Show us your Sous Vide Cooker!

[Revvy]

Looks awesome. I need to post my adventures last week making sous-vide pork belly confit....it was a 24 hour process, and came out simply amazing.

 

[dinnerstick]

please do... i think i could live on pork belly and beer. screw fiber. had some 48 hour ribs last week made by a friend who built a prototype that he is trying to get into production, i need to get a dedicated cooker built!

 

[aubiecat]

No one else?

Revvy, thanks for your showing your ingenious ugly junk/ghetto sous-vide cooker. As soon as I read your post I went and ordered an air pump and two cup warmers.
I received them yesterday and did some preliminary tests. I am happy to say that it works very well.
I took it a step further to increase the water circulation. I cut off a 1 foot section of 1-1/4" blow off tubing. I submerged the tubing in the water and inserted the air tubing inside one end. The bubbles created by the air pump will flow out of the other end pulling water with it and creating a pumping/siphon action, similar to the way an aquarium filter works.

I used 48qt. cooler so this works on a larger scale. Starting with water at 104°, I set my controller to 140° and it took 45 minutes to get the water up to temp.
As soon as I sort out the mounting details of the heating elements I am going to start cooking.

 

[dallasdb]

Let me tell you that this thread and another sous vide thread on HBT changed my life! I brought a crockpot to work and now eat like a king. Split chicken breast and steak has been on my regular menu. People are extremely jealous of my setup.
I don't have a temp controller or anything, I simply use my floating thermometer to check temp and I have a system down.

Bring the water to temp, put on low and leave lid off for steaks. Lid off on low maintains 135-140 and lid on while on low maintains 165-180 for chicken.

Love it. Thanks for enlightening me!

 

[aubiecat]

Tried out the Revvy inspired sous vide cooker tonight. We cooked a couple of New York strips and they turned out superb.
I used one of my fermentation temp controllers and a 48qt cooler.
Here is the gear I bought to complete the cooker.
Two NORPRO 559 Immersion Heaters and a Fusion Air Pump 500 Aquarium Air Pump

Out of the cartons.

To test it out I went simple. 1' of 1-1/4" blow off tubing, a 90º SS elbow, a 4" long piece of acrylic tubing and 4' of aquarium air tubing.

The elbow weights one side down and air keeps the other end at an angle to create the pumping action.

It's best to boil a pot of water to speed things up unless you have time to wait on the temp to build.

Steaks are in! Notice I turned the pump tube around to get better flow against the heating elements.

After one hour at 138º, medium rare, they are ready to come out.

Out of the bath.

Torches ain't just for welding.

Bon appetit.

 

[Revvy]

Wow, Awesome.

Hey, everyone who's been taking my suggestion of using immersion heaters. I think the same caveat in the threads about using water heater elements in electric brewing setups apply. DON'T RUN THEM DRY....Don't lift your lid for example with them still running or they'll burn out. I've burned a couple them out, I guess that way. Luckily they're pretty cheap. Keep em wet when you have them going.

 

[aubiecat]

Wow, Awesome.

Hey, everyone who's been taking my suggestion of using immersion heaters. I think the same caveat in the threads about using water heater elements in electric brewing setups apply. DON'T RUN THEM DRY....Don't lift your lid for example with them still running or they'll burn out. I've burned a couple them out, I guess that way. Luckily they're pretty cheap. Keep em wet when you have them going.

This true, they will instantly burn out of taken out of the water. Always unplug them first!

I plan on making a float for the two heaters so they will always be submerged at the correct level.

 

[Huaco]

I use my E-HERMS HLT and MLT to do the trick... I didn't want to have the plastic right next to the heating element so I recirculated a few gallons through the HERMS coil and back on top of the steak. Even an el-cheapo Wal-Mart steak came out as tender as could be! I LIKE this method of cooking steak! I ended up letting it sit in the water for 2 hours. I just set the MLT controller to something like 134*F and let it go.

