I wonder If a bed of salt on the active warming tray with the scallop shell pre-warmed and nested in the warm salt would keep the grits warm for a longer period?

I have a home unit, a "DIY" that was replaced by the home unit so the kid could use it (long story)
And I just ordered the parts for a second (the DIY will be no longer). I ordered a commercial vacuum sealer today from points on my business credit card that had to be used by year's end (the sealer was 4x what I paid for the home sous vide unit!). Since I had some points left over, I picked up a controller from amazon "Dork food" (seriously). As well as from shopko an end of season 'Butterball turkey fryer' that according to the controller reviews worked out great. $50 for the fryer. I liked the fryer rather than a cheaper crock pot due to the size and basket. Amazon price for the thing is $120, and from my local experience, severely overpriced. Anyway, $150 total for a decent sized sous vide unit.

Why two? This holiday season I found myself needing two due to different requirements and a larger volume than I had planned due to delivering meals to some shut ins.

Anyway, the reason for the post is to let folks know that the larger turkey fryers (they claim 14 lbs) can be had for $50 end of season at a number of stores on close out. A decent base for use with a temperature controller. Food grade water/oil pumps can be had for $15 if you want a faster than convection water circulator.

I've decided to trying my hand at sous vide after becoming seriously addicted to the Starbucks sous vide eggs. I've seen the Anova and others, but came across an ad for the MasterSous.

I can't find a price or reviews for it anywhere on Google, but it seems like a premium product.

The ad sent me to mastersous.com. Anyone familiar with it?

Thanks!

johnfarmstrong wrote:I've decided to trying my hand at sous vide after becoming seriously addicted to the Starbucks sous vide eggs. I've seen the Anova and others, but came across an ad for the MasterSous.

I can't find a price or reviews for it anywhere on Google, but it seems like a premium product.

The ad sent me to mastersous.com. Anyone familiar with it?

Thanks!

Looks like it isn't available yet, the website says they're going to launch a Kickstarter campaign at some point. Also can't tell how it works from the information they give. I would guess it's similar in function to the Tasty One Top. If that is how the Mastersous works I think you would get much better sous vide results using a circulator, keeping the water moving ensures even heat distribution throughout the bath.

johnfarmstrong wrote:I've decided to trying my hand at sous vide after becoming seriously addicted to the Starbucks sous vide eggs. I've seen the Anova and others, but came across an ad for the MasterSous.

I can't find a price or reviews for it anywhere on Google, but it seems like a premium product.

The ad sent me to mastersous.com. Anyone familiar with it?

Thanks!

Anova is reliable and reasonably priced. Hard to improve on it.

I think Joule from Chefsteps.com is amazing. Also, it is a great web site for food knowledge.

The Anova circulators are great, in the past they've had some really good offers pop up during the holiday season. They were acquired by Electrolux earlier this year so I'm not sure if that'll impact the holiday offers or not. Looks like Amazon has the BT version for $119 currently.

The Joule is smaller, more powerful (1200w heater vs. 800w in the Anova) and is water resistant enough to survive getting accidently dropped in a bath. The trade-off for the water resistance is that it has no on-board controls, you control it via an app on a smartphone or tablet. ChefSteps generally doesn't offer deep discounts like Anova, but they do occasionally put $20 off discount codes out and current Joule owners can generate a limited number of discount codes (5 I think?) to give to friends for $20 off.

Nomiku is coming out with a new model soon called the Sous Chef that will have an RFID reader built in for a prepared meal service. You'll just hold the bag up to the circulator, it reads the RFID chip and automatically sets the time/temp for the cook. The meal service is only available in San Francisco currently but they plan on expanding the coverage area over time.

Anova is currently selling their first generation Precision Cookers at a steep discount ($89 for BT, $109 for WiFi)...

http://anovaculinary.us7.list-manage.co ... d0300f4d27

ChefSteps sent out referral codes yesterday good for $30 off 9/25-9/26 only, the code giver also gets a $40 Amazon gift card the first time their code is used. If anyone wants to pull the trigger on one my code is sharejoule-0sfzhb.

I love my Anova, works great every time. I go through phases where I don't cook as much at home, but I expect to get back to it soon. I want to experiment with chicken temps because you can cook it much lower than you think with sous-vide (like 140 degrees) that gives it a totally different texture. Steaks always come out perfect after the final sear.

There is a Curtis Stone-branded sous vide device on sale for $46.99 (no financial connections) as of 22-Mar-2021 (YMMV). Weird thing about this one is that it has a 'Beverage Cooler' function. I don't know how it's doing that; there are piezo gradient cooling devices, but I don't see any way for this thing to vent the waste heat out the other side (most immersion chillers work by circulating another cold liquid).

JoelF wrote:There is a Curtis Stone-branded sous vide device on sale for $46.99 (no financial connections) as of 22-Mar-2021 (YMMV). Weird thing about this one is that it has a 'Beverage Cooler' function. I don't know how it's doing that . . .

It looks like the 'Beverage Cooler' function is really an 'Ice Bath Warmer' function.

Boing Boing listing wrote:With an additional beverage chiller function, you can create an ice bath then add the sous vide stick to keep drinks cool.

Rene G wrote:It looks like the 'Beverage Cooler' function is really an 'Ice Bath Warmer' function.

Or a "Heating Element Off, Circulator On" function.

tjr wrote:Or a "Heating Element Off, Circulator On" function.

Yeah, that's probably it. Either way, it doesn't seem like a particularly useful feature.

JoelF wrote:There is a Curtis Stone-branded sous vide device on sale for $46.99 (no financial connections) as of 22-Mar-2021 (YMMV). Weird thing about this one is that it has a 'Beverage Cooler' function. I don't know how it's doing that; there are piezo gradient cooling devices, but I don't see any way for this thing to vent the waste heat out the other side (most immersion chillers work by circulating another cold liquid).

I had to go searching for specs online, but it is 1200 watts.