Last night around 8 pm I wrote up a deli for leaving a 5‑gallon stockpot of chili to cool covered on the prep table — nowhere near the Food Code cooling curve (135°F to 70°F in 2 hours, 41°F within 6)… For those with tight line space and no blast chiller, what’s working for you — ice wands, shallow pans in an ice bath, fan assist — to hit the limits and keep solid temp logs?
Split into 2-inch hotel pans and set them in a salted ice-water bath, stirring with an ice wand — ‘2-inch pans + salted bath’ gets us under 70 in about 45 minutes — then move to the walk-in uncovered to 41 before lidding and logging. Tiny caveat: swap the bath water once and clip a probe/data logger to one pan so the curve’s documented; @Mara, have fans in the walk-in sped yours up?