Bolognaise sauce cryovaced

Morning Old Fellow, I made these same enquiries myself a couple of years ago and was told that the butchers use a gas as well as removing all of the air. I still vucuum seal our food, but don't keep it in the fridge as long. Even steak that has been vacuum packed and kept frozen, is dark when first opened, must be something to do with air removal. I will be watching the answers you get with interest.

have a look at old thread 3479 ....
Cryovacing

cheers nick

Home vacuum systems only remove about 70% of air on average, so are not as efficient or effective as professional units. I would not leave home vacuumed food longer than 5 days and certainly a week at most, I have had fresh fish after 5 days and whilst it was good, you could tell that it was on the latter days of its shelf life.
For me 4 to 5 days for seafood and perhaps double that for meats and other foods, it may last longer but I would go past those points.

I use a cryovac unit bought at Aldi for $80. A great product but for extended trips, I will often freeze the products also. A day or more before intended use I place a frozen article in the fridge which also helps with keeping things cool and reduces power consumption of the fridge while the food thaws.

I’ve done much the same with both a bolognaise and pasta sauces as well as stews. Providing the sauce is a vegetarian (Napolitana) or red meat and does not contain an abundance of dairy products, it should be as good as red meat in the longevity steaks. Just make sure to move the sauce around in the packet as it is being sealed to ensure that no air bubbles are trapped in the corners of the bag etc.

The longest I’ve had red meat in the fridge on a home cryovac is about 2 weeks. Chicken is a week maximum. Same with fish and any seafood although I would add it’s desirable to eat those food types as soon as possible. The main difference I’ve noted with the butchers cryovac systems is besides the power of the units, the plastic bags are usually a lot thicker and therefore a bit more robust. The home Cryovacers are great for packing down dry products to reduce space and keep them fresh, teabags or rice for example.

Cheers, Mick

vaccume packed meat or indead any meat not exposed to the air including if 2 steaks sit on one another the myglobins in the meat turn into metmyglobins which are darker in color , once exposed to thje air they once again bond with oxygen turning into oxymyglobins returing to thier red color. over time thier ability to do so diminishes so meat can remain darker

has no effect on meat whatsoever

butchers dont use gas when cryovaccing although alot of units can be used this way. its more to replace air with an inert gas like nitrogen rather than vaccume pack and would be used when you want to preserve something you dont want to crush examples being nairne bread in the supermarket or salads

personally i would not vaccume packed cooked food, any food you rarely see it in shops for a good reason (except canned foods but thats a bit different again) and what you do see has been cooked and packed specifically to kill anaerobic bacteria

We personally wouldn't vacuum pack bolognaise sauce - its too hard compared to buying a can or jar of the stuff that keeps forever. I expect you'd have to freeze it first, otherwise the fluids will get sucked out and you'll fail to seal the bag. Not sure how long it would keep.

We are happy to use vacuum packed red meat (no bones) up to 6 weeks - in an engel fridge that has been set to a constant 2 degrees. Chicken (breast only) about 10 days.

I would be careful as to how you use the word cryovac. Unless you use the correct equipment then you have not cryovaced your food, you have only vacuum packed it. There is a bit of difference in the keeping time.

See this link

Thanks guys for your comments.
First I should mention that the steak I used after five weeks was cryovaced by our local butcher and not by a home unit. It was cyovaced and immediately placed in our Waeco at 3 degrees C.
I personally would be most cautious in relation to the claims made by some of the sales persons at the 4x4 shows who are selling the hand pump type vacume sealing machines. Great for nuts etc.
As Peter D says - true cryovacing done commercialy is rather different to vacuum sealing done at home. Personally if I am to pack my fridge with a large quantity of food I dont want it to be useless after a few weeks.
Phil G - yes I have decided to use the canned variety of spag bol. sauce rather than play around with the home made variety.
I get six or seven weeks out of sausages that have been bought when freshly made, simmered gently in water until cooked through and then commercially cryovaced. They look a bit on the pale side but fry brilliantly without splattering. Or can be cut up and put into a curry. Thanks again.

With all these things you have to play to the strength of the ingredient and the method.

AND ya need to look at the desired outcome.

I have yet to do any vac packing but I do my fair share of freezing and bottling.

If you are looking at heat and eat, and short storage times I see no problem with the pasta sauce...but why stop there package the whole portion including the pasta in the vac pack....
select a pasta that does not provide any voids and the pasta in the mix....if the ratio is right..should imobilise the wet portion of the sauce, to allow a sucessfull suck & seal.

It can then be heated in a billy of water in the sealed bag.

I do pasta meals weeky in tubs, if lidded hot it will keep in the fridge 2 to 3 days no worries so a week if vac packed should be easily reasonable......if you deep freeze the packages straight away then pack them into the fridge for the trip straight from the freezer the thawing process should buy you another 2 to 3 days depending on how cold the fridge is and the mass of the frozen contents.

For long term, by far the best option would be to prepare the non meat, non dairy portion of the pasta sauce and bottle it in meal sized portions.......this way you dont have to put up with the excessive salt and sugar in the commercial products.

You can very sucessfully bottle stuff in standard good quality used bottles....jam jars are good.

I have tried the whole vacola thing...but there is no need to go that far..as long as the sauce is very hot when the cap is screwed on and the bottle and lid have been sterilised by boiling, the seal and the result will be as good as commercial.... no sorry better.

I have had home bottled rosella jam be totaly edible after 7 years if lacking a little in colour.

Standard supermarket packages of cheese will last 6 months in refrigeration...so vac packing cheeze is a no brainer

so that leaves the meat component....how far you will to process that depends on you......raw meat vac packed is a known thing.
If the meat is cooked fresh and packed while hot, or water bath cooked in the sealed vac pack it should keep better than raw bay far.

Heston Bluminthal has done plenty of this sort of stuff and it has been on some of his shows..might be worth a google.

cheers

Our butcher told us that anything with onion in, will only last around 7 days.