Circulating Liquids Other than Water

Has anyone used their water circulators to circulate oil or broth? I was watching the Chefsteps video where they make beef stock in the sous vide supreme and they can dump all the ingredients directly in the bath.I know Dave Arnold from Cooking Issues used his old school poly science circulator with a cage around the heating coils to circulate water with a broken down bratwurst to circulate sausages. He put cheesecloth around the cage to prevent fines from getting into the impeller and heating coils.

I am thinking of doing something similar with my ANOVA circulator but I am guessing there will be some modifications needs for this. I will probably need to change out/cover the stainless steel enclosure with a cage (or noodle strainer) to increase the flow area and cover the cage with cheese cloth.

Has anyone tried something similar? I think clean up would be a pain, but other than that it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

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Comments

Johan_Edstrom_5586

I'd really avoid that in a circulation system.

Brendan_Lee_56950

It's not so much the fact that it can or cannot be circulated but the high risk of damaging the internals with built up grease. AFAIK the original polyscience unit is really just a lab unit which is actually built for liquids other than water. The newer models I don't believe are rated for that.

reck.harm

Yeah chances are you'll gunk up your pump. Unless you don't care about killing your circulator i wouldn't try that.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Anova doesn't say anything about it on their site (that I can find; I own two of their units, btw). But the Sansaire site recommends against it in their FAQ. I stick with water.

jason.r.whitworth

I think i read somewhere about using beer for cooking sausages and maybe Thomas Keller used to have a circulator of butter for cooking lobster?

I think as long as the liquid did not have bits or chunks and you cleaned the circulator thoroughly after seems like it would work.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

I think he was asked to stop doing that by PS, they kept breaking the circulators.

tshewman

I typically will use the water bath as sort of a bain marie. Set it at fixed temp, tape a SS bowl or tray to the sides and fill with preferred liquid. Have done it with olive oil for egg yolks (good success), butter for lobster tails (good success) and chocolate (good success). Yes, clean up would be a bit of a hassle, but the shear cost of the amount of product required has prevented me from going direct into he bath. It would take a few gallons of butter and for that, I'd want to bath in it myself. :-)

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Have you ever tried doing that using a stovetop rig? I'm curious, because I think the liquid in the secondary vessel might be unevenly heated and would require stirring. On the stovetop, you could offset the pot of water on the heat source and create a natural convection that might keep the poaching/cooking liquid at a more uniform temp. Or I could be completely making that up. One doesn't know.

tshewman

Haven't tried it stove top. Have only poached direct using a thermometer (similar to stove top sous vide without a bag) and the temperature isn't as consistent as using a water bath. Plastic wrap as a lid seemed to help temperature stability. ....but in retrospect I would only test one area (and always the same one)...

jason.r.whitworth

Hmm maybe correct.

I always thought he had to stop that due it being a violation of some NY health code law or something, but you may be correct.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

It may be a tad inside, but it is a health violation too.

Alex_Thomson_41278

Dave Arnold from Cooking Issues once cooked a turkey by, I believe, circulating oil. The links no longer work but I suspect the content is still on their site somewhere: http://www.cookingissues.com/

If I remember correctly, he used one of the lab-style polyscience circulators which a relatively exposed pump. I think it turned out, by his own admission, just ok.

mike-chefsteps

The Anova One manual says

"Anova sous vide circulators are designed to be used only with water."

https://anova.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203861170-Anova-One-User-Manual see page 8.