Sous Vide involves vacuum sealing food in plastic pouches and cooking at lower temperatures and for longer than most other methods of cooking.Sous Vide cooking ensures that food is cooked evenly on the inside without overcooking the outside, and that nutrition, moisture and flavor is retained.The Sous Vide takes the guess work out of cooking and its’ spacious 8L capacity and stainless steel rack make it perfect for a wide range of foods including fish, meat, vegetables, fruit and eggs, and most standard sized vacuum bags.Using the Sous Vide is as easy as it gets - simply vacuum seal ingredients, fill the Sous Vide, place food in the pouch rack, set time and temperature accordingly via the LCD display. Viewing window lets you keep an eye on your food as its cooking.Recipe Idea1. Seal your steak in a vacuum sealed bag2. Select a cooking temperature:- Rare: 140 degrees- Medium: 160 degrees- Well Done: 175 degrees3. Determine your cooking time (dependant on the thickness of your steak)- 1/2 inch thickness: 15 minutes- 1 inch thickness: 45 minutes- 1.5 inch thickness: 90 minutes4. Place your sealed bag of steak into the sous vide water bath for the desired time5. Remove the steak from the vacuum bag6. Finish your steak by searing in a frying pan on medium heat for 1-2 minutes on each side and season7. Serve and enjoy with potatoes & seasonal vegetablesProduct Dimensions:15"x10"x9"
J**E
The equal of other, more expensive devices.
Got this today. Unboxed it (well protected with styrofoam ends to the box.) Read the directions. (Sorry guys; it's a bad habit I picked up.) Filled it to just over minimum with 100°F water, and set the temp to 146°F and the time to 1 hour. Started it, and immediately the circulation pump started. After about 17 minutes, the temp was at the selected 146°F, and the time had counted down. The directions say to add 15 minutes to the cook time to allow the bath to heat up. I shut it down and reset time and temp. While it had been heating, I took two large frozen-solid chicken breasts out of the freezer and put them into ZipLoc Freezer Bags with olive oil and garlic. (The directions say not to use ziplock. If the cook temp is below about 160°F, they'll work fine. No need to vacuum-bag them, and don't seal the top all the way. Just let it flop over the wire rack, and be sure the food is completely under water.) After having reset the time, I added the rock-hard chicken breasts to the water, and had to add about four cups additional 100°F water to submerge the food. This added water and cold chicken breasts dropped the tank temp about five degrees. I went with it. Cooked for the prescribed 1 hour at 146°F.Came out tender, juicy, perfectly done, and as flavorful as you'd expect for no more seasoning than I used. And this was from frozen-solid to table-ready.I don't own a Sous Vide Supreme, and have never used one. But this thing is about ¼ the price for what I consider to be better function. Going strictly by the advertised features for SV Supreme, it relies on convection heating--which may work just fine. But this one is insulated and has a circulator pump. I checked the temperature with a Taylor probe thermometer, and the Von Shef's stated temp agreed with the Taylor's reading. After cooking, I checked the internal temp of the chicken, and found it to be dead on also. This surprised me, since I'd started from frozen.There's another unit offered for $250 or so that is identical to the Von Shef. Then of course the Sous Vide Supreme devices at around $400. This one seems to be their equal, hands down--based on my single test. This one comes with a stainless steel rack to hold the food, so don't buy an extra one.I'll update this review if any problems develop. This is written 7/16/2015UPDATE: 7/20/2015 Added a photo below showing this sitting next to a KitchenAid stand mixer for visual comparison. The dimensions are about 9" high, 15" long, and 9 ¾" wide. Don't have a clue why it came out upside down, and I can't flip it over.Found something to gripe about, though: This thing does not have an "OFF" switch. You have to unplug it after things are finished, or it will sit there beeping at you for far too long. It's a small inconvenience, because you'll want to empty the water out and dry the interior to prevent mold from forming. (I haven't had this long enough to discover mold in it. But where it's wet, mold grows. Empty the machine, and dry it out.) To empty the water chamber, you'll have to unplug it anyway.UPDATE 7/21/2015:Cooking pork chops today. Filled the water chamber, set the time and temp, and the circulator pump came on, but did not pump any water and made an awful lot of noise. Turned out that it had lost its prime and had acquired an air lock. This can happen when a bubble of air gets into the pump chamber around the impeller. The impeller spins furiously, but cannot get a grip