About this site

Sous Vide Time Calculator is a free tool that answers how long a food needs in a sous vide bath, and at what temperature. The calculator gives the time, the guides explain how to cook each food, and the printable charts put the same times on one page each.

How the numbers are produced

Every time on the site comes from one calculation engine. It renders the calculator result, every time table in the guides and every printable chart.

For meat, poultry and fish, the engine models how heat moves to the center of a piece of the thickness you enter, and how long the food then takes to pasteurize at that temperature. A heat-through or pasteurization time is never shorter than the published table value for the same temperature and thickness, and every calculated time is rounded up.

For tough cuts, fully cooked ham, shellfish, eggs, vegetables and desserts, thickness is not an input. Their times come from published recipes and charts.

Some rules are the site's own, because no published table covers them. Two are the extra pasteurization time for food cooked from frozen and the minimum time for fish at settings that do not pasteurize. The result says so.

How the tables were checked

Baldwin's tables and the USDA FSIS poultry tables were each read directly from the source twice, by two independent reviewers, with no differences. Baldwin's were read from his page in a browser, and every cell matches the calculator's test copy. The FSIS tables are page images, read by eye. The FDA Food Code and the Serious Eats pages were read directly. FoodSafety.gov, Anova Culinary and Amazing Food Made Easy were read through a tool that returns an extract, not the page itself.

Sources

• Douglas Baldwin, A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking. The heating and pasteurization model, the heating tables for thawed and frozen meat, the pasteurization tables for meat, poultry and fish, and the rule that the center of the food should reach 130°F (54.4°C) within 6 hours.
• USDA FSIS, Cooking Guideline for Meat and Poultry Products (Revised Appendix A). The chicken and turkey tables, which every poultry time has to meet, the meat table, used as a cross-check, and its own 6 hour limit between 50°F and 130°F (10°C and 54.4°C).
• FDA, Food Code 2022. The 4 hour limit for food held without temperature control. The calculator applies a shorter limit of 2 hr 30 min at 130°F (54.4°C) and below, the figure Serious Eats gives for steak.
• FoodSafety.gov, Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures. The USDA temperatures quoted in the results.
• FoodSafety.gov, People at Risk of Food Poisoning. The higher-risk groups named in the calculator's warnings.
• Serious Eats, Anova Culinary and Amazing Food Made Easy. Doneness temperatures, texture limits, and the times for foods that are not timed by thickness.

What the site does not do

The site is not medical advice or food-safety advice from a regulator.

Many sous vide settings are below the USDA safe minimum internal temperatures. The result then quotes the USDA temperature and says the setting is below it.

Some settings do not pasteurize the food at the minimum time. The result says so, and says what that means for pregnant women, children under 5, adults 65 and older, and anyone with a weakened immune system.

The times assume a bath already at temperature, bags in a single layer and fully under the water, and food at refrigerator temperature unless you tick the frozen option.

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