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Jan posted:I'm drooling over Kenji's current run of sous vide chicken salad recipes and figure the Father's Day discount is as good a time as any to take the plunge. Just have some basic questions before I do: Both boxes fit on a large knapsack, the One comes in a box, the Precision Cooker on a cylinder. If you have any sort of storage on your bike you can probably attach the boxes.
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Jun 9, 2015 16:18
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Jan posted:There's been talks of cambros for the last few pages, why use those over a plain stock pot? If you're a huge nerd and you want to cosplay Kenji Lopez-Alt, use a Cambro. If you're in your house, use a drat stock pot. Throw an aluminum foil lid on that poo poo if you're doing a >24hr cook.
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Jun 9, 2015 16:52
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The cambro gives you more useable space than a stockpot. Plus you can see your food and know if it's floating. Or ruptured, I guess. But I can do 3 bags of short ribs in my cambro with plenty of room for water circulation and in a stock pot they would be crammed together. And they don't use cambros for sous vide in commercial kitchens because they look cool, they use them because they're the best option.
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Jun 9, 2015 16:59
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yeah what do you all think about those plastic balls they sell to supposedly keep heat in? I take it foil is just as good, and at a fraction of the price?
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Jun 9, 2015 17:29
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Safety Dance posted:If you're a huge nerd and you want to cosplay Kenji Lopez-Alt, use a Cambro. If you're in your house, use a drat stock pot. Throw an aluminum foil lid on that poo poo if you're doing a >24hr cook. FYI if you're using a stainless steel stock pot as most people have, aluminum foil will corrode/dissolve if it's in contact with the bath for any length of time during the cook. The center sagged in overnight the last time I did that and even though I had plastic wrap under the foil, there was enough moisture that there were giant holes in the foil the next morning.
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Jun 9, 2015 17:31
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drukqs posted:yeah what do you all think about those plastic balls they sell to supposedly keep heat in? I take it foil is just as good, and at a fraction of the price? You can also use regular ping pong balls which are dirtass cheap and reusable unlike foil.
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Jun 9, 2015 17:33
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drukqs posted:yeah what do you all think about those plastic balls they sell to supposedly keep heat in? I take it foil is just as good, and at a fraction of the price? Just use a couple dozen pingpong balls. Metal transmits heat extremely efficiently, and something full of air does not.
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Jun 9, 2015 17:33
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I didn't buy a vacuum sealer so I'll just do the ziplock bag thing for now until I need one. Is there anything I need to watch out for wrt heating plastic? Are the ziplock brand bags safe to heat?
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Jun 9, 2015 18:28
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Also not all circulators will reach higher temps on a stockpot leaking heat all over. If I didn't have a properly sized cambro I'd use a small cooler for my steak fishies.
deimos fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 18:37
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EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:Just use a couple dozen pingpong balls. Metal transmits heat extremely efficiently, and something full of air does not. The pot's metal and has a lot more surface area than just the surface of the water does. The point behind the cover isn't for thermal insulation, it's to reduce evaporation so you don't come home from work and find out that the water level dropped below the cutoff point and your 72-hour shortribs are now 112-degree food poisoning. deimos posted:Also not all circulators will maintain higher temps on a stockpot leaking heat all over. If the circulator can get whatever quantity of water you're using up to the target temperature, it can hold it there. Water has a *lot* of thermal mass.
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Jun 9, 2015 18:53
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drukqs posted:yeah what do you all think about those plastic balls they sell to supposedly keep heat in? I take it foil is just as good, and at a fraction of the price? Get a bag of practice ping pong balls on Amazon. $10.
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Jun 9, 2015 18:54
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Phanatic posted:The pot's metal and has a lot more surface area than just the surface of the water does. The point behind the cover isn't for thermal insulation, it's to reduce evaporation so you don't come home from work and find out that the water level dropped below the cutoff point and your 72-hour shortribs are now 112-degree food poisoning.
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Jun 9, 2015 18:55
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MasterFugu posted:foil will leak air, so the point you're going for isn't there. Yeah and idiotic plastic balls won't? It's about reducing the _amount_ of water vapor that escapes.
