So you stick your items to be frozen into an evacuated bag, a la sous vide. Then you dunk them into the sous vide freezer, which will freeze them super-fast.

The Sous Vide Freezer will be an ultra-cold water bath containing water with a suitable solute mixed in, which radically lowers the freezing point of the water, so that it will stay liquid at -20degC (the temperature of the cold water bath).

This will enable rapid freezing of food items which have been packed into evacuated bags. The rapid freezing will avoid creation of large ice crystals during freezing. This will allow the original texture and freshness of the food to be preserved.

These frozen food items can then be stored in a normal freezer. They can also later be dropped directly into a regular sous vide bath for thawing and cooking sous vide style.

The bags or pouches could perhaps be made of foil, which would conduct cold more rapidly, in order to facilitate the rapid freezing. Perhaps those bags could have a coating to repel the solute, so that it doesn't stick to the bags when you pull them out.
-- sanman, Nov 08 2013

Brine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine
Useful ... [8th of 7, Nov 08 2013]

// water with a suitable solute ... so that it will stay liquid at -20degC //

Common salt will do that.

"The lowest freezing point obtainable for NaCl brine is -21.1 °C (-6.0 °F) at 23.3wt% NaCl"

<link>
-- 8th of 7, Nov 08 2013


Which is presumably why the Dead Sea never freezes over.
-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Nov 08 2013


or ethanol, won't freeze at -20, or -80 for that matter. It has the advantage that you'll have a source of pure ethanol, you know, if you get in a pinch.
-- bs0u0155, Nov 08 2013



random, halfbakery