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wijit01

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Everything posted by wijit01

  1. There’s a show on PBS Create network called “Chef’s Story” (http://www.chefsstory.com). They interview famous chefs and have them demo a recipe of their choice. The recipe is then published on their website. Thomas Keller and Charlie Trotter both did sous vide. Perhaps others did as well, I haven’t seen all the episodes or looked through all of the recipes. You may wish to check it out. BTW, (off topic) it’s worth the effort to see if your cable company carries this network. There are a lot of very good food shows.
  2. I think 127° is a good suggestion, maybe even 125°. The 131° was part of a recipe I found elsewhere. I think that I will also reduce the cook time to just get it up to temperature. I don’t think that the really long time at heat did it any good. I’ve done steak to the lower temp, in a 140° bath, relatively fast and it was great. Ya cook, ya eat, ya learn.
  3. Ahem........ I annoys me that several persons on this thread have taken the effort to invent a time machine, go back in time and post messages that obviously rip-off my idea of pork confit using sous vide. I would appreciate it that in the future/past that all will/would refrain from doing such things. I’m stealing ideas as fast as I can. BTW, re: Rack o’ Lamb ala Sous Vide...........Eh. I’ve had better. The Ranco unit did just fine though.
  4. Report on Ranco control of Proctor Silex Fifth Burner Hot plate. Set temp was 125°F. Thermopen monitored the temperature. I used an AllClad eight quart stock pot, filled with 115° tap water. I set the hot plate to HI. After 10 minutes, the bath was at 128°. I turned the plate down to MED-LO. I checked the system every 15 minutes or so. After resetting the control, the temperature never got above 126° and never got below 124°. It averaged 125.4° for 3 hours. It’s clear from the data that a lower source heat setting reduces overshoot. Once the system was at temperature, at low heat, it cycled more often but for shorter periods. I did not see significant temperature variation within the pot. The frequent cycling may provide the necessary convection. Long term control within 1° or 2° looks possible. I will continue to experiment, this time with a rack of lamb (131° set point, for 12 hours, with a finish sear) and report how it goes.
  5. Nathan, thanks for all your great work on this thread. You have taught me a lot. Oh yes, a PID will work better and I’m working on that too. Pielle's excellent explanation and links have lead me to make a hand held PID controller. I have the parts that Pielle used (about $50 from his source, really fast shipping!) and instead of wiring them to a stove burner, I’ll use the two ends of a short 16 gauge extension cord and a project box. I think I’ll convert the thermocouple to a plug-in style so it’s not flopping around. It will be like PID version of the Ranco controller. A bit more esoteric to program and rather larger as the relay on mine will be mounted inside the box but it should work fine. I’ll write up the results (with all credit to Pielle for the original work) when done. Right now I’m calibrating the Ranco to run a Proctor Silex hot plate to keep a stock pot at 125°. Not bad, some overshoot early on (2°), gonna let it stabilize for a while. It seems to get better as time passes.
  6. I promised the results of my experiments and here they are. I am using a Ranco controller and a Rival 5 quart slow cooker. My reference is a Thermopen instant thermometer. With a set temperature of 120°F the system had a max temp of 123 ° and a min temp of 119°. The average was 121.7 ° over 6 hours. The over shoot does exist. I’m thinking that it can be compensated for. I will cook something over the weekend and report the result (perhaps a pork tenderloin, @145° target). So far, for $100, just plug and play, I think that it will work fine. I will also evaluate it with a hot plate and a standard stock pot.
  7. The problem with the RANCO controlers is that they are of the ON/OFF type so would definatly have a significant variation in the temp because the controler cant shut off the power until it has reached the target temperature, inevitably causing overshooting. These controlers are better at controlling fridge temperatures for beer making or even charcuterie. What you want to efficiently controle the liquid temperature over a short or long periods is a PID controler, which uses a mathematical algorithm to can calculate how much heat should be applied to heat to a given temperature without overshooting and then appling constant heat to maintain that temp. I installed one of those on my electrical range more then a year ago and coudn't be more hapy about it : it was not too expensive, can be used with about any pot and for a wide range of applications. I can use it to make 40 C salmon or to make 72h short ribs and it does not take any space at all. Here is a link to the post I made about it a while ago. PID modified stovetop I may seem a bit complicated but it is acutally very easy, and you dont need to cut up anything in the oven wiring (well I did because I was lazy but you dont NEED to..) ← Trans-mega-ultra cool! The trick plan. Simple, cheap too. Thanks for the links.
