I find it generally easier to cut items into portion sizes before cooking them sous vide.

- It makes the size more manageable in your water bath. - You don't have to worry as much about temperature ramp-up time between outer surface and core of food item. - For delicate proteins, means there's less handling of the item post-cooking.

-Jeff

I completely agree, I'm just stating the alternative. Sometimes standard freezer ziploc bags aren't even big enough. I was doing a large prime rib a while ago and has to use the larger size freezer bags that aren't normally available at my grocery store. If you used something else you would need a large amount of butter/liquid to get rid of the air.

You can get differently-sized jars, though. I've got a pretty wide variety of sizes for different stuff.

I still use bags most of the time, because I don't think running a cooker at 55 deg C with bags rated for 90 deg C is going to be an issue.