on the water. I agitated the water repeatedly until it finally grabbed, and assumed its former quiet circulation. So far, this little thing works great.UPDATE 7/21/2015:In the first review, I stated that one could use Ziplock freezer bags instead of a vacuum bagger. You can. But if you do, DO NOT let that bag touch the floor of the water chamber. Use a bulldog clip or clothes pin to hold it off the bottom slightly. If it touches the bottom, the bag will melt. But nothing happens until you pull it out of the water bath, when it will tear a hole in the bottom of the bag and get olive oil all over the machine, the counter, and you. And 143°F is HOT! 145°F for five minutes will de-hair a hog. Use the Ziplocks if you like; just be careful with them.UPDATE 8/08/2015:Salmon! Pre-cure with 75% salt, 25% sugar for 20 minutes (ChefSteps.com), rinse well with ice water. Bag the filets with olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice. 120°, 30 minutes for the ½" IQF filets, and about 40 minutes for 1" cuts. Fantastic!Can you tell that I really like this thing? And, no, the manufacturer isn't paying me to say this. I bought mine for about $130; since they've received favorable reviews, the price has gone up $20. It's still quite well worth it. You can pay well over $2,000 for a commercial thermostatically controlled circulator pump. But you don't need one of those for home use unless you have a huge family.I know I said you can use Ziplocks without a vacuum sealer in this device. And you can. But I'm getting an itch for a chamber-type vacuum sealer. Cheapest one of those is about $800. (sigh...) Amazon's gonna wreck my budget.UPDATE 3/14/16: Found small (½ - 1 cm) white mineral deposits on the inside of the unit. Only about a half-dozen of them, they come from the hard water delivered locally. Removed the two screws which hold the shield that protects the filter and intake parts of the circulation mechanism. Dropped the shield into the bottom of the chamber, added about 1 cm of white vinegar to the unit. I broke off the heavier deposits using my fingernail (a plastic spoon would do as well.) Let the vinegar sit for about 30 minutes, rinse, and repeat if necessary. Note: this thing is going strong, and has given no trouble. Today I'm cooking a corned beef brisket (about 3 pounds (1.5 kg ±). A ten-hour cook at 180°F for dinner tomorrow.
E**F
Great value Sous Vide for the occasional chef
Ok, I just got this today and only had time to run some tests; i.e., I have not cooked in it.Why five stars?1) Even though it is cheaply made, you get what you pay for. I paid next to nothing for a water oven that will perform better than a SousVide Supreme costing twice as much. Why, because this oven has a circulator, those do not.2) This unit is easy use, started right up and held temp to within a degree for about two hours. I was shocked at how quickly it came up to temp. I filled it with warm water, but then put a jar full of cold water in it. It took ten minutes to get from 126.5F to 139.7F.3) Quiet. It makes a low humming noise, but is quieter than our microwave.I am replacing a home made unit which consisted of a modified CrockPot with a PID temp controller. That unit cooked perfectly, but was quite a kludge, heavy and cumbersome, wires hanging out--my wife feared it. This unit looks so good we will just leave it on a back counter in the kitchen. I expect slightly better cooking because of the circulator. When I cook with it I plan to measure the power requirements under different modes and will report back with the results.If I was a professional chef I would invest in a top end water oven. Likewise, if I was a construction worker I would invest in top quality tools rather than shopping at Harbor Freight. I may use this unit a few times a month--fits my needs.======================================Here's my update. I cooked eggs the other day and they came out sous vide perfect. I also ran a power test. When the unit is on with the pump running, but not heating, it draws less than 10 mA, which is negligible. When the heater is on it draws 6.15 A, which is 738 watts at 120 VAC assuming a resistive load PF. It comes to temp very quickly and does not cycle often, so if you were going to cook something for an extended time and were worried about a power failure, you could probably get by with a 1000 watt UPS.When I turned the unit on the pump made a very loud noise and was not circulating. I concluded that the pump had an air bubble and could not get primed. I used a soda straw to pull water into the pump through the suction port and then it ran fine. It does make a humming noise, but it is not excessive. Again, you get what you pay for. Dealing with some minor issues gets you a very excellent sous vide water oven that is very easy to operate, clean and store.
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