Sous Vide Circulators


 
LMichaels said:
I didn't know if having moving water was essential for the process.
Click to expand...
It's doable but takes some babysitting.

How Do You Sous Vide Without An Immersion Circulator? - The Cooking Facts

One can still sous vide without an immersion circulator by using a pot or a cooler filled with water, a thermometer, and a stovetop to maintain the desired temperature. The food is then placed in a sealed plastic bag and submerged in the water for the desired amount of time. However, this method...
thecookingfacts.com thecookingfacts.com
I have the SV setting on my double oven. Never used it except for holding bbq meats off the smoker.
 
JKalchik said:
the IT cynic in me is screaming that it's a blatant data mining grab.
Click to expand...
I thought about this while I was mowing the lawn.

There are multiple issues.

One is the data mining. What am I cooking? What do I want to cook? I don't see that's anybody's business but mine. I expect the back end services to want to monetize this (selling ads?) as much as possible.

Secondly, the back end infrastructure is not cheap to operate either. Everybody in that space has their hand out for a piece of the pie, land owners, data center owners & operators, hosting companies, networking access, power, water, and it all adds up in a hurry. While I certainly don't expect five nines availability, I do not want to see a back end service I rely on go away while I'm cooking dinner (and potentially halting my device.)

Edit: Oops..... I should clarify a bit more here. A one shot purchase upfront with lifetime access to the back end servers is a fundamentally unsound business practice, IMO. If you're putting together an application system with a remote back end, you need recurring revenue to have a chance of a successful business. Considering that an economy sous vide heater runs about $50, and Anova's premium offerings are about 4 times (or more) that, for the sake of argument, let's say that $100 is going towards running the back end services. Realistically, that isn't going to go very far. The last 10 years is littered with the carcasses of IoT devices that are no longer usable because the back end systems have been completely shut down.

Third is the cybersecurity aspect. I have no [effective] control over either the app, or the device firmware. IoT devices are major targets as jumping off points to sideways compromised networks. In short, I don't trust it to be a good network neighbor.

Okay, okay. I'll take my tinfoil hat off.
 
Last edited:
LMichaels said:
I didn't know if having moving water was essential for the process.
Click to expand...
My understanding is that it is important from a food safety standpoint to have water circulating around all sides so that you have even heating and to avoid having any area of the food in a cooler area. That's the purpose of using a sous vide rack, to have water circulating above, below, and around the object.

Water evaporation is effectively eliminated with a snug-fitting lid. The power consumption is significant at 1200W or more, so wrapping the sous vide tank in towels and placing it on hot pads will help with the heat loss.
 
DanHoo said:
I like the corner mount on that container.


View attachment 120584
Click to expand...
I did, too. That's the advantage of having a lid available separately. I wonder if having the rack placed diagonally would give more space. I'm going to go experiment!

EDIT: It doesn't appear to have an advantage over the way that I'm doing it now, but I do have a spare lid on hand.
 
Last edited:
JKalchik said:
<shrug> Requiring me to install an app on my phone to control an incredibly simple device like a sous vide heater just plain rubs me wrong. That's not about giving me control over the device, the IT cynic in me is screaming that it's a blatant data mining grab. All I need for this device is on/off, temperature select, and a timer.

And, quite honestly, even if Anova has completely rolled that back (I was unware, thanks,) I'm far more likely to assume that they're going to try it again than not. Oh, wait..... what's been rolled back is dropping support for older devices, i.e. they're still usable through the app. Looking at their website, I do see that their current lineup is locally controllable.... but I'm not paying those prices.

There are some things where I am interested in a remote control capability, and that's my smoker controller. Not uncommon for that to run 20 hours straight, and it's capable of alerting me to other events. Otherwise, the only appliance that is WiFi capable is the refrigerator and that's not connected.
Click to expand...
Gotcha, but I don't understand.
You don't have to use WiFi, or install an app to use it.
Ours is a recent model,(I'm too lazy to go look at which one),that has those 3 buttons you mentioned, on/off, temp select & timer, and that's it.
I think WiFi & an app to use this basic took is just plain silly and wouldn't buy one either if I had to use an app to operate it.
 
