Hot holding, cooling and reheating: the FSAI temperatures for Irish kitchens

Cooking kills most of the bacteria that cause food poisoning. Hot holding, cooling and reheating are where they get a second chance. Every rule in this guide comes back to one idea from the FSAI: bacteria grow between 5°C and 63°C, fastest around 25°C to 40°C, so food should spend as little time as possible in that range.

The FSAI temperatures at a glance

All of these come from the FSAI's temperature control guidance for caterers. They're the figures to use as critical limits in your Safe Catering plan.

Cooking: the starting point

The FSAI's critical limit is a core temperature of 75°C instantaneously or equivalent, with 70°C for two minutes as the example. The core is the centre or the thickest part of the food. The FSAI's Guidance Note 20 lists other equivalent time and temperature combinations if your process (a slow roast, say) uses a lower temperature for longer.

For your records, the cooking check that matters is the one on the food that's hardest to get right: the thickest chicken breast, the centre of the lasagne tray, the middle burger on a crowded grill. Probe it, write down the reading, and clean the probe before and after.

Hot holding above 63°C

The FSAI says to keep hot food above 63°C, for example in a bain marie. Lukewarm food is, in the FSAI's words, a perfect environment for bacteria. If food is not held above 63°C, it should be used up within two hours of cooking.

The FSAI adds two practical points that get missed on a busy carvery:

• Serve the first batch first.
• Don't mix batches where possible. Use up the first batch before adding a new one, rather than topping up an old tray of gravy with fresh.

Making hot holding work on a busy service

• Get food to temperature before it goes into the bain marie. Hot-hold equipment is designed to keep food hot, not to heat it up.
• Probe the food, not the water. A bain marie's water can be well above 63°C while the middle of a deep tray of mash is not.
• Stir and cover where you can, to avoid cold spots and surface cooling.
• Use shallower trays and smaller batches during quiet periods.
• Check at set times. Probe hot-held food at regular intervals during service and write down each reading. Your Safe Catering plan should say how often.
• Decide your two-hour fallback in advance. If a carvery's heat lamp fails, staff should know whether to move the food or label it with a "use by" time two hours after cooking, then bin it.

Cooling: into the fridge within 2 hours

The FSAI says cooked food that won't be eaten immediately should be cooled as quickly as possible and put in the fridge within two hours. Don't overload the fridge with warm food: it raises the temperature of everything else in there.

The FSAI's suggested methods for cooling large quantities quickly:

• Blast chiller. Designed to chill hot food quickly; worth it if you cook and chill a lot.
• Smaller portions. Divide a large batch; small amounts cool faster.
• Wider containers. Pour hot liquids and sauces into larger, shallower containers to increase the surface area.
• Ice bath. Sit containers of hot food in cold water or ice.
• Stir regularly with a clean utensil so food cools evenly.
• A colder room. Move food to a cooler area such as a larder.
• Oven 'cool' setting. Some ovens have one that increases the airflow (the oven itself should be cool first).

A worked example

These numbers are only an illustration. A pub kitchen makes 20 litres of beef stock at 2pm. Left in the pot, the centre will still be warm hours later. Split into four shallow gastronorm trays in an ice bath and stirred, it can be in the fridge comfortably inside the two hours. On the record, write the time it came off the heat, the time and temperature it went into the fridge, and your initials.

Reheating: 70°C, once

The FSAI says food must only be reheated once following cooking or hot holding, and it must be reheated until piping hot, 70°C or hotter at the core.

• Reheat only what you need. Take a portion of chilli from the batch, not the whole batch.
• Don't reheat in the bain marie. Reheat on the stove, in the oven or in a combi, then transfer to hot holding.
• Probe every reheat. Microwaves especially leave cold spots.
• Bin leftovers of reheated food. It can't go back in the fridge to be reheated again.

Defrosting before cooking

The FSAI says the best place to defrost food is the fridge, where the surface stays at 5°C or below. Don't defrost frozen food under the cold tap in a sink. Microwave defrosting is fast but only suits food you're going to cook immediately. Once fully defrosted, cook it straight away; once cooked, it can go back in the fridge (for 2 to 3 days) or be frozen. Only freeze food once, unless it's been defrosted and then cooked.

Probe thermometers: the tool behind every number

The FSAI says to use a calibrated probe thermometer as part of your HACCP plan and to record the temperature measured. Its advice:

• accuracy of at least ±0.5°C;
• sanitise before and after each use with antibacterial or sterile wipes (and don't let them dry out);
• calibrate at least twice a year: in iced water it should read -0.5°C to +0.5°C; in boiling water, 99.5°C to 100.5°C;
• keep a spare in case one fails;
• never use a mercury thermometer.

Records: what to write down

The Safe Catering Pack has forms for exactly these steps:

• SC3: Cooking, Cooling, Reheating. For the food you cook, cool and reheat.
• SC4: Hot Hold Display. For recording details about food held hot.
• SC8: All-in-one Daily Record. The FSAI says it can be used daily instead of SC1 to SC4 (including SC3 and SC4).

The FSAI also says your HACCP plan must be kept up to date, and gives this exact example: if you start hot holding food, you'll need to update your plan to include the new step. Our guide to HACCP for restaurants explains how the plan and records fit together.

Common mistakes

• Hot holding to heat up. Food goes into the bain marie at 40°C and never gets above 63°C.
• Overnight cooling on the stove. The classic one. The stock pot is still lukewarm at 8am.
• Topping up old with new. The FSAI's advice is to use up one batch before adding another.
• Reheating twice. Lunch leftovers reheated again for dinner.
• No corrective action recorded. A reading of 58°C with nothing beside it.
• The probe in the drawer, uncalibrated, with a dry wipe.

Checklist for hot food

• Critical limits for cooking, hot holding, cooling and reheating written into the Safe Catering plan
• Calibrated probe on the line, wipes in date, spare available
• Core temperatures probed and recorded for each cooked batch
• Hot-held food probed at set times; first batch used first
• Two-hour rule in place for any food not held above 63°C
• Cooling methods available (ice, shallow trays, blast chiller if you have one)
• Food into the fridge within 2 hours of cooking, times recorded
• Reheated once only, to 70°C or hotter
• Corrective action written beside every failed reading

Logging hot-hold readings

ShiftComplete sets up each bain marie, hot cupboard and carvery unit as a hot-hold point with its own minimum. Staff log readings on a phone or the shared tablet; anything below your limit is flagged on the dashboard, named and timestamped, with an optional photo of the probe. Checklists can carry the cooking and cooling checks for each day, with a required photo if you want one. It helps you keep the records an EHO asks to see; the temperatures themselves are still down to your team.

ShiftComplete costs €1.99 per active staff member per month, free for 60 days, no card, no contract. Start a free trial.