Cook, hold & cool log

How it works

1. 1 Start a batch when it goes on the heat: what it is, and what kind of food, which sets the temperature it has to reach.
2. 2 Probe it and type the number. Your initials go with each reading, and the page says at once whether it made its line.
3. 3 Move it on when it does: hold it hot, cool it, or reheat it. Each step starts its own clock, from the readings you've logged.
4. 4 While it cools, the chart shows where it is against 20 °C and 4 °C and their deadlines, and when it should get there at the rate it's going.
5. 5 The batch due soonest sits at the top, with the time to the next probe. Close it when it's cold, served, used up or thrown out, and print the day's log for the binder.

Free. Signed out, it works on this page, and you can turn on Remember to keep it on this device. Try the made-up example to see a busy afternoon; it's never kept. For the walk-in and the reach-ins, use the fridge temperature log.

Good to know

Where do the numbers come from?

From the Eastern Ontario Health Unit's guide to critical control points: cook whole poultry to 82 °C, poultry pieces and mixtures with meat, egg or fish to 74 °C, pork and other meats to 71 °C and fish to 70 °C, each for at least 15 seconds. Hold hot at 60 °C or hotter and cold at 4 °C or colder; those two lines are also in Ontario's food premises regulation, O. Reg. 493/17. Cool from 60 °C to 20 °C within 2 hours, then to 4 °C within 4 more, and reheat within 2 hours (whole poultry to 74 °C). The cooling and reheating times are health unit guidance (verify with your own health unit, and outside Ontario with your province's rules).

When does a clock start?

At the last reading still above its line. Cooling's first 2 hours count from the last time it read 60 °C or hotter, even if that was taken before you pressed Cool, and the next 4 from the last time it read over 20 °C. So a long gap between readings counts against the batch, never for it. If no reading at 60 °C or hotter comes first, the clock starts at the first one, so probe it as it comes off the heat.

How sure is the forecast?

It's an estimate. With two or more readings it follows how fast the batch is falling toward the air around it, which depends on how you're cooling it, so a pan that's been split or stirred will change it. It's there to warn you early, not to replace the next probe. Only a reading says a batch made its line.

What if a batch misses?

The page flags it and keeps the record: put down what you did, like reheating, splitting it into shallower pans or throwing it out, and it goes in the log beside the reading. What to do with food that missed is your call and your health unit's, not this page's. Anything thrown out can go in the waste log.

Where is the log kept?

Signed in, your batches and readings are kept in your LocoTap account, for you alone, never in a link or our logs. Each reading keeps who took it and when, so the printed day reads like the paper sheet it replaces. Signed out, nothing is sent: it stays on this page, or on this device if you turn on Remember.

A record-keeping aid, not food safety or legal advice. Your health unit's rules come first.