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Jun 9, 2015 19:04
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There's probably value to improved insulation on long cooks too. Less energy usage and whatnot. The balls are primarily beneficial in a commercial setting where you're adding and removing stuff all the time. I just put the lid on my cambro, which has a cutout for the IC.
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Jun 9, 2015 19:06
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Phanatic posted:If the circulator can get whatever quantity of water you're using up to the target temperature, it can hold it there. Water has a *lot* of thermal mass. Err you're right, I meant to say not all circulators will reach higher temps on heat-leaky containers.
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Jun 9, 2015 19:21
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Safety Dance posted:Yeah and idiotic plastic balls won't? It's about reducing the _amount_ of water vapor that escapes.
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Jun 9, 2015 19:35
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MasterFugu posted:not if they're in the water and reflecting heat back down (also reducing the surface area of the water in contact with the air), which foil being metal and generally unable to float reliably, it can't do as well. Unless you've figured out a way to close-pack equal spheres which the entire mathematics community is unaware of, there's space between the balls, and water's going to evaporate. Over any reasonable period of cooking, the difference between a sheet of aluminum foil crimped around the open top of the pot and a couple-dozen ping-pong balls with be approximately gently caress/all. If you personally find dealing with a couple of dozen ping pong balls easier than tearing off a square foot of foil, get on down with that approach.
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Jun 9, 2015 20:45
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My nomiku is holding temp a few degrees higher than the setpoint. Is this a known problem or anything like that? Mine is one of the original ones from the kickstarter. e: both the current temp display and actual water temp are staying 3-ish degrees above the setpoint. taqueso fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 21:23
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Sounds like the PID isn't calibrated correctly.
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Jun 9, 2015 21:40
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I'm not aware of any way to calibrate the Nomiku, so you might just have to always set it 3°F below the target.
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Jun 9, 2015 21:40
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It was calibrated correctly until yesterday.  Maybe if I clean the temp sensor of hard water scale or something...
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Jun 9, 2015 21:46
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Email 'em. The Nom people are remarkably responsive.
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Jun 9, 2015 21:49
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i've been sticking a pirex bowl full of the sous vide water into the pot to keep things submerged and not had any problems. is that a bad idea?
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Jun 9, 2015 23:12
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Boris Galerkin posted:I didn't buy a vacuum sealer so I'll just do the ziplock bag thing for now until I need one. Is there anything I need to watch out for wrt heating plastic? Are the ziplock brand bags safe to heat? I did a bit of research into this when I got my sous vide machine a while back and the consensus is that as long as you get either Ziplock or Glad brand freezer bags the contents will be BPA-free after a sous-vide trip. Off-brand bags do not fare as well, neither do non-freezer versions of the name brands' bags. The big thing to watch out for, and I've seen a lot of this (about 1 in 25), is quart freezer bags that contain defects and let water in. If you're going to use the bags, check to see if there are any gaps in the sides where the bag wasn't made properly.
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Jun 10, 2015 00:17
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Jose posted:i've been sticking a pirex bowl full of the sous vide water into the pot to keep things submerged and not had any problems. is that a bad idea? I do that all the time when making veggies and haven't had a problem yet.
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Jun 10, 2015 02:04
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Jose posted:i've been sticking a pirex bowl full of the sous vide water into the pot to keep things submerged and not had any problems. is that a bad idea? I usually do the same but with mason jars instead. Works fine.
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Jun 10, 2015 02:06
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Jose posted:i've been sticking a pirex bowl full of the sous vide water into the pot to keep things submerged and not had any problems. is that a bad idea? An upside down steamer basket or small colander doesn't get air bubbles
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Jun 10, 2015 02:07
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Just ate my 72 hour short ribs today. I think I did a lot of little things "wrong" (didn't pre-sear, used freezer bags/displacement instead of vacuum sealer), but whatever, they were faaantastic. I used my Dorkfood controller and cooked them at 134F for about 78 hours. Very tender and the fat was really soft and melty. Seared it with a MAPP torch afterward. I think because it was in a crock pot part of it might have cooked a little hotter than 134 because it was kind of resting on the bottom of the crock. Also they were really, really fatty ribs and didn't have as much meat as I expected on them. Still, as a proof of concept and a first time long cook I am really happy with the results. 
