Free reheat and hot holding temperature record template

Reheating and hot holding are usually recorded badly or not at all, because the food is already cooked and the pressure is off. That is exactly backwards: reheated food has been through the danger zone twice, and food sitting in a bain-marie at 55°C for three hours is a far more common cause of illness than an undercooked chicken. This sheet keeps both steps on one row so the batch that was reheated is the same batch you can see being held.

For the reheat, the widely used pass figure is a core temperature of 70°C held for two minutes, or 75°C reached momentarily. Scotland works to 82°C. The US Food Code asks for 165°F (74°C) for fifteen seconds on previously cooked and cooled food. Print whichever figure your own food safety management system specifies in the target column instead of assuming the one on the sheet applies to you.

For the hold, 63°C or above is the figure used in the UK and Ireland, 60°C in Australia, and 135°F (57°C) in the US. The point of the repeat check columns is not the first reading — a bain-marie is always hot when the food goes in. It is the reading two hours later, when the unit is half empty and the water has dropped, that either proves the hold worked or tells you to discard.

The two-hour allowance in the UK lets food be held below temperature once, for up to two hours, after which it must be used, chilled or thrown out. That is why the sheet asks for the time the batch came off as well as the time it went on. Without both times, an elapsed period out of temperature can never be shown, and reheating a second time is not an option under any system.