Sous-Vide Pasteurization Time
Come-up + hold time from thickness, bath temp, and food category (poultry / pork / beef / fish / egg).
Example
You enter
- Food category poultry
- Thickness (in; full slab, not half) 1
- Bath temperature (°F) 140
- Initial food temperature (F; must be below bath; come-up time assumes a refrigerated start) 38
You get
- Come-up time (min) 80.4
- Hold time at bath temp (min) 12
- Total time (min) 92.4
Checked against published worked examples from: FDA Food Code 3-401.11(B)(2) / one-term slab solution.
Details, formula, and sources
ScopeHold time from FDA Food Code 3-401.11(B)(2) Table 3-2 (whole meat roasts); poultry, fish and egg are flagged to use a validated table. Simplified screen; not a HACCP plan.
Formula or tablecome_up_seconds = Fo * L_m^2 / alpha, with Fo = ln(C1/0.005)/zeta^2 for a 99.5% approach from the one-term slab centerline solution at a finite film: Bi = h L/k (h 95 W/m2K, k 0.48 W/mK), zeta tan(zeta) = Bi, C1 = 4 sin(zeta)/(2 zeta + sin(2 zeta)); Fo is about 4.2 for a 1 in piece. hold_minutes from linear interpolation of FDA Food Code 3-401.11(B)(2) Table 3-2 (whole meat roasts) at the bath temperature. total = come_up + hold.
Source and editionFDA Food Code 3-401.11(B)(2) Table 3-2 (holding times for whole meat roasts). One-term slab thermal-diffusion solution.
Free accessfda.gov (Food, Retail Food Protection, FDA Food Code).
What governsThe thermometer on the food is the verdict. Local health department governs.
API field namescategory, thickness_in, bath_temperature_F, initial_temperature_F, come_up_minutes, hold_minutes, total_minutes
- Diffusivity values poultry / pork 1.4e-7; beef 1.3e-7; fish 1.45e-7; egg 1.4e-7 (m^2/s)public engineering references (Baldwin)
- Slab model half-thickness L = thickness / 2 (heat from both sides)engineering practice for sous-vide bag in bath
- Hold-time interpolation linear between the Table 3-2 rows, 130-158 FFDA Food Code 3-401.11(B)(2) Table 3-2
- Limitation this is a screen, not a HACCP planspec-v10 §B.3 simplified-screening invariant