Flash chilling is very simple. Just make sure you have a fairly large ice bath (ice and water that is at least 50% ice) and put the meat immediately from the heated bath into the ice bath. This will rapidly chill the meat prior to refrigeration. Make sure you leave the meat in the ice bath long enough for it to chill to the center if it's a thick cut or a roast.
1 How big should I expect the swings in my home fridge to be with normal usage?
The mild swings from opening and closing your refrigerator door a couple times a day aren't going to really make big difference. Just make sure you don't leave the door open for extended periods of time.
2 If I have a second fridge and the door rarely opens, what will the temperature swings be there?
There are a lot of things that influence the temperature of a refridgerator besides opening and closing the door. A refrigerator goes through cycles for chilling (and for defrosting) etc where the temperature varies. Some brands of refridgerators (i.e. Samsung) have separate cooling systems for the freezer and fridge portions so freezer defrost cycles do not cause swings in temperature in the fridge section.
Also, an empty refrigerator loses a lot more heat than a full refrigerator when the door is open. Storing plastic bottles of water or cans of soda and beer on empty shelves will actually make the temperature more constant over time since they retain more heat (or "cold") than air. Of course, if you turn a fridge into a beer-fridge, chances are that the door is gonna get opened a lot more.
3 Since the botulism concern is due to the vacuum, am I correct in thinking that this concern will disappear if I remove the meat from the vacuum to store it? Obviously, this approach would reintroduce all the normal safety concerns with storing cooked meat.
Sous-vide cooking should pasteurize the meat if it was cooked long enough and kill most . Keeping the pastuerized food that is sealed at a controlled temperature is going to preserve it for much longer than breaking open the seal and allowing any pathogens in before keeping it at the same temperature.
The most important thing is to follow the established safety charts for cooking times, temperatures, using correct flash chilling and then following the safety charts for storage temperatures and duration as well.
The searing applied after sous-viding should not be enough to alter the temperature of the meat notably. All you're trying to do with the sear is create the flavorful crust on the outside of a piece of meat via the Maillard reaction, not accomplish any cooking of the interior of the meat itself. This is best done by applying very high heat for a very short amount time, usually just a few seconds. Some like doing this via pan-searing or on a very hot grill, but I usually use a high-powered blowtorch. The important thing is that you not sear for so long that interior of the meat has a chance to notice. A perfectly sous-vided piece of meat should be a uniform color throughout, except for a heavily seared crust. There shouldn't be any gray band of over-cooked meat under the crust. Avoiding that is why you're sous-viding in the first place.
Also, I find 125-130°F to be a touch on the rare side. For a good medium rare, 133-135°F gives me better results.
Best Answer
I use Propane all the time. There are several factors as to why:
As for the concern of it imparting propane flavor, I have had that happen, once, but I’ve also had that happen with butane. It’s all about flow control. If you have the dial turned up too high and it’s spewing out massive amounts of propane, plus hold the flame too close to the food, you MIGHT get then hint of propane. But if you have the torched dialed in to the proper settings, you really can’t beat the ease and convenience of “energy-efficient clean-burning propane gas”