Finally dipped my toes into it with the recent black friday deals on the Anova for $100. It came yesterday, and I used it to make eggs. Creamiest scrambled eggs I've ever had!
It will be hard to get more mainstream than it is now. Breville, for instance, now owns PolyScience. What I mostly see in new products is gimmickry --- elaborate wifi controls, machine learning to identify what kind of food you're cooking, attempts to temperature-control pans instead of water baths. You can (and should) just buy an Anova, Poly, or Sansaire unit for about $100.
Major kitchen equipment manufacturers are all going to have low-temp cooking appliances within the next few years.
This article, meanwhile, is pretty annoying. For instance: the "until recently" shot of older lab-style circulators is entirely bogus: for more than 5 years, even the PolyScience units --- even the restaurant-grade pro ones --- have been approximately as slick as the Sansaires and Anovas. Nomiku was an early entrant to the market, but they've pretty much been lapped.
The "next" thing to watch for is probably home-compatible combi ovens (combi ovens cook in temperature controlled steam baths instead of water baths). There are already some products here, but I don't know how good they are yet.
I've been listening to Dave Arnold's Cooking Issues podcast a lot recently. He's just announced the Spinzall centrifuge. It is a bargain for what it is, but still too much for the use I'd get out of it. And once you've got a centrifuge, you of course have to get a rotovap, a Vitaprep, and a chamber sealer. Not that you need all this stuff to get good use out of the centrifuge, but just because.
And as I noted in another comment, the "until recently" bit is partly because this article is from 2014.
I find myself hoping that he's not going to say something on an upcoming Cooking Issues that is going to make me want to buy a Spinzall, because, like you, I can't really think of any kind of routine use I'd get out of it, and I need fewer not more gadgets in my life.
May be anecdotal: I have several friends who got really excited about this and bought anything from DIY kits to industrial grade Sous Vide immersion circulators. All of which are now collecting dust after using them 3 times. Reminds me of the phenomenon of sandwich makers in Germany somewhere in the 90s. Must have been 15 years since I've seen one since.
Edit: After all these replies, my evidence seems to be in fact anecdotal.
I use my sous vide machine around 3 times a week (I bought it about a year ago). For most preparations, sous vide is not more convenient than conventional cookery–the long cook times are almost never worth it.
But convenience is not the benefit; with sous vide I can prepare expensive steaks without risk of ruining them (in fact without risk of falling short of perfection). Were I Daniel Boulud, I would not have much need for it, but as a mere mortal, I imagine I will continue to love sous vide.
I imagine the industrial grade units are collecting dust due to size/weight. We have a few Julabo immersion circulators at work, and they're not exactly what you'd call conveniently sized.
I use my Sansaire once or twice a week. There is no other way to make pork chops.
The nice thing about the Sansaire is that it supports temperature setpoints lower than most other (all other?) units. I use it for long proofs of no knead bread at 21C for around 18h. The dough sits in a one gallon bucket covered with plastic that I set into the water bath in a cool room in my basement. Perfectly proofed dough. Every. Single. Time.
The Anova goes down to 5C but annoyingly, does not go all the way down to 0C. If it did, it would be perfect for something like chilling champagne in an ice bucket as just the impeller would run and keep the water circulating. But because the limit is 5C, you can't get just the impeller running, it would also be dumping 800W of heat into the water at the same time.
If you already have/want an InstantPot (or other electric pressure cooker), adding ability to do sous-vide in the same machine would be a plus (they already market them as "7-in-1!"--it's a crockpot; it's a yogurt maker).
Also, the pressure vessel means you can go to water temps above 100C. Not sure if that's a useful/interesting range for most ingredients, but some creative souls might find a use for it.
If sous vide catches on, I wonder if the next step in the progression is pre-packaged or even pre-cooked sous vide meats. Isn't that how the restaurants do it? It's more sanitary because it eliminates the handling of raw meat.
I also wonder if a low power microwave oven would be an alternative to a hot water bath. I don't know how the two methods would compare for efficiency.
