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Well, I must say I'm impressed with how well this turned out. Nothing but beautiful medium rare juicy beefy melt in your mouth goodness! I can't wait to try this again. I know I have some boneless chicken breast in the freezer.
Sorry for the crappy pictures.

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Dam, this forum is expensive! As an avid cook i have read up on Sous Vide but have not attempted, tonight i ordered up a bunch of stuff to build a ghetto rig. I have a circulation pump coming on a slow boat from China so i have some time to work out a design and dig up a cooler.
Will post up a build as i go.
 
So has anyone played around with adding a layer of ping-pong balls as an insulator atop their sous vide? I keep seeing this show up on a few blogs and videos. This pic is from Nathan Myhrvold, the author of Modernist Cuisine's food lab;

20110224-modernist-cuisine-tour-09.jpg

The Water Circulator
A circulator from Polyscience designed to maintain a water bath temperature to within a tenth of a degree. The ping pong balls floating on top serve as an insulator, helping the bath to maintain its temperature.

Oh yeah, if you want a cooking nerd woody, check out the entire slide show of their food "playground."
 
Revvy said:
So has anyone played around with adding a layer of ping-pong balls as an insulator atop their sous vide? I keep seeing this show up on a few blogs and videos. This pic is from Nathan Myhrvold, the author of Modernist Cuisine's food lab;

Oh yeah, if you want a cooking nerd woody, check out the entire slide show of their food "playground."

Well, since I broke my lid this may be an option.
 
I made boneless chicken breast in my sv a couple times now. So moist and tender. Just fantastic.
I just now put a 4 lb. rump roast in for a 24 hr. soak. Can't wait!:D
 
So has anyone played around with adding a layer of ping-pong balls as an insulator atop their sous vide? I keep seeing this show up on a few blogs and videos. This pic is from Nathan Myhrvold, the author of Modernist Cuisine's food lab;

20110224-modernist-cuisine-tour-09.jpg



Oh yeah, if you want a cooking nerd woody, check out the entire slide show of their food "playground."

That seems a bit excessive to me. I mean really what difference would it make if the temp flucuated a degree or two. No one would ever be able to tell a difference.
 
That seems a bit excessive to me. I mean really what difference would it make if the temp flucuated a degree or two. No one would ever be able to tell a difference.

Evidently one of it's main functions is to limit evaporation of the water in long cooking times. Having done 24-48 hour sessions, I can attest to losing a lot of water every 6-8 hours, if cooking a large piece of protein it can be a problem, especially in my coffee urn setup. I've woken up and found only have the roast still submerged. I'm interested in trying it.
 
Evidently one of it's main functions is to limit evaporation of the water in long cooking times. Having done 24-48 hour sessions, I can attest to losing a lot of water every 6-8 hours, if cooking a large piece of protein it can be a problem, especially in my coffee urn setup. I've woken up and found only have the roast still submerged. I'm interested in trying it.

Ok, that makes sense then. I think I would still rather get a piece of expanded foam insualtion and cut it to fit instead. I would imagine it would probably work better and it would be cheaper and easier to store.
 
I picked up a little giant mini pond pump at the hardware store the other day... I tested it last night in a large bowl of really hot water. Worked GREAT! That little pump really gets the water circulating! I plan to build yet another temp controller for household use. Geesh... I'm getting carried away controlling temp on everything in my house! haha! Funny thing is, I have an aquarium and there is not a controller on it! lol...
Anyway. I am trying to decide if I want to build this temp controller for the SV cooker (crockpot) from a eBay Aquarium controller or if I want to get all "gnat's - a$$" precise and use a PID. Anybody have any input?
 
I picked up a little giant mini pond pump at the hardware store the other day... I tested it last night in a large bowl of really hot water. Worked GREAT! That little pump really gets the water circulating! I plan to build yet another temp controller for household use. Geesh... I'm getting carried away controlling temp on everything in my house! haha! Funny thing is, I have an aquarium and there is not a controller on it! lol...
Anyway. I am trying to decide if I want to build this temp controller for the SV cooker (crockpot) from a eBay Aquarium controller or if I want to get all "gnat's - a$$" precise and use a PID. Anybody have any input?

In my opinion there is no sense in the extra time and money to make it extra precise. What difference does a degree or two really make?
 
Good point Data... I could also re-purpose this controller to control a small blower motor on my UDS smoker. I will have to install a thermowell, but that won't be to hard. Oh the possibilities!
 
For those using submersible fountain pumps for recirculation, has anyone had problems with the pumps dying from running at these high temp for long periods of time? Right now for sous vide I just use a crock pot with temp controller, but I want to set up a big cooler for cooking large cuts/quantities of meat using a heat stick and submersible pump. All the cheap submersible fountain pumps I've seen are only supposed to run at temps up to 105F or so - running it for 18 hours at 170F seems like a tough job for a $20 pump. But hey, if it works it works!
 
Huaco said:
Good point Data... I could also re-purpose this controller to control a small blower motor on my UDS smoker. I will have to install a thermowell, but that won't be to hard. Oh the possibilities!

