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Mellow, the robotic sous-chef

cookmellow.com

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Re: Mellow, the robotic sous-chef

#21

Post by tptacek »

mattmaroon wrote: post #13
tptacek wrote: post #7

$400 is relatively expensive. You can get a 1100 watt Polyscience circulator for that much. No circulator or water bath I know of requires vacuum sealers; all of them work fine with zips. Also, not to nitpick, but duck confit only takes 8 hours or so; it's one of the easiest things to do with a water bath. It looks neat, though. It'll be interesting to see if the cooling feature is useful, or more of a gimmick. That…

It specifically says in the FAQ that it can't do cook-chill. I was debating trying to work on one that could awhile back but man is it hard to get that kinda cooling power economically, at least given my cursory exploration. Also, I've never done duck confit sous vide. Maybe I'll try that next. I made some the good old fashioned way a couple months ago and wow.

Low-temp water baths are like duck confit dispensing machines. In particular, you can get by with much, much less fat.

I'm not sure I understand the utility of being able to throw all the ingredients for my dishes into a water bath days ahead of time, since I need to bag the ingredients anyways; why not just keep them in the fridge and dunk them the morning of the cook? Also: it's a little misleading? to suggest that you'll be able to cook lots of different ingredients in a single bath, since the veg will need much higher cooking temps than the proteins.

edit to tone down slightly

Re: Mellow, the robotic sous-chef

#22

Post by zemvpferreira »

tptacek wrote: post #7

$400 is relatively expensive. You can get a 1100 watt Polyscience circulator for that much. No circulator or water bath I know of requires vacuum sealers; all of them work fine with zips. Also, not to nitpick, but duck confit only takes 8 hours or so; it's one of the easiest things to do with a water bath. It looks neat, though. It'll be interesting to see if the cooling feature is useful, or more of a gimmick. That…

Hey tptacek,

A lot of our copy is directed at people who're not that familiar with sous-vide and might have very basic questions when browsing. Let me clarify further:

-$400 is expensive, you're right. And we're not making that much of a margin on these right now. That's because Mellow does so much more than just warming water. Whether those features are valuable is another question.

-On the bags, we're probably the only device out there that can routinely cook using open, unsealed bags. Due to the tall, skinny geometric, you can plop food in non-ziploc bags and use those to cook you Mellow. Huge cost saving in the long run, no floating bags, and a much quicker operation all-in-all.

-You're right on the confit (though I like mine cook at 70c@24h), it's just an easy example. A chicken breast or large fillet steak would be a better example of something you wouldn't be able to cook for 8-12 hours with regular sous-vide.

-Well-supposed on the cooling.

Ultimately, Mellow's the product of almost a decade of frustration with sous-vide non-pragmatism. It won't be optimal for everyone, some people will do better with their Polysci's, but for busy home cooks like us, I think it's a hell of a help. Thank you for the chance to debate.

Re: Mellow, the robotic sous-chef

#23

Post by zemvpferreira »

mattmaroon wrote: post #20
mattmaroon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It specifically says in the FAQ that it can't do cook-chill. I was debating trying to work on one that could awhile back but man is it hard to get that kinda cooling power economically, at least given my cursory exploration. Also, I've never done duck confit sous vide. Maybe I'll try that next. I made some the good old fashioned way a couple months ago and wow.

Must have run into the guy who made it. Three innocuous comments downvoted at once :)

Nope, I'm up voting these, they're helpful. Yours, too.

Re: Mellow, the robotic sous-chef

#24

Post by tptacek »

jzig wrote: post #19

I am curious since I have never cooked sous-vide. I see pieces of meat being cooked in the video, so does that mean I would have to come home and prepare the side dishes?

For the most part, yes. Vegetable cookery tends to happen at temps north of 175, and protein cookery tends to happen at temps south of 140 or so, so you can't really use the same unattended water bath for both.

Re: Mellow, the robotic sous-chef

#26

Post by zemvpferreira »

mattmaroon wrote: post #17
lupin_sansei wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it can go back to refrigerator once it's cooked as it's too hard to recool that volume of warm water.

You also have to do it very quickly due to anaerobic pathogens like Clostridium botulinum and Listeria monocytogenes. I don't think it's possible for something that fits comfortably in a kitchen and runs on a 120v line.

Too true! The most we can do is auto-retrograde starches and cool baths that are cooking at 60C upwards down to 54C to a sort of "holding temperature". Very fun to play with.

Re: Mellow, the robotic sous-chef

#27

Post by tptacek »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #22
tptacek wrote: post #7

$400 is relatively expensive. You can get a 1100 watt Polyscience circulator for that much. No circulator or water bath I know of requires vacuum sealers; all of them work fine with zips. Also, not to nitpick, but duck confit only takes 8 hours or so; it's one of the easiest things to do with a water bath. It looks neat, though. It'll be interesting to see if the cooling feature is useful, or more of a gimmick. That…

Hey tptacek, A lot of our copy is directed at people who're not that familiar with sous-vide and might have very basic questions when browsing. Let me clarify further: -$400 is expensive, you're right. And we're not making that much of a margin on these right now. That's because Mellow does so much more than just warming water. Whether those features are valuable is another question. -On the bags, we're probably the…

Help me understand how the unsealed bag thing works, again? What kinds of bags are we talking about for what kinds of prep?

(Sorry that I sound ready to debate; I shouldn't be. This is a neat looking device and you should be commended for bringing it to market.)

Re: Mellow, the robotic sous-chef

#28

Post by zemvpferreira »

mapt wrote: post #5

The timed refrigerator -> cooking -> {refrigerator / warm} cycle alone makes this a really, really nice idea. The thin clear container and large volume of water is going to be a bit rough on power consumption for that use-case though.

Hey mapt,

The water bath's double-walled, so that power consumption isn't heinous. We're looking at nonofficial steady-state heat losses/gains of 15-30 Watt at the most common temperatures.

Re: Mellow, the robotic sous-chef

#29

Post by polemic »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #22
tptacek wrote: post #7

$400 is relatively expensive. You can get a 1100 watt Polyscience circulator for that much. No circulator or water bath I know of requires vacuum sealers; all of them work fine with zips. Also, not to nitpick, but duck confit only takes 8 hours or so; it's one of the easiest things to do with a water bath. It looks neat, though. It'll be interesting to see if the cooling feature is useful, or more of a gimmick. That…

Hey tptacek, A lot of our copy is directed at people who're not that familiar with sous-vide and might have very basic questions when browsing. Let me clarify further: -$400 is expensive, you're right. And we're not making that much of a margin on these right now. That's because Mellow does so much more than just warming water. Whether those features are valuable is another question. -On the bags, we're probably the…

IANAchef but the video has the user selecting a "medium rare chicken breast". Is that a thing? =D

Re: Mellow, the robotic sous-chef

#30

Post by zemvpferreira »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #8

For some definition of robotic... I guess networked crockpot doesn't have the same ring.

Hey andrew,

It fits! I think defining robot as an anthropomorphic thing that moves around is too constricting. Mellow is an electromechanical machine that performs complex actions, based on natural language requests, taking into account its environment and context.

I think that's pretty robotic, but I welcome the debate. Didn't mean to be at all misleading, sorry if it seemed so.

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