Best Sous Vide Equipment?

[Mosca]

I have the Sous Vide Demi (smaller than the Supreme that mgaretz uses). In my case, it failed the closet test. I used it a few times, then less, then I put it in the closet about a year ago and never took it out.

[Paul Morrison]

I picked up an Anova on-sale at Amazon. It has worked great and has produced some tremendous meats. One of our favorites is beef short ribs. Check out this thread. https://www.chefsteps.com/activities...-ribs-your-way Still trying to find the perfect sear and smoke time, otherwise the ribs come out wonderful.

[David Parrish]

I'm not an expert but agree the Anova works great.

[Dr ROK]

My Anova has been great for me.

[dirtman]

I use the Anova and it is very simple to use. I am a novice and haven't figured out sous vide but I don't think it is equipment related. It is lack of experience. While my sous vide meals have been edible, I haven't cooked anything that I prefer to grilling the entire time. I have always finished my sous vide on the grill.

I have also used it to reheat vacuum packed roasts. I have tried covering briskets in foil to reheat as well as sous vide. The results to both were similar.

[Breadhead]

Thunder77 ... A response to your post #10

There are low and slow SV cooks and there are hot and fast SV cooks.

They both have their advantages.

Poaching eggs in a SV bath for a restaurant or large family gatherings would be best done low and slow. Drop them in preheated water at 149° hours before they are going to be served. In a restaurant if they are serving a high volume of Eggs Benedict they will use this method. They can remove 1 or 2 eggs from the bath tub as needed and crack them open and out drops a perfectly poached egg.

If I'm cooking eggs Benedict for just me or a few people... I use the hot & fast SV method. I preheat the water to 167° and leave the eggs in the water for 13/15 minutes and out pops a perfectly poached egg. This method requires the cook to remove the eggs at just the right time or they will end up with hard boiled eggs, where as in the low and slow method you can leave them in the bath all day.

The Modernist Cuisine books discuss the advantage of both methods in great detail. You must be more knowledgeable to use the hot and fast method though and the risk of failure is much greater.

[mgaretz]

There's also this work by Douglas Baldwin http://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Figure_4.1 who is now with ChefSteps

[badf00d]

And a fun one for my kids is this one: https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-egg-calculator

[cosmo]

You will get better smoke flavor if you smoke it first, then sous vide to finish. Or you can smoke, sous vide, then back in the smoker for bark.

I've actually done the SV first and then the smoker with good success

[Breadhead]

I prefer SV first and then finish in the smoker. It leaves the bark and smoke flavor intact.

[choffert]

Just picked up the Anova from Amazon...$149...we'll see how it goes...

[Thunder77]

I saw that today too. I'm close to pulling the trigger. Has anyone used sous vide balls?

[choffert]

My plan is to use a cooler that is not very big, cut the top as necessary to accommodate the Anova, should eliminate the need for balls (did he just say that?)

[choffert]

Found another good use, for reheating the tons of pulled pork in the freezer. We vacuum packed it in 1lb. packages (with a good pat o' butter). Pull out what I need, into the pot w/ Anova @160ish, hour later everything hot, juicy and ready to go. (should have pulled out two packs!)

[Breadhead]

Thunder77 ... Response to your post #23.2

I saw the SV balls online a while ago. However... I really find little need to worry about evaporation or humidity very much.

I've done 3 long SV cooks 36/48 hours so far and I've had to add water twice for each of those 3 cooks. About an 11/2" of water in a 5 gallon container each time. Most of those low and slow SV cooks are done in water that is 135° or less. I adjusted my hot water heater so my hot tap water comes out of the faucet at 135°. My SV bath tub sits right next to my kitchen sink so I just pull the water nozzle over to the bath tub and fill it.

I'm not getting any warping in my kitchen cabinets or spots on my kitchen ceiling so... I'm going to keep it simple.😎