I know next to nothing about Sous-Vide, so I’m hoping a chef can explain some things like what’s the difference between this one and one that costs twice or three times as much? Is it the volume of water you can heat? Can you control the more expensive ones with your phone or echo type devices?
Do I need to get a special container designed to work with this?
How do I know how long and at what temperatures to cook various food? Does it come with a guidebook?
If I put this in my tub, will it keep the bath at a consistently warm temperature or will it cook me?
I’m no chef, but I have been cooking via sous vide for a while, so I’ll take a stab at some of your questions.
–More expensive ones can be controlled somewhat by phones, yes.
–You do not need a special container; a pot will work. Special containers help with added insulation which reduces the load on the device and also to reduce evaporation over longer cook times.
– Many sous vide cook time suggestions exist. Daniel Baldwin and Kenji Lopez-Alt are good folks to listen to.
–The volume of your bath would most likely be too large for this purpose.
I own an “expensive” one and love it. I bought one of these devices in a previous offer as a gift and the recipient loves it. YMMV
I second what Cotb said. Also, I found everything I needed to know from the folks at chefsteps.com. Highly recommend checking it out, even if you buy this one. I have their Joule device and it and the corresponding app are outstanding. So simple. Changed my life. That’s overly dramatic, but as a single dad with two growing boys I can now cook restaurant grade steaks, chicken, etc. I sous vide 4-5 times per week. Bought the more expensive Joule and haven’t regretted it for a second.
DON’T BUY - Ive been living a nightmare since 7/10 on a “New” unit that was a refurbished unit that was clearly a customer reurn and defective. I returned to Pyleaudio.com it took them 2 months my harassing them to get a replacement sent that was another Used customer return with customer name on the return auth and the original invoice in the taped up box. That unit didn’t work either. Whoever is dumping these units they are clearly liquidation and they pay no attention to whether its really a “new” unit of customer return… So it doesn’t matter what you pay for this, if it turns out like it did for me, you loose money, time and take on aggravation.
Read my review…based on my experience the owner’s representation is not to be believed…I received a refurbished unit in spite of buying “New” - the unit was even defective and after 2.5 months I ended up with yet another customer return that was also defective - neither unit circulated water which means you don’t have uniform temperature in your water bath which defeats sous vide cooking.