My Brewery:

Steak In the MLT:

Cooked Steak:

Finishing off with torch:

Final Pairing:

 

[jeepinjeepin]

"Finished" my controller this afternoon. This is a temporary housing. I need something cooler. MYPIN TA-7, SSR, $5 goodwill crock pot, aquarium pump.

 

[jeepinjeepin]

Going again today. Beef tenderloin.

 

[mrmcdowe]

How many of you use an air pump with a crock pot sized sous vide?

 

[jeepinjeepin]

How many of you use an air pump with a crock pot sized sous vide?

Well, you see that I do. I'm not sure it is completely necessary, but everything helps when trying to hit a consistent temperature. My probe is located dead center in the lid where the handle was. The furthest distance from the element in the bottom and the crock side walls. Some water turnover can only help.

[ame]http://youtu.be/YA3L9TUUvYs[/ame]

 

[Revvy]

How many of you use an air pump with a crock pot sized sous vide?

I do, even a crock pot is going to have hot and cold spots, since the heating element is usually in the bottom of the outer shell. Moving the water around will help balance out the temp through the whole vessel. They're so cheap to buy and you can pick one up at any big box store these days.

 

[dallasdb]

This is the setup when I'm not just using my crockpot.
The heatstick works well but I have the GFCI outlet between the heatstick and the temp controller, not the temp controller and the wall. Only problem is every time the temp controller powers off the heatstick it flips the GFCI and when it powers back on you have to reset the GFCI.

I am afraid if the GFCI is at the wall, if the heatstick gets a surge it will fry my temp controller. Does anyone know if this is true?

 

[dinnerstick]

i'm in charge of a 5 course christmas dinner for 14. the star of the evening is going to be a duck breast with a tawny port and cherry sauce. i can get either farmed or wild duck, so i started some trials with the sous vide. i did 2 hours at 57 degrees, then pan fried the skin side. the wild duck is really gamey, with not much fat under the skin, but it did crisp up well. the farmed duck is soft as silk, makes the wild stuff seem almost chewy. you could just about cut it with a spoon. didn't quite render the fat as much as i'd like to. will get it right on my next practice run. the wild one was cooked perfect; red in the middle. the farmed one was a tiny bit overdone, going to reduce the sous vide time and fry a bit harder. but i'm going with the farmed duck for the soft texture and fat layer. on the night i'm going to sous vide all of them together in my speidel braumeister, with the mash recirculation on! wish me luck. first pic is the wild, second is farmed (i didn't really rest them, so they released a bit of liquid, i will rest them on the night).

 

[Revvy]

The adventure continues. Thought I'd try another idea. I'm doing three slabs of 24 hour Pork Belly Confit for tomorrow, and didn't want to use the cooler and have it take up most of my counter space in my tiny kitchen while trying to cook other things, same with my crock pot. So I pulled out my 4 dollar salvation army coffee urn that I use for heating sparge water for stovetop small batch brewing. Even with the temp controller next to it, it takes up less space that either of the other options, fits all three slabs in there, and has held temp beautifully for the last 22 hours.....

I'm thinking this my be my permanent sous vide setup.

 

[dinnerstick]

post-christmas report! dinner for 14, but the duck breasts i got were twice the expected size, so only cooked 7 (it's a 5 course meal, there was a crapload of other food!). cooked the duck in its original shrink-wrap packaging. 55 degrees (for non-celcius users, that's 328.15 kelvin!) for 2 hours, scored the skin, and then seared the skin side in very hot, completely dry frying pans. flipped and cooked the other side for 10 seconds or so. the sauce was tawny port, peppercorns, malic acid, homemade turkey and veal stocks, cherry jam. cooked in the braumeister, in the malt tube with full recirculation on! for those unfamiliar it pumps water/wort up from the bottom of the tube, over the top, over the heating element and thermistor, computer controlled.