> I wonder if the next step in the progression is pre-packaged or even pre-cooked sous vide meats.
Coles supermarkets in Australia have been selling pre-cooked, pre-sauced sous vide meats for a couple of years now, though they don't say "sous vide" on the packaging but rather "slow cooked for N hours". But the actual product is clearly cooked sous vide – the interior packaging is a vacuum sealed bag and the results are exactly what you'd expect.
> Isn't that how the restaurants do it?
In my experience it's more common in the restaurant world but still not pervasive.
> I also wonder if a low power microwave oven would be an alternative to a hot water bath.
Poorly. An immersion circulator is probably the simplest and ultimately cheapest form of the idea; engineering-wise they're not much more complicated than an electric kettle. It just needs economies of scale to really kick in.
A microwave would also be highly impractical for all but the shortest cooks. Sous vide often takes multiple hours or even multiple days – I do 10 hour pork belly and 72 hour lamb shanks. For the latter I usually set it up in the laundry and switch from a stockpot to an esky (cooler box). Very easy to do with an immersion circulator.
Larger companies are working on Anova-like devices and some of them are already popping up. Just saw [1] last week in a grocery store here, in Switzerland. It's as mainstream as it gets.
Do the chemicals in the plastic bags not leach into the food? That's always been my greatest fear, given that things like BPA weren't understood until someone decided to analyze it. Has there been a test ensuring that boiling a plastic bag doesn't emit chemicals into the food that it's holding?
Sous vide is usually at a lower temperature than boiling. I did some research and felt pretty safe about using ziploc bags with mine for meats up to 160 F. People have done testing on this stuff.
a) You aren't boiling the water, not even close most of the time. Most meats are cooked around 135F - 150F. You might take veggies up to maybe 185F, but I don't think most people SV vegetables anyway.
b) Dave Arnold on his Cooking Issues podcast got the SC Johnson folks to confirm that their ZipLoc bags are safe for this application. In fact, I checked one box of mine and it says "BPA free".
c) FoodSaver bags are safe as well, but I don't have a reference handy.
Despite the date showing for the article it's actually from 2014 - possibly a mistake in correcting something minor led to the date being changed.
That said, I could see a nice use for a connected device like this used in an insulated container - prep food in the morning, then leave it in an ice water bath. At an appropriate time turn the heater on remotely. As long as there's water present to be heated and circulated it should be fine for quite a while.
I love my Anova cooker. Not only is it dead simple to get meat prepared exactly to the point you want, it is also much more tender, as over time, any tendons slowly dissolve. And I have gotten much more critical of any preparations of meat which ended up too dry because the meat had been overheated.
Sous Vide is an interesting market because quality is very much a binary quantity. Either it works or it doesn't, there's not "better" sous vide or "worse" sous vide. All the other dimensions under which the product competes (size, noise, reliability, UI) appear to be hygiene factors (ie: we just care that they're good enough. Beyond that, we're indifferent).
As a result, there's very little room for differentiation in this space and a rapid descent into commoditization with very little room for profits. The big players in the market are betting their hope on apps which seems misguided. Expect to see Chinese competitors come in and ruthlessly undercut on price and leave the current players in the dust. Those no-name Chinese brands are going to be the real people who will take SV mainstream.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 88.0 ms ] threadMajor kitchen equipment manufacturers are all going to have low-temp cooking appliances within the next few years.
This article, meanwhile, is pretty annoying. For instance: the "until recently" shot of older lab-style circulators is entirely bogus: for more than 5 years, even the PolyScience units --- even the restaurant-grade pro ones --- have been approximately as slick as the Sansaires and Anovas. Nomiku was an early entrant to the market, but they've pretty much been lapped.
The "next" thing to watch for is probably home-compatible combi ovens (combi ovens cook in temperature controlled steam baths instead of water baths). There are already some products here, but I don't know how good they are yet.
And as I noted in another comment, the "until recently" bit is partly because this article is from 2014.
