Stasher bags and, using the roll of vacuum bag material I also gifted our kid with, I sealed a couple of pork chops to my satisfaction.
Positioning the bag-in-the-bag:
Vacuum sealing step nearly completed:
At this point you push the silicone bag's sealing strip firmly to seal it off. Then you can cut away the plastic bag.
Final result:
This method is quick and worked well. After I sealed off the silicone bag during the vacuum process, I tried to catch the plastic bag before it was sealed, since I plan on reusing it, but I was a second or so too slow. So I just trimmed the bag just below the seal and put it away for my next sealing for sous vide endeavor. I plan on re-using that large plastic bag several times.
Here is the bag in my Dutch Oven:
You can see that it doesn't float. The downside is that these bags take up a bit more space in the pot compared with the vacuum sealer's plastic bags. Plus of course you have to wash them well after use, which isn't too bad. I wash them in a sink with hot soapy water, turning them inside out at the end of the process for a good scrub to get the insides really super clean. They stand up by themselves to dry which is also nice. The ads say that Stasher bags are dishwasher safe but I can't imagine a dishwasher can get all the gunk out of a bag used for sous vide.
I also purchased some larger silicone bags from Anova, which I have also used this bag-in-a-bag sealing method on.
Picture provided by Anova:
Using the bag-in-a-bag sealing method with these big bags that do not have a sealing strip was more of a challenge, since the little vacuum sealer that I used had a hard time pulling a vacuum in such a large bag, but I helped it along by initially rolling the double bags up to get rid of as much air as possible before hitting the Vacuum Seal button. That worked OK. I ended up leaving the silicone bag sealed in the larger plastic bag for the cook. I plan on re-using that larger bag for future cooks as well.
The best part is now my family feels that I'm not poisoning them with plastic bits for every sous vide cook I do, and not poisoning the environment because I reuse the large plastic outer sealing bag.
Kathryn
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