 

[dinnerstick]

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

 

[dinnerstick]

forgot to add, rested the duck at least 5 minutes after frying. during frying i was sure to set off every smoke alarm within earshot. luckily the epic amount of wine already guzzled largely kept me from hearing it

 

[Revvy]

Looks great dinnerstick.

I didn't post this the other day, but this was my Sosu-Vide Christmas Eve dinner for myself.

Cooked the duck breasts for 2 hours @ 135 in my coffee urn sous-vide with some garlic, thyme, and a couple of orange slices in the pouches. The crisped them up in pan, then glazed them with a cherry wine and spices reductions. Served it over rice with grilled asparagus.

 

[Huaco]

DANGIT MAN... STOP!

LOL... Your pix are making me hungry and it's not even 10AM here in Texas yet!

 

[aubiecat]

Some good looking meals prepared in the home sous vide rigs. This year for Christmas I decided we weren't going to have the traditional dinner and opted for country ribs and pork tenderloin sous vide in bacon drippings. They were a smashing success!

 

[Brewing Clamper]

I'm using my electric boil kettle to sous vide a standing rib roast for tonight... I'll post pics if it works well....

 

[REM830]

I finally setup my control products temp control which replaced the brains of an old deep fryer I had sitting around. I added an old fountain pump and wired it so I can move the controller to my turkey fryer when I have a large amount of food to cook. I've cooked a couple duck breast in it to test it out and it works perfectly. I just finished cooking duck confit for 12 hours. I think this is going to be my new favorite kitchen toy.

 

[Huaco]

VERY cool idea! I bet these old deep fryers could be found at goodwill pretty easily as well... Was it pretty easy once you got the case opened up? And you said it was removable? COOL!

 

[REM830]

I see a lot of them on Craigslist. My turkey fryer was free. But yeah you should be able to find them at a thrift store too. The mechanical types are the easiest to work with. The digital ones will require a lobotomy.

Yes it was easy. The hardest thing was wiring it so the power is coming into the fryer itself. The controller was wired internally with 3 wires tapped in..., common ground, 120v and heating element. I am going to add a dpdt switch to allow me to bypass the controller and boil when needed. In case I want to actually fry something. Then another switch for just running the pump, this way I can use it for quickly thawing frozen stuff.

 

[Xpertskir]

Just one more reason for me to get my Brutus 20 going.

Question, At what temp does duck fat render? Are you able to render the fat whilst Sous Vide...ing? A properly seared duck breast is exceptional...while one with a lot of fat left is well...medicore.

Also Revvy will you post your pork belly technique?

 

[Revvy]

For the duck breasts I followed J kenzie Alt-Lopez's recommendations. 135 degrees for 2 hours.

By cooking it at 135°F for two hours, much of the fat under the skin begins to soften and render out while the proteins in it begin to set, making it easier to crisp without shrinking on the stovetop just before serving.

It was beautiful, and I have a nice jar of rendered duck fat.

This is what I went by for the 24 hour pork belly.

 

[Xpertskir]

Ok, sold and thanks.


Ill be almost as excited to sous vides with my new set up as I am to brew.

The duck fat is a double bonus.

My plan is to do the duck breasts, use the fat for duck fat potatoes and a roux to thicken whatever sauce I plan to make.

Then use any leftover duck fat for a few of the pork belly confit packages.

 

[dinnerstick]

duck breasts- my 2 cents- i've been cooking them a lot lately. 55 to 57 deg C (57C=135F) 2 hours as revvy says doesn't render the fat but makes it very very easy to do so. i go with the slightly lower 55 if using soft farmed duck and 57 if using gamey wild duck, which is smaller, has much less fat, and requires much less time in the frying pan. but make sure after sous vide you get the skin very dry; paper towel it, and it's best to cut a few slits in the skin, this will let the fat render out evenly. then get them into a ridiculously hot, bone dry frying pan until the skin is browned. you will still have a little layer under the skin but it won't be oily tasting against the crisp skin. i then flip them for a few seconds to sear the non-skin side, mostly for aesthetics.