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Comment by gallerytungsten | Hacker News Reader

These restaurants have already eliminated cooks, so this move isn't all that surprising. In case you didn't know, most "food" at chain restaurants is prepared in advance, sealed in pouches, and re-heated via microwave. In other words, expensive leftovers.

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They also employ techniques like sous-vide cooking (temperature-controlled immersion bath) which eliminate a huge amount of health and safety issues in busy kitchens. Almost every restaurant, from Michelin-starred chefs to the lowly Taco Bell to the beloved Chipotle stores use this production method among others.

Okay, you don't like the food. But there's nothing wrong with how it's made.

I know Chipotle uses immersion circulators, but the scale of their use is a far cry from "almost every restaurant." Taco Bell most certainly does not use immersion circulators.

Sorry, misspoke there. Not recirculators but retherm baths.

If you remember Taco Bells from the 1970s, the beef was cooked in large open vats by store employees. Now it's cooked in a central kitchen and shipped refrigerated to stores where it's held at serving temperature in a water bath.

Changing to this technique eliminated a huge amount of employee accidents (burns, slips) and boosted their health inspection ratings, not to mention product consistency.

And profits? Probably forget the biggest reason why they did it.

Hopefully better product results in greater profit, yes.

I doubt it would amount to a better product - a safer product perhaps, sure. If you think pre-cooked and frozen would make a better product than fresh and freshly cooked.. then we have different ideas of what better means.

Par-cooking (preparing food ahead of time, storing it, then reheating it) is a common cooking technique and if done properly does not change the composition or quality of the food one bit.

These are not sodium and preservative-laden frozen meals we are talking about. These are products made in large commercial quantities for quick preparation.

I do indulge in Taco Bell from time to time and, let me tell you, I'd rather have the food prepared by a quality-controlled system than the stoned kid in the back that may or may have not remembered to add the seasoning when it was time.

Don't disagree regarding food preparation, though I've tasted a meal that's pre-cooked chicken vs. fresh chicken, and quite the difference exists in many characteristics of the chicken. It was a smaller place, and perhaps their methods weren't the best - though I'm not sure how you prevent the effects of frozen water damaging the chicken and making it taste different, texture wise too..

Read up on vacuum sealing. That's a key step in this kind of food preparation. A lot of times the par-cooked food doesn't go to frozen, or it's not frozen for long, so freezer burn is not a factor.

It's Taco Bell fast food. Food quality will be universally better if it doesn't rely on the local staff of minimum wage earning kids. Fresh and freshly cooked? You've clearly never eaten at a Taco Bell throughout the decades. Their prep and presentation today is much, much better than say 30 years ago.

What do you guys think about using immersion circulators as a general cooking technique for the average person? I see that you can buy one for $300 or so. Is it worth it?

What about from the energy-savings aspect? Right now it makes more sense to buy a gas stove vs. an electric stove because of the cheap gas prices. How does an immersion circulator compare with the two?

I'm a fan of sous-vide cooking. I gave up on plans to build my own rig and bought a Dorkfood DSV for $99. Best investment I've ever made in the kitchen.

I believe almost all SV equipment uses electric heat. I've never encountered a gas-powered model.

Energy savings wise I'd like to believe that it's about as energy efficient as you can get. The food is brought up to temperature and no higher - no excess energy is wasted in lost heat. Although one of the benefits of sous-vide cooking, the very long hold times, can result in an energy loss if you decide to start your steak at 8am and then not finish it until 6pm. Circulators use a bit more energy, a PID controller on a crock-pot will get you almost as good a result.

For the average person, it's just not ready yet. I've done work with a large home appliance manufacturer and their belief is that it will be a niche cooking technique for a long time to come. There's too much up-front work with prep and sealing and a lot of families don't plan ahead 4-8 hours when making family meals. They're too busy getting the morning routine accomplished to think about dinner.

There is potential in offering pre-sealed meals that can be thrown into a water bath all day, but that's a whole different set of problems.

I'm probably naive but that doesn't sound true. I've seen that kind of thing at McDonalds, et Al, but not "fast casual" like the subjects of this thread.

Sysco.com sells factory-produced food for small restaurant businesses. Large businesses have their own in a company version.

Yes, even small independent restaurants rely heavily on Sysco products. On the plus side, you don't need an experienced chef. On the minus side, your chef never gets experienced.

Is the food prepared by machine, too?

Industrial-level automation, yes.

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