pounce

Found you a nice shellfish recipe. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/recipes...eafood-sausage/

Buy a chamber vacuum sealer and a better IC or risk certain death!! Did you read the referenced thread/post?

Do you think you have any other pressure than your existing atmospheric pressure on the bag once it's sealed? You have only removed the air or anything else that escaped. I think there is a common misconception about SV and whether there is any vacuum in the bag after it's been sealed. Not sure where you are getting all this bacteria. Do you cook in pond water? If you are cooking food to safe temps in the bag your tap water in the bath should also be safe. This isn't some 80's hot tub party. heh. I'm mearly stating fact about using plastic wrap. If I didn't own a sealer I'd use it for things that required short cooking times. Why not if it works? If taken to the nth degree one might say you are not being correct or right in not using a chamber vacuum with gas flush. I'm just playing with you here, but seriously if you are using a FoodSaver or similar you are most definately not getting vacuum in the bag or really all of the available oxygen out of the bag. You can get a chamber machine for under 1k adequate for home use. That's still high in my opinion, but less than what you may have seen so far. Thanks for qualifying this. I think I understand now that you are ok with the various techniques people are using at home. Can you define the proper equipment for SV if it's not too much trouble? Is it a Lab IC and Chamber vacuum sealer? Or do you allow a heater, controller, circulator and some means of removing air and keeping the bath liquid away from the food? * adding up thread reference http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1069360

Stooping to an ad hominem arguement here? Sort of cheating, no? This is a little contradictory. This thread is loaded with posts describing how people have been successful with the approach. Maybe you need to define "Right" so we understand you better. I appreciate that you bought a lab bath, an expensive book and have poured over its pages. It's exciting stuff. You can see from the amount of input in this thread how much I enjoy SV. I am however a little puzzled why you feel you need to jump in and tell hundreds of people they are wrong in what they are doing. Vacuum is not required. Like I said you just want to remove the air or gas. You do not need a vacuum for this. There are other techniques. Do you own a chamber vacuum sealer with gas flush? You don't need a hermetic seal. You probably know this from poaching in oil. You can cook things in plastic wrap. It's a fact. Read up thread. Do I use a sealer? yes. A temp fluctuation of one degree is not going to dramatically effect a 48 hour cook time. I appreciate the science aspect of SV and I do like things to be precise, but there is a little fuzzy factor in practice. It's good to be precise in a book. Its gives a base on which to be creative or deviate from for the Art in Culinary Arts. Can you tell us the make and model of your immersion unit?

You don't need full vacuum. You just want to remove the air or other gas. It's not required. Things still cook with air in them. You do want a seal, but it's been proven up thread that wrapping some fish or similar in plastic wrap or slipped in a ziplock works too. Only a few thing things and approaches are sensitive to 1-2 degree fluctuations. Short cooking times and tricky things like eggs etc. Circulation is good, but constant circulation is not needed. If your item is at temp and your bath is insulated or otherwise does not dramatically drop in temp in blocks of time there isn't a need for circulation. It can be switched on and off. Circulation is good for short times or when trying to bring an item to temp as fast as possible. Yes, constant circulation can help in keeping all outside surfaces of the item in the bath at relatively the same temp. Out of curiosity, have you tried using methods other than lab equipment? I don't want people to think they cant get good results with "over the counter" products. I own both lab and non-lab equipment and have tested both. A PID like the auber unit *will* get you the exact or very close to the same results as a lab unit if you pick a good heat source and are creative with circulation. If it sounds like I am calling you out a little... it's because I am

See my setup up thread. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1517668 Sure you can use it, but you may get more fluctuation than your induction hob. The bain marie plus PID and some means of circulation works pretty well. I'd say get the bain marie and try it. If it/s not enough control add the PID. You really can't go wrong since a bain marie can be pretty useful on it's own.

Yes, with proper circulation there is very little difference. Once you realize that a lab unit is pretty much just a heater/pid/circulator as a single unit it's not much of a mental jump to compare the two.

Yea, these look pretty good. I saw one the other day and thought they would work well. Let us know how it goes. It looked to me like it wouldn't be too difficult to design a mount that could be fixed to a pot or whatever to accept the heating element from the multicooker. On of these and a PID plus the fish pump or swamp pump for a larger tank and you have a pretty cheap solution.

The Auber unit is spec'd for dual voltage and with only 750 watts you would be fine. .. if you went this way. Suyi at Auber is very helpful so if you wanted to stuff one of the pids into the unit you have he could probably recommend the solution. Personally, I'd get an external unit so you can use multiple heating elements. Better flexibility.

Pounce, At the resolution of the posted image I can't read the brand name on your warmer. It looks like a nice size for a countertop unit. Who's is it? Doc ← It's an Omcan TS-9000. This unit is frequently rebranded as someting else. I got it on ebay new for just over 100. It's a very nice unit, worth every penny. http://www.instawares.com/omcan-food-warme...-ts9000.0.7.htm

Here is an explanation from a Professor of Physics http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/print1.php?QNum=1524

Since I was doing photos and everyone has been showing off the setups I thought I would share mine. This is a Julabo head that I have mounted on a custom lexan deck/lid covering a counter food warmer/steam table. The Julabo head comes off with a few screws. I've run this same setup replacing the Julabo head with a swamp cooler pump with heating provided by the unit and an Auber PID. Works great either way. It's only in the living room for the fashion shots.

