LoftyNotions

There's a thread about the Sous Vide Supreme here: SVS

The book project is coming along very well. I know there will be people who will be upset about the price. I'm interested in getting feedback on this... You can put me down for a copy also. Hopefully I can give it to myself as a Christmas present next year.

We've also had good results from the Presto 04830 microwave popper. I think I slightly prefer popcorn from our air popper, but my wife feels that this device pops the corn better.

I need to preface this response by admitting that I’ve never been anywhere that scrambled eggs in the French manner. I have tried the recipe on the Sous Vide Supreme website several times now, with mixed results. I think that at a cooking temperature of 167F (75C) cooking time is critical for the proper result. There are a lot of other variables that aren’t being taken in to consideration in the recipe, such as bag size (which correlates with the how wide the egg mixture is inside the bag) and starting temperature of the egg mixture. I suspect that in order to get eggs even slightly cooked in 15 minutes, they must have used a larger bag than I did. I used 1 qt. double seal ziplock bags for all my trials, and cooked anywhere from the recommended 15 minutes up to 35 minutes. At 15 minutes, I had what I would classify as warm egg soup. There was absolutely no curd formation, and my impression was that the eggs had thickened very little, if any. At 20 minutes the eggs were slightly thicker, but there was very little curd formation. At 25 minutes, I got something that looked similar to the picture posted with the recipe. Sort of a slightly thickened soup with some curd formation. At 30 minutes the eggs had what I would consider to be a custard texture. At 35 minutes, the eggs are pretty well set and probably slightly over-done for this style (A guess on my part). Since one of the great things about most sous vide cooking is a wide tolerance of cooking times I did some experiments at a couple other temperatures. I started at 148F (64C) and found that even after an hour, nothing had changed. Douglas Baldwin suggested that in order to coagulate 2 of the proteins in the egg white a temperature of 158F (70C) would probably work. At that temperature, I got a very nice custard texture at 1:15, and a custard that would hold some form at 1:30. I guess you can’t really call them scrambled eggs, since there is no curd formation, but I really enjoy the egg dish produced this way.

I’ve had my Sous Vide Supreme for about a week now. So far I really like it compared to the external controller with Crock Pot or Roaster setup I was using. The useable internal dimensions are 5 ½ inches high by 9 7/8 inches wide by 12 ½ inches deep. (14 X 20 X 31.75 cm). I measured the height from the false bottom to the max fill line. The low temperature set point on my unit is 86 F. (30 C.) I didn’t check the high set point, but I know it goes up at least to 185 F. (85 C.) The SVS website says the useable capacity is 10 liters to the max fill line, but mine measured 12 liters to max fill. That leaves approximately 1 inch (2.5 cm) to the top edge of the unit. There is no forced circulation in this machine, but from what I’ve seen so far, between the bottom heater and the perforated false bottom plate, natural convection does a good job of minimizing temperature variation. Temperature accuracy is well within 1 degree F. measured with a thermometer checked against boiling, freezing and 100 degree points. My observation has been that it holds temperatures to within about ½ degree F. Recovery to proper temperature is fast after putting your food in. In the other sous vide thread, someone mentioned that this device isn’t very well insulated. To me, comparing it to my crock pot and roaster, this is much better insulated. It gets warm to the touch, but not hot. Both my roaster and crock pot get unbearably hot at times. I don’t have a commercial rice cooker to compare insulation to, but I suppose they could be better insulated. I do have 2 small nits to pick with the Sous Vide Supreme. First, the display always starts in centigrade. Not a big deal, but it’s an extra step to change it every time I turn it on, since I’m a backward American. The display itself, when viewed from my normal standing position shows current temperature in lit segments. Unfortunately, you can easily see all the unlit segments as very dark bars. It’s easy enough to see what is actually displayed, but this is a minor annoyance. Over all, I like this unit very much. It’s much more convenient than getting out my roaster, controller and circulation pump setup I was using before. Also, there is no need for PID calibration. I’ll still use my roaster for very large items, but this will be used on a continual basis. I bought mine at the pre-order price of $399. I felt that was a fair premium to pay over purchasing a controller/rice cooker for the convenience and ease of use this machine provides.