I'll be waiting for that thread. I have lusted over the Pit Viper products but can't justify that money. If I understand correctly they use 3 probes? Near the fire, cook surface, and in the meat? The first 2 I'm sure are borderline redundant and just tighten up overshoot/undershoot. The third would just by a meat thermometer, unless they do a ramp down to stay warm after reaching temp. How much concern is there over blowing ash around?
 
I'll be waiting for that thread. I have lusted over the Pit Viper products but can't justify that money. If I understand correctly they use 3 probes? Near the fire, cook surface, and in the meat? The first 2 I'm sure are borderline redundant and just tighten up overshoot/undershoot. The third would just by a meat thermometer, unless they do a ramp down to stay warm after reaching temp. How much concern is there over blowing ash around?

Yeah, there is a lot to think through.
As far as ash being blown... I plan on using a VERY low volume fan. Not anything like a hair dryer volume, just a slight input.
 
Well I just bought another temp controller to build a sous vide cooker. Now I need to find a cheap crock pot and an aquarium pump and we'll be good to go!!
 
This is my setup, old cooler , a diesel 1500w antifreeze heater, standard aquarium heater controller setup and a 5volt pump off of ebayhttps://www.homebrewtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=109040&stc=1&d=1363741153
I have been experimenting with mashing in it, thats 5+lbs of grains in a 2.5 gallon ziplock, beers have been very nice.
Also this is the best way to prepare chicken breasts, moist and juicy!

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so a quick question guys, i am planning to use my electric BK or potentially my mash tun / herms coil once that is built. however, i am concerned about the element. what are people doing to protect the element / not melt the bag when using the bk?

i have seen collanders inverted with a whole cut, but that'd be a big collander for my 5500 watt, ulwd, ripple element
 
Salvation army/goodwill for the crock pot, and petsmart for the cheepest generic 20 dollar pump.

I'll look at the thrift stores for the crock pot, scored a pump from my parents who had a fish tank that sprung a leak
 
also served braised kale, fondant potato, and a tempura nugget thingy filled with cider gel (agar, apples and cider, cooked, solidified, and cut into cubes), a cube of sous vide wild duck, a cube of sous vide farmed duck and a cube of roasted shallot. the duck was served atop a bit of homemade red cabbage zuurkool (saurkraut for you germen readers!) to balance out the sweet sauce, and it was all very tasty. the final picture doesn't do it justice, that was the last plate of the 14 and was the one i threw together for myself very quickly, and then just remembered the camera. oh well

Food porn! Awesome and inspirational.
 
I just came back from Goodwill with a sweet, harvest gold coffee urn. Since it heats from the bottom, and it's tall and narrow, do I need to deal with a pump, or will convection be enough ?
 
Thanks, Revvy! Is that an aquarium air pump? I think that I have one of those somewhere.

I plugged my urn in last night, and it started making these moaning sounds. Now I've never used a big coffee urn before, and maybe that's normal, or maybe it's haunted. I guess time will tell. I want to try to clean up some scale inside it before I try to heat it again.
 
Thanks, Revvy! Is that an aquarium air pump? I think that I have one of those somewhere.

I plugged my urn in last night, and it started making these moaning sounds. Now I've never used a big coffee urn before, and maybe that's normal, or maybe it's haunted. I guess time will tell. I want to try to clean up some scale inside it before I try to heat it again.

Yeah it's the same little 20 dollar guy I show in my original cooler design.

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Yeah coffee urns tend to make strange noises as they're firing up. I think it's metal expansion as it heats up.
 
Picked up a new 7qt crock pot at menards on sale for $15. Got the air bubbler from my parents as they no longer have an aquarium and got a new temp probe for my rims controller...going to try cooking some cod on wednesday for lunch!! will try and take some pics
 
Here it is in all it's glory during a test run. I figured out I need to heat water on the stove first though as it takes a while to heat up

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I just got my STC-1000 and will be giving crock-pot sous vide a try. Are you guys doing anything for GFCI protection? It looks like most people are just using regular outlets in their setups. Is it an issue with nuisance trips of the GFCI so people just leave it out?
 
If you do this in your kitchen you should be fine. All of your kitchen outlets should be GFCI unless you have an older home that is not up to code.
 
MidTNJasonF said:
If you do this in your kitchen you should be fine. All of your kitchen outlets should be GFCI unless you have an older home that is not up to code.

Shouldn't only one outlet be GFCI, but the rest should be wired through it so that they all get GFCI function?
 
Huaco said:
Details, details...
Maybe he should have said the "Circuit" is GFCI protected. :D
:mug:

Sorry, there should have been a "?" at the end of that. I'll go fix that. I'm not 100% on GFCI/AFCI. It really was meant as a question that I thought I knew the answer to.
 
Yes poor nomenclature on my part. All the outlets in the kitchen and baths should be on a GFCI protected circuit.

In my case all of my exterior outlets and my garage circuit is also GFCI protected.
 
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