Here we have the makings of a simple check valve fitting. We have a Nylon bolt and nut, a Check Valve , some Tygon tubing , a drill bit and a small cutoff wheel. I drilled through the bolt I used the cutoff wheel to cut grooves in the head of the bolt (not showing that well in the photo) and smooth off some of the threads on the end. I used a hole punch I put the bolt through the hold (bolt head inside bag) and threaded the nut on tight. I then attached a piece of Tygon tubing and inserted the check valve making sure that the flow was _from_ the bag. I added some very rare and hard to find items along with 16 ounces of (South) New Jersey tap water. I closed the bag with an impulse sealer, but you could use your FoodSaver by hitting the instant close button that cuts the vacuum. *imagine a photo here of a person sucking the air out of the bag through the check valve* I then sealed the bag again just behind the check valve. I then cut the check valve off the bag. Rather than removing the air using my head I could have put the bag in a FoodSaver jar and then vacuumed the jar. This does work. In fact I tested the vacuum on my hand held WineSaver unit and it pulls better than 27hg. Not bad. What you want to do if you use the jar method is to restrict the space as much as possible to give something for the bag to push up against as it expands to force the air out. When you open the jar the bag will shrink and your liquid will be pulled up into the tube going to the check valve and probably into the check valve. Because the valves I am using are inexpensive and designed for liquids I'm not worried about them. Do I think this is the best method to achieve putting liquid in a bag with a FoodSaver? It works Do I think you can do the same thing without a check valve? Yes, I can think of a few more ways to do it. Anyway, I hope that gives everyone some ideas.

What is the power rating on this unit?

Yes, it works great. You actually don't need a vacuum sealer at this point really. If all you had was an impulse sealer you would be fine. You see, if you have enough liquid in the bag and you have a check valve all you need to do is squish out the air or suck it out like a straw. It doesn't require a lot of vacuum/pressure/suction. After you have removed the air you can seal off the part of the bag with the check valve and cut the check valve off and reuse it. I could leave it on the bag since my check valves are NSF and safe up to a high temp, but the way I mount them to the bag might not keep a seal over time. The same technique does work for non liquid items, but since it does take some vac to get all the air out putting the bag in a vac jar works better...but at this point its better just to use the vacuum sealer. I'll put together some photos and a link to the check valves and post them.

If the item contained air like a marshmallow peep it would, but when you removed the vac it would return to normal(ish). I created a cheap version of a chamber vac by attaching a check valve to the sealed bag and then putting the bag in a vac cannister and applying vac. When the bag was under vacuum it expanded like a balloon forcing air out the check valve. When the vac was removed the check valve prevented the air from returning to the bag so it collapsed and most of the air was removed. I did this as a test for sealing liquids with a cheap FoodSaver.

Plates should not warm in a Microwave. If they do it is a sign that they are not microwave safe. This is the test you do with pottery.

Looks like a Robosapien.

I'm sold on using full size hotel or steam table pans. You can get them in stainless or plastic. If you mount a spigot on one you can easily drain it. If you get a pan that is magentic you can get a magnetic clip from Office Depot or otherwise to clip the bag to the opposite side of the pan from the heater. Or really it would not be too hard to prop up any sort of mesh or trivet etc to block items from hitting the heating element.

I use super oxygenated water from this Lotus water treatment thing I have (Costco online). Works 3000 times faster and 50% more powerful than chlorine bleach for killing stuff (per the data). Seems to suck the smell out of things. The thing is designed to be used for cleaning foods, but I generally use it to make the water that I then us to do things like laundry and other exciting things.

From what I have read it makes sense that if you are buying the largest eggs produced from an entirely young flock that there is a very good chance of double yolks. Young chickens have a good chance of producing doubles and doubles will be the largest eggs.

According to the Alberta Egg Producers http://www.eggs.ab.ca/about/faq.html Another site mentions it may also be hereditary which would make sense if you had most or all in a carton as double yolks.

I propose there are two distinct Nacho camps. One camp uses real grated cheese (and whatever else) and melts it under a broiler etc. When you eat these it's a game of trying to release the most edible size shingle of gooey goodness without lifting the entire batch off the plate. The other camp says you need to pour molten cheese food on the chips and that other topings only polute the goodness. I'm partial to both, but when I want real nacho junk food I go with the molten fake cheese camp. I like the hot Queso or otherwise fake "nacho" cheese poured over or in a side bowl. Sliced pickled jalapenos must be present in shamefull numbers.

Strawberries have 20-25mg of calcium per 100g.

I have used large freezer zip lock bags for things like soup and chili. I fill them from the pot hot and toss them in a sink full of the ice from the freezer. Gives me the opportunity to clean the ice bin too. I generally just leave the items in the zip locks and put them in the fridge unless I am going to freeze, in which case I'll portion and vacuum seal. I have been wanting a commercial ice paddle, but seem to get by without. Freezing water bottles seems to work well if you have room in the pot for them and feel ok with putting PET bottles in your hot food.