  8. They control a heat source. It could be a crock pot or a hot plate or other small appliance. Instead of plugging the appliance into the wall you plug it into the controller and then plug the controller into the wall. A temperature probe is put into the water that you want to heat to the controlled temperature. The controller then switches on power to the appliance when the temperature is lower and cuts it off when it hits the set point. The sophistication of the feedback loop and the control logic is why different methods have different results. Lab equipment costs a lot more because it's more precise and that precision costs money. Note the word precision, not accuracy. The question is how precise one needs to be and it's not all on the controller. How quickly the appliance heats up or cools down has an effect as does the amount of water being controlled and the vessel it's in. For most the things that I would cook by this method, the precision of a commercial controller should be adequate. It may take some practice and calibration but so does my oven and range. WRT precision and accuracy... presumably the temperature sensors on these controllers are sufficiently accurate, if that's what you're getting at. I still have a hard time believing that a bottom-heated system or a crock pot system controlled by one of these things wouldn't exhibit temperature variability to the tune of 5-6 degrees C. This would definitely have some effect on certain cooking techniques, and for short-term cooking techniques (e.g., fish) it's not clear that it would have an advantage over using a large stockpot and an accurate thermometer. ← I agree with you about the stock pot and a good thermometer for quick items (less than an hour) It's how I've done my experiments so far. The thing is that with a 10 quart pot my smallest burner turned as low as it will go, it stabilizes at 140°F. Using time/temp/thickness charts found on this forum, I was able to cook several thing pretty well. It is also quite low effort/cost (none!) for the good results. I think the advantage to a controlled system is in longer cooked items like roasts or short ribs. A controlled system would be more convenient. As the post below suggests, one would have to match the heat source, water volume and controller to each other. Lab systems have already gone through the trouble. Not exactly plug and play but worth the effort. I'll report results as I find time to experiment.
  9. They control a heat source. It could be a crock pot or a hot plate or other small appliance. Instead of plugging the appliance into the wall you plug it into the controller and then plug the controller into the wall. A temperature probe is put into the water that you want to heat to the controlled temperature. The controller then switches on power to the appliance when the temperature is lower and cuts it off when it hits the set point. The sophistication of the feedback loop and the control logic is why different methods have different results. Lab equipment costs a lot more because it's more precise and that precision costs money. Note the word precision, not accuracy. The question is how precise one needs to be and it's not all on the controller. How quickly the appliance heats up or cools down has an effect as does the amount of water being controlled and the vessel it's in. For most the things that I would cook by this method, the precision of a commercial controller should be adequate. It may take some practice and calibration but so does my oven and range. BTW, you could control a range burner with the Ranco device but it would get pretty ungainly and probably void your stoves warranty .
  10. This is all very interesting! I think the controller in question is actually a RANCO MODEL ETC-111000-000.. Prewired they're $80.00 shipped. Ebay has 'em for $50 without wiring. It seems that they'll run anything up to 16 amps. Try www.rancoetc.com. I'm not affiliated, I just found them with a google search. I may go for it (I love tools!) and report back. Beats dropping a grand on new lab stuff or taking my chances with an Ebay bio-hazard. BTW, while I have a vacuum bagger, ziplocs work good too, real good.
  11. Recently, I did a few experiments. Just an 8 quart AllClad dutch oven on my smallest burner at it's lowest setting. It stabiliized at 140°F. I used Nathens thickness/time/temp charts to cook ribeyes. Just used a ziploc and squeezed out the air. Took all of 35 minutes, 127° internal temperature. Blasted it in a smoking saute pan for one minute a side and got a wonderful, tender medium rare steak with a lovely sear. No muss, no fuss. The ziploc was great because you can check the temp whenever you want. This is great for me because my challenge is always quick-to-cook, tender cuts and the method really improves the odds by slowing things down. I'll stick to braising the slow stuff for now, as I'm generally pleased with the results. I also did shrimp (in a butter and garlic sauce) the same way and it was great. Took about 7 minutes. I judged the color to determine when done. The method slows things down for those of us who are not too quick witted.
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