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For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

fab.cba.mit.edu

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Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#51

Post by tptacek »

eropple wrote: post #44
legohead wrote: post #39

I've done some sous-vide after watching Chef Steps[1] on youtube. I just used a water thermometer and ziplock bags, which they have some examples of in their videos. My smallest stove top burner at its lowest setting gets water up to 117F. The salmon video they had the temp at 109, but I tried it anyway. It turned out amazing - I'd definitely do it again. I also tried steak, but bought a cheap cut, and it turned out…

I have a Sous Vide Supreme[1] and it's pretty much the secret weapon for making cheap beef tasty. Even cheapo chuck can do really well in one of them if you let them go for a while. What's nerdy-cool about it, I think, is that if you're quick, you can seal a steak with no air bubbles whatsoever and the steak will remain bright red while it cooks. Obviously you sear it after, but watching people's eyes bug out a littl…

Really? You're getting better performance from an SVS than an Anova? My understanding is that for reasonable water baths, the Anova is pretty close to the performance of the Polyscience, which is the gold standard. When Kenji Alt tested the Anova, he found his unit had been miscalibrated; maybe check yours?

I donated my unopened Sansaire to Butcher & Larder and the first thing they did with it was set it up in a huge water bath to cook a bunch of huge mortadella. It took them forever to get the bath up to temp, so long that I thought something might have been wrong with the unit.

I think the fix was to cover the bath to eliminate evaporative cooling. That is also a problem the SVS doesn't have, being a closed bath. But the circulator should be more flexible and, from what I understand, higher performance.

If you're willing to spring for the SVS, a better rec might be to go for the mid-range Polyscience (the CS).

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#52

Post by tptacek »

ghaff wrote: post #46
tgb wrote: post #37

Sous-vide is interesting to me but only seems worth it if you eat a lot of meat. Am I mistaken?

You're not really mistaken. You can do some interesting things with eggs--very precisely control the texture of both the white and the yolk (which relates to the coagulation of different proteins). But, for the most part, I use sous vide for meat and, especially, red meat. I'm not sure I'd say you need to eat a "lot" of meat (it's not like I use my sous vide setup every few days) but it is primarily for meat.

It works really well with chicken thighs, too. :)

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#53

Post by joezydeco »

budgi3 wrote: post #16
pepon wrote: post #7

food + heat + plastics doesn't sound very appealing...

This is what is holding me back on getting into sous vide. Any non plastic alternatives?

There's a silicone bag available:

http://www.amazon.com/Lekue-1-Liter-Fresh-Bag-Clear/dp/B0049...

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#54

Post by abakker »

Or, instead of writing temperature control logic yourself, you can buy a really cheap PID. There are nuances to good temperature control that warrant using chips that optimize for the environment they are heating.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Sous-vide-cooker-for-less-th...

Also, a PID is not a thermostat - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller

I'm sure that in water, a simple thermostat can be good enough, but its probably still best to have a controller that optimizes for its environment. A major point of sous vide is that the cooking temperature is very close to the minimum pasteurization temperatures. Cooking steak at 137 degrees requires that you are SURE it actually cooked at 137 for the amount of time you specified. Also, 90 minutes for a steak is insufficient at 56°c

http://www.polyscienceculinary.com/blog/food-safety-with-sou...

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#57

Post by arbesfeld »

abakker wrote: post #54

Or, instead of writing temperature control logic yourself, you can buy a really cheap PID. There are nuances to good temperature control that warrant using chips that optimize for the environment they are heating. http://www.instructables.com/id/Sous-vide-cooker-for-less-th... Also, a PID is not a thermostat - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller I'm sure that in water, a simple thermostat can be good enough,…

Great points, I do think that a professional PID is a better and more efficient way to build a sous-vide. I wanted to build something from basic components instead as part of the learning process, and also to allow me customize the logic via Bluetooth.

Regarding the steak, I find that a 1 inch thick steak only takes ~45 minutes to reach the target internal temperature. This scales dramatically as the steak thickness is increased, however.

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#58

Post by tptacek »

arbesfeld wrote: post #56

Hi! Original poster here. I built this as part of the "How to Make Almost Anything" class at MIT ( http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/863.14/ ). This was more of a weekend hack for fun than a money-saving project. Thanks for all of the advice and comments!

It's a great writeup!

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#59

Post by arbesfeld »

NoNotTheDuo wrote: post #5

I'd be curious to know how much the temperature fluctuates and what the average temperature is, plotted against the target. A simple on/of setup like this is much less complicated than a PID setup, but in my experience, the PID code would allow for a much more accurate temperature to be maintained.

In larger baths of water (I am using a half-filled 4.75 gallon container), the temperature only fluctuates ~0.25C from the setpoint, as measured by the sensor. I think the large quantity of water makes the change in temperature very gradual.

Re: For my final project I built a sous-vide immersion cooker

#60

Post by abakker »

arbesfeld wrote: post #57
abakker wrote: post #54

Or, instead of writing temperature control logic yourself, you can buy a really cheap PID. There are nuances to good temperature control that warrant using chips that optimize for the environment they are heating. http://www.instructables.com/id/Sous-vide-cooker-for-less-th... Also, a PID is not a thermostat - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller I'm sure that in water, a simple thermostat can be good enough,…

Great points, I do think that a professional PID is a better and more efficient way to build a sous-vide. I wanted to build something from basic components instead as part of the learning process, and also to allow me customize the logic via Bluetooth. Regarding the steak, I find that a 1 inch thick steak only takes ~45 minutes to reach the target internal temperature. This scales dramatically as the steak thickness…

because the temperatures inside are below instant pasteurization temperatures (158°F) though, reaching the target is insufficient. They need to be held at the target temperature over a period of time to guarantee sufficient pasteurization.

I'll also agree that the learning process can't be beat the way you did it.

I suppose you could simulate the PID function in software on the arduino though - http://playground.arduino.cc/Code/PIDLibrary

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