Sous vide cooking has definitely become a new hobby of mine and I’m experimenting all the time. It’s been a period of trial and error that has tested my patience and temper, that’s for sure. As I understand, sous vide has become more and more popular over the years and now it’s used frequently in households all over the world.
The method involves submerging a sealed bag containing your ingredients of choice into a heated water bath, which must be regulated at all times to make sure it maintains the desired temperature.
New methods spawn new problems and with them, new solutions. This time we will focus on water leaking into your submerged pouch. Has it ruined your food? What can you do about it?
If water gets into your vacuum-sealed sous vide bags, it can impact the taste and texture of the food. The more water you get into the bag, the more it will dilute the flavorful juices released from the food that’s being cooked in the bag. While the meal will be less tasty, it is still completely safe to eat.
The ingredients can be removed from the leaking bag and placed in an intact bag then be submerged into the water bath, once again. However, it’s common for people to consider throwing waterlogged bags in the trash, including the bag’s content. Let’s talk more about why some people do it and the alternatives.
What Happens If Your Sous Vide Bag Is Leaking?
First and foremost, I do recommend getting a proper vacuum bagging setup if you’re planning on cooking sous vide-style once a week or more. Ziplock bags are quite useful but having a bag with an opening will definitely increase the risk of a leak, compared to a vacuum-sealed bag.
Proper vacuum-sealing equipment doesn’t cost much either. You can get your hands on a good-quality vacuum sealer for no more than 30 bucks.
Either way, you want to keep water out of your bags when you’re cooking sous vide. The water will drain all of the taste from your food, making it far from what it could have been.
You never want that to happen when cooking, especially not when you’re cooking sous vide-style, as it usually takes quite some time. Your food may be fine texturally, but lack quite a bit in taste if the bag has been waterlogged.
Other times, both taste and texture may have suffered from the water inside the bag. It depends on what kind of food you’ve got in the bag. Nevertheless, it does have a negative impact.
There’s nothing unhealthy or risky about eating food that’s been in a leaking bag, it just doesn’t provide the experience that it could have done. It’s mainly that it dilutes the tastes.
Well, there’s one exception that one should consider – if the water used for the vessel isn’t fresh. Has it been stored for a long time? Does it contain bacteria? If you’re uncertain about the water used in your water bath – don’t risk it. Other than that, there isn’t much to worry about.
I’ve eaten several waterlogged bags of food and I haven’t felt anything but I still recommend that you go with your instincts and make your own decision based on the information you’ve got.
When it comes to the machine, however, there’s a slight risk of fat coating the mechanisms, which may (in the long run) render your immersion cooker useless.
Therefore, it’s quite important that you make sure to clean both the cooker and the vessel if your bag has leaked while cooking. You don’t want there to be any signs of the leak in the vessel or on the machine the next time you’re using them. This is to protect the machine but also to prevent taste transfer from prior usage.
How Water Gets Into Sous Vide Bags
Knowing what causes water to get into your sous vide bags will make it easier for you to prevent it from happening again. As you may have imagined, there are several ways water can get into a sous vide bag and ruin dinner. Thankfully, there are also several solutions to the problem.
Let’s go through them, one by one. Please comment down below if I’ve missed something.
Your bags aren’t sealed properly
If you’re using ziplock bags, make sure they’re sealed completely at the top, as water will find its way through small gaps easily. Alternatively, make sure the top of the bag (where the seal is) never goes underwater. That way, you know there’s no chance of water getting into the bag that way. Clip the top of the bag to the edge of the container to keep the bottom of the bag submerged at all times.
Make sure there are no holes in the bags prior to using them. This can be done by either;
- Filling the bag with air and placing it underwater. If bubbles surface from the bag, then there’s a hole.
- Filling the bag with water and holding it over the sink. If water escapes the bag, then there’s a hole.
Additionally, this will tell us where the hole is located but I wouldn’t spend time trying to fix the bag unless it’s the last bag at my disposal. Otherwise, I would just try to replace it with a new one. Of course, fixing and re-using is the most environmental-friendly alternative and I should condone it but I think this is where I draw the line, at the moment.
If you’re using a vacuum sealer, you shouldn’t have to worry about the sealing, but do keep track of holes in the bag as they can appear in vacuum-sealed bags too.
Your food has sharp edges or bones
Perhaps you’ve tested your bags using the method above without finding any holes but somehow the bag has started leaking anyway. The safest bet is that these holes weren’t present when you did the test prior to cooking. They’ve actually appeared at a much later stage of the process, probably caused by bones being pressed against the bag until they pierce it.
It doesn’t have to be bones either. I’ve had asparagus sticking out the end of my ziplock bag. It seems like the sturdier end of it was pressed against the bag. Anything that’s sharp or rough can pose a threat to the pouch. Keep that in mind.
Your rack has pierced the bag
If you don’t know of sous vide racks, they’re like dish racks but placed in the water bath to keep the bags submerged. The design is as perfect for sous vide as it is for drying dishes.
The little space between each dish/bag gives it the space it needs to allow water to flow through and distribute heat evenly (or air if you’re drying dishes).
These racks can, however, have sharp edges too. It may be your rack that’s slashing the bags open. Make sure there are no rough or sharp edges. Try to locate the hole on the bag to see if it possibly could be the rack that’s causing the holes.
Your food has released juices
It may not be water that’s gotten into your bags, it can actually be juices released from the food as it’s heated. Sometimes a steak can release large amounts of juice when cooked – as I’m sure you’ve seen when it’s cooked in a frying pan. These juices shouldn’t be removed as they carry a lot of taste. They won’t ruin your food.
You’re using the wrong tools
Some people use metal tongs to retrieve their bags from the water bath, I wouldn’t recommend doing so. Compared to plastic or silicone utensils, metal tongs can be sharp enough to pierce the bag, especially when they’re gripped and moved around with the tong. Opt for plastic or silicone utensils when cooking sous vide.
Evaporated water is dripping back down into your bag
When you’re cooking sous vide, you want to keep a lid over the water bath in order to trap vapor. Letting vapor escape the bath can result in a too shallow water bath if enough time is given. Therefore, a lid is used to trap the vapors which then drop back into the water bath to maintain the water levels.
If you have an opened ziplock bag placed under the lid with the seal above the surface, drops of water can and will end up inside the bag. Given that sous vide can take hours and hours to finish, these small drops of water can end up making a big difference.
Counteract this by simply keeping a very small gap open if you decide to keep the sealing part of your ziplock bag above the surface.
Can You Put Liquids in Sous Vide Bags?
Liquids are only put in bags for one reason, and that’s displacing air. Small amounts of water can easily displace bubbles of air trapped inside the bag’s cavities. However, you don’t really need to add water to your bag in order for this to happen, most pieces of meat will release enough juices when cooking to take care of the last bubbles of air.
Some people add a small amount of butter or oil to the bag, which also helps.