Edit: After all these replies, my evidence seems to be in fact anecdotal.
Sorry “someday” is not today.
We all use ours several times a week. It turns out so good and so consistent, I basically use it for all beef, chicken, pork, and lamb.
But convenience is not the benefit; with sous vide I can prepare expensive steaks without risk of ruining them (in fact without risk of falling short of perfection). Were I Daniel Boulud, I would not have much need for it, but as a mere mortal, I imagine I will continue to love sous vide.
Does the best eggs I've ever had and pretty great lobster too.
Sous Vide bacon is stunning as well: so creamy.
The nice thing about the Sansaire is that it supports temperature setpoints lower than most other (all other?) units. I use it for long proofs of no knead bread at 21C for around 18h. The dough sits in a one gallon bucket covered with plastic that I set into the water bath in a cool room in my basement. Perfectly proofed dough. Every. Single. Time.
I bought my Bluetooth(rarely use that part, just set and walk away) cooker for $125 over a year ago. Why would this competitor make it go mainstream.
I am all for more consumer options, but how is this different/better?
They are fundamentally different cooking techniques. Immersion cooking, "sous vide", is cooking food in a sealed bag in a water bath.
"instant pot" are more like smart cockpot/pressure cookers where the food is contained a pressurized (sometimes) vessel in air.
Which is better depends on the type of food and cooking technique you wish to utilize.
I get what I can do with a pressure cooker that I can't do with a circulator.
I do not get what I can do with an unpressurized "smart crock pot" that I can't do with a circulator.
Also, the pressure vessel means you can go to water temps above 100C. Not sure if that's a useful/interesting range for most ingredients, but some creative souls might find a use for it.
I also wonder if a low power microwave oven would be an alternative to a hot water bath. I don't know how the two methods would compare for efficiency.
Coles supermarkets in Australia have been selling pre-cooked, pre-sauced sous vide meats for a couple of years now, though they don't say "sous vide" on the packaging but rather "slow cooked for N hours". But the actual product is clearly cooked sous vide – the interior packaging is a vacuum sealed bag and the results are exactly what you'd expect.
> Isn't that how the restaurants do it?
In my experience it's more common in the restaurant world but still not pervasive.
> I also wonder if a low power microwave oven would be an alternative to a hot water bath.
Poorly. An immersion circulator is probably the simplest and ultimately cheapest form of the idea; engineering-wise they're not much more complicated than an electric kettle. It just needs economies of scale to really kick in.
A microwave would also be highly impractical for all but the shortest cooks. Sous vide often takes multiple hours or even multiple days – I do 10 hour pork belly and 72 hour lamb shanks. For the latter I usually set it up in the laundry and switch from a stockpot to an esky (cooler box). Very easy to do with an immersion circulator.
"we thought we'd resurface our look at one of the early smart sous-vide machines from August 2014."
Larger companies are working on Anova-like devices and some of them are already popping up. Just saw [1] last week in a grocery store here, in Switzerland. It's as mainstream as it gets.
[1] https://www.bettybossi.ch/de/Angebote/Detail/12168232977?tit...
b) Dave Arnold on his Cooking Issues podcast got the SC Johnson folks to confirm that their ZipLoc bags are safe for this application. In fact, I checked one box of mine and it says "BPA free".
c) FoodSaver bags are safe as well, but I don't have a reference handy.
Carrots in SV are ungodly. Impossible to eat them cooked any other way IMO.
That said, I could see a nice use for a connected device like this used in an insulated container - prep food in the morning, then leave it in an ice water bath. At an appropriate time turn the heater on remotely. As long as there's water present to be heated and circulated it should be fine for quite a while.
As a result, there's very little room for differentiation in this space and a rapid descent into commoditization with very little room for profits. The big players in the market are betting their hope on apps which seems misguided. Expect to see Chinese competitors come in and ruthlessly undercut on price and leave the current players in the dust. Those no-name Chinese brands are going to be the real people who will take SV mainstream.