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Jun 10, 2015 02:33
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What temps do y'all do your burgers at? I had it in my brain that 135F = Medium Rare but holy hell that was a huge mistake. My burgs turned into hockey pucks.
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Jun 10, 2015 03:16
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Argyle posted:What temps do y'all do your burgers at? I had it in my brain that 135F = Medium Rare but holy hell that was a huge mistake. My burgs turned into hockey pucks. A skoch under 135F usually. The trick is, you gotta hit 'em with a super hot and fast sear, otherwise the heat propagates through the patty too quickly. If I'm feeling lazy (all the time), I'll do 'em at 135, cool them back down, and refrigerate. Then I'll just pull out one or two at a time and put a quick (but not super urgent) sear on them before serving (alternatively, 7 minutes under the broiler in my office's toaster oven brings them from fridge-cold to rather nice).
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Jun 10, 2015 05:13
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Safety Dance posted:If you're a huge nerd and you want to cosplay Kenji Lopez-Alt, use a Cambro. If you're in your house, use a drat stock pot. Throw an aluminum foil lid on that poo poo if you're doing a >24hr cook. Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:The cambro gives you more useable space than a stockpot. Plus you can see your food and know if it's floating. Or ruptured, I guess. But I can do 3 bags of short ribs in my cambro with plenty of room for water circulation and in a stock pot they would be crammed together.  I'm already fairly short on kitchen space, so the cooker itself taking barely more space than an immersion blender was a deciding factor in taking the plunge.
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Jun 10, 2015 05:27
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Safety Dance posted:A skoch under 135F usually. The trick is, you gotta hit 'em with a super hot and fast sear, otherwise the heat propagates through the patty too quickly. Huh. Mine were brown and well-done all the way through, right out of the water. I hope it's not my Anova. I even double-checked the water temp with a second thermometer to confirm that 135 = 135.
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Jun 10, 2015 07:04
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What sized patties are you using?
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Jun 10, 2015 07:06
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1/3 pound. Too small?
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Jun 10, 2015 07:23
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I thought burger times were 120 for rare, 130 for medium, 140 for well done?
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Jun 10, 2015 08:11
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Argyle posted:Huh. Mine were brown and well-done all the way through, right out of the water. Basically when you see grey or brown meat what you're looking at is myoglobin that's denatured and formed one of a couple different compounds, depending on what the iron in the myoglobin happened to bind with. What the iron was bound to before the myoglobin was denatured is one of the factors that determines what happens when it does denature, and it also influences how likely it is to denature at any given temperature. Oxymyoglobin, which is the pinkish colour of the surface of raw meat in air, will (all else being equal) denature into hemichrome (which is the greyish colour you probably associate with well-done meat) at a lower temperature than deoxymyoglobin, which is the more purplish or bluish colour you see in the interior of meat. Since ground meat is nearly all surface, nearly all of the iron in the myoglobin will be in the form of oxymyoglobin, and so will turn greyish sooner than meat a cm inside e.g. a steak (where the myoglobin will mostly be in the form of deoxymyoglobin) even if the two are at exactly the same temperature and doneness. So tl;dr: don't rely on colour to judge doneness. If your burgers were coming out too tough at 135, chances are it was either just poo poo ground beef or it was just plain too lean. You can do a lot with lovely ground beef and very lean ground beef, but a burger, even done in a puddle machine, really isn't one of them.
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Jun 10, 2015 08:26
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Argyle posted:1/3 pound. Too small?
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Jun 10, 2015 09:01
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MasterFugu posted:not if they're in the water and reflecting heat back down (also reducing the surface area of the water in contact with the air), which foil being metal and generally unable to float reliably, it can't do as well. This sounds dumb as hell, vapor pressure inside a crimped tinfoil cover will do way more to slow evaporation then ping pong balls floating on the top.
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Jun 10, 2015 15:32
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We just need ping pong cubes, someone could make a fortune.
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Jun 10, 2015 15:43
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I bet I could find a high temperature foam board, cut it to fit various ICs in various Cambros, and sell it at immense markup to puddledorks, billing it as the best heat and water loss solution for your most longest, most temperature sensitive sous vide applications.
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Jun 10, 2015 15:52
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