Resources for Cooking Sous Vide

Submitted by Stuart Broz on Wed, 12/09/2009 - 9:57pm

Online Sous Vide Resources

These are the two best online resources for sous vide cooking that I've found:

  • A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking is a short guide to sous vide cooking written by mathematician Douglas Baldwin. Translations into French, German, and Portuguese are available.
  • Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment is a giant (100+ page) forum thread on eGullet. Frequent contributors include the aforementioned Douglas Baldwin, Alexander Talbot, and Nathan Myhrvold. This thread has a tremendous amount of information - cooking times and temperatures, recipes, equipment recommendations, tips, etc. The problem is that it is huge. I heartily recommend the search function.

Offline Sous Vide Resources

Equipment

For sous vide cooking, you need a few things:

  • A container for holding a quantity of water. If this container is not well-insulated, you'll also need something to circulate the water (to help keep the water temperature constant).
  • A method of heating the water with accurate temperature control.
  • A method of vacuum sealing your food.

Temperature Control Equipment

At the high-end, you can spend several thousand dollars on immersion circulators and related equipment. Immersion circulators have the advantage of being portable and flexible. You can use them alongside a middling-sized pot of water... or a bathtub. Still, you don't need an immersion circulator to cook sous vide. There are a couple of other options, including:

Vacuum Sealing Equipment

Sous Vide

Comments

Submitted by Frank Hsu (not verified) on Thu, 12/10/2009 - 12:32pm.

Thank you for mentioning SousVideMagic on your blog.
We are offering SousVideMagic TM-1500D for $159.50 including free shipping to USA and Canada. SousVideMagic 1500D is an in-house developed product and is not a re-branded product from Auber.
I would appreciate if you can make the correction.
You have an excellent guide for sous vide cooking. Thank you.

Submitted by crimfan on Fri, 12/11/2009 - 5:03pm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T36Ez1pq3E8

Submitted by Chocolatesa (not verified) on Fri, 12/18/2009 - 1:00pm.

In reading the comments searched under Ranco in the Epic Sous-Vide Thread it seems that technically it can be used, but doesn't keep the temperature as well controlled as a PID controller, which can be problematic for cooking certain things sous-vide.

I was originally exited by the possibility of paying half the price of a SousVideMagic, but I'd rather have the precision than save money.

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Submitted by Stuart Broz on Fri, 12/18/2009 - 1:52pm.

Thanks for checking that out!

Submitted by Addelice (not verified) on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 3:01pm.

Hi,

We are pleased to inform you that the swid (addélice immersion circulator) is now available in Europe for EUR 380 incl. send, excl. VAT. The swid is a high quality immmersion circulator with ± 0.05°C stability. The 110V version of the swid will be available soon.

Stuart Broz's picture

Submitted by Stuart Broz on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 3:13pm.

That's an attractive-looking device. I'm glad to see the increase in availability of immersion circulators.

Submitted by Jeff (not verified) on Sat, 07/24/2010 - 11:18pm.

Hi -- the link to "Pick up a less expensive temperature controller" is messed up... would love to know what it's supposed to be :)

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Submitted by Stuart Broz on Sat, 07/24/2010 - 11:23pm.

Jeff - Thanks! The link should be fixed now.