Sous Vide Supreme

Kali_62463

Hello, I am new to the Sous Vide world and would like to get some advice on what kind of tools I should buy (it is expensive) Should I go on the cheap or should I buy a Sous Vide Supreme?

Any recommendations on how to save some $$$?

mike-chefsteps

I'm not sure what's expensive to you. I think you can get into sous vide for less than $300 these days, and that's less than a 3-quart All-Clad copper-core saute pan.

I have both an Anova One and a Sous Vide Supreme Demi, along with an SVS-branded edge-clamp style vacuum sealer. I like both; see below for details.

I suggest an Anova Precision Cooker. It has two big advantages over an SVS: price and flexibility. It's substantially cheaper and you can use it in substantially larger baths. You don't need a vacuum sealer for a lot of sous vide, (and I recall Dave Arnold saying on Cooking Issues podcast that these days he just suggests most people stick with zippies unless they can get a good chamber vac,) but an inexpensive clamp-style sealer is a broadly useful and inexpensive tool.

The Anova One's interface is fairly good, it heats up quickly, it's quiet (but not silent), and the build is for the most part solid. My one complaint there is that the metal skirt can shift around and the impeller blades can rub against it, resulting in a terrible screeching and (I assume) stress on the motor. I usually use it in a 2-gallon stockpot but have also used it in a 5ish gallon cooler for larger and longer cooks, because I prefer an insulated container to help reduce the power consumption.

The One is fairly tall; it won't fit in my 4- or 6- quart pots, only my 8-quart and 12-quart ones. And in practice, the One needs about a gallon of water minimum to cook; the Precision's adjustable clamp is supposed to address both of those issues. In long or high-temperature cooks, evaporation from the bath can be an issue, and you'll have to find a cover for the bath that has a hole or space for the circulator (I usually just use foil).

By comparison, the SVS Demi is silent. It's insulated. It comes with a lid, so you don't have to find one. I haven't compared its heating rate to the Anova One but it's not noticeable slower. Its interface is also pretty good. The bath chamber is not very large, and in the beginning I found myself filling it nearly edge-to-edge quite frequently - e.g. after cubing a whole pork shoulder, I'd need a couple of gallon bags to hold it all in a single layer, and those would really fill the bath. The full-sized SVS's chamber is only a little larger than the Demi's. I'd expect it to be easy to crowd.

The vacuum sealer came with the Demi in a bundle from Costco (they have a better one on sale now, looks like - http://www.costco.com/SousVide-Supreme%E2%84%A2-Demi-Water-Oven-System.product.100126385.html ). It works fine, and I find it really useful for a lot more than just packaging for sous vide. For example, not long ago I got a big block of mozzarella for pizza; I cut it into 8ish ounce portions, sealed each, and stuck them in the freezer in a stack. One comes out for each pie I'm going to make (and they thaw rapidly in an 80 degree F bath). I think these sealers are about $100 on Amazon, and you can get 50 foot rolls of bag for $20 or so. So I think they're a pretty good value, even if they're not strictly necessary for sous vide.