I always thought the impeller was for a type of convection cooking that speeds cooks/heat transfer similar to my oven or the small fan I sometimes use on my countertop to defrost.

We had bagged meat twice this week and used a pot of water.
It worked fine but I gave it a bit off attention and had to restart the water pot because it got cold too fast.

So can the anova function as a simple dumb tool?
I’m so, so sick of people trying to mine data from me.

Yesterday I went to a new chiropractor.
They wanted 6 full pages of personal info that I refused to comply with other than name, address, and phone number.
I really didn’t want to give them my phone number and refused to give them my email address and 95% of the other info that they demanded.
They even demanded to see my drivers license for a cash deal???
I knew that my California medical insurance for chiropractors did not work in Washington.
I told them I had no local insurance prior this appointment and I would be a cash paying customer when I set up the appointment.
The receptionist thought I was some kind of a rude whack job for not wanting to give them all of my personal info.
I was very polite to her but could tell that she was a bit overwhelmed and angry about it.
 
AndyK said:
I always thought the impeller was for a type of convection cooking that speeds cooks/heat transfer similar to my oven or the small fan I sometimes use on my countertop to defrost.

We had bagged meat twice this week and used a pot of water.
It worked fine but I gave it a bit off attention and had to restart the water pot because it got cold too fast.

So can the anova function as a simple dumb tool?
Click to expand...
There is convection heating in sous vide, but the primary type of heating is conduction, where the hot water transfers heat through contact with the food through the plastic bag. That's why is important to have the food in close contact with the bag, as in vacuum sealing or by immersing an open Ziploc bag in water before zipping it closed.

The sous vide circulator is by nature a "dumb tool". What you are aiming for is evenly heated food with no dead spots caused by over-crowding or poor circulation. The food will never "overcook" in the traditional sense because it will never get hotter than the temp that it is set at.

There are three primary reasons for cooking food. #1 is the most important, to destroy any pathogens that might be in or on the food. #2 is to weaken or relax the fibers that may be in the food to make it more tender and easier to chew. #3 is to change the color of the food, and this is the one that takes a little getting used to in sous vide cooking. Most people judge a meat's doneness by color, and sous vide does not provide the same color change cues that other forms of cooking provide. A steak cooked all the way through with a temp of 140F, for example, will still have a reddish appearance even though most people would judge a steak cooked to that temp by any other means would be considered well-done.

1759949163441.png
 
Last edited:
I might also add that a steak cooked to 140F will have that reddish color regardless of how long it is cooked...10 hours or 10 days, it will still be the same color. Typically, to get some of that goodness from the maillard reaction, people will sear the meat after sous vide, and a few additional minutes in a frying pan or a grill can remove the redness if desired.
 
AndyK said:
So can the anova function as a simple dumb tool?
Click to expand...

Yes.

Mine is bluetooth enabled and I have never paired it with anything. I just use the buttons and display on the top of the unit.

I have an Anova Nano 750W. It's small in terms of power and wattage but it has worked fine for me.


One of the times it worked fantastic was when I used it to cook Tri-tip from frozen completely un-attended for about five hours.

I had to take a family member to a medical appt that was a 90+ min trip each way with an hour+ for the appt. Not knowing for sure when we would return I used the SousVide set to 130F and it ran for about five hours.

When we got home I lit the gas grill for a quick sear.

I removed the TriTip. Temp checked it ( was about 128F via ThermaPen) added some salt and seared it on the gas grill.

It was delicious and I recall having dinner on the table about 20 mins after walking in the door.
 
Last edited:
Typically, when meat cooks, it shrinks somewhat (braising or boiling is an exception). With sous vide, it can expand in some cases, most notably for me with pork ribs. Sous vide has become my go-to for ribs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top