pbear

Well, yes, obviously I can do that. And will. But please confirm that you don't get any play when you pull on the propeller shaft.

Houston, we have a problem ... Have had my Anova for a few months and been happy with it, but don't use it often as I mostly do long cooks and prefer my other rigs for those. Recently, though, I decided to try low temp beans and for that used the Anova. First round, about a week ago went fine. Second round, today, I'm getting a whirring sound, like the propeller is hitting the skirt. After trying various things, the only one that worked was to remove the bottom. But this was odd as the propeller isn't touching it when at rest. Turns out, the shaft is pulling out when under load. Doing it manually, I get about 2 mm play. So, I'm curious whether others have play in the propeller shaft of their Anovas. By the way, no, I didn't do anything to the darned thing. No oopsies. Didn't even have the skirt off between the two rounds. But I'm not asking anyone to figure out how it happened. Just trying to figure out what.

Read again the link in the OP. FODMOPS

I tried the Caldwell starter but was disappointed. It may be that I got a bad batch. Or operator error. Hard to know. But I've had no trouble with kimchi or sauerkraut, so I'm inclined to blame the product. YMMV. As regards salt, bear in mind that the page you link is talking about natural fermentation. For quick cured pickles, whether using vinegar or lactic acid as I propose, salt is merely a seasoning. In this context, one may use as much or as little as suits one's palate.

It's always dificult to troubleshoot something like this at a distance, but I'm inclined to one of two theories: the calibration of the Anova is off (an issue flagged by dcarch) or something went wrong in the handling of the meat before it was bagged (mentioned by several posters). FWIW, I've been doing SV/LT long cooks for many years without having run into spoilage or off odors even once. Something went wrong here, obviously, but it's unusual. Unlike others, I don't think the rolling of the brisket was the problem. Yes, obviously this meant that a likely contaminated surface was furthest from the water bath, but the roll would have had to be extraordinarily thick for this to matter. Even then, my limited experience with very thick cuts (a couple of hams monitored with a probe thermometer) was that while it took them six hours to come to temp, it also took a couple hours before the core temp budged from full chill. Nor do I think the temp was too low. See Baldwin. Importantly, six hours to pasteurize isn't the same thng as six hours in the danger zone. Again, see Baldwin. IOW, whatever was the problem here, it was neither the temp nor the time.

Lighter, yes, but not smaller. And not lighter if you factor in the weight of the circulator. The point is that when folks speak of the Anova being easier to store, they're generally leaving the box out of the equation. More importantly, one of my reasons for preferring the SVS is that it's better suited to leaving out, i.e., not stored. As I said earlier, an appliance ready at hand is more likely to be used. And the object of the exercise, of course, is to use the darned thing, not just to have it. Again, I'm not saying the SVS is the right answer for everyone. Nor am I knocking the Anova (I have one and like it).

Basically, this is a hybrid of the two traditional types of pickles. To my surprise, after a great deal of research, it’s new as far as I can tell. In any event, I came up with it independently. Here’s the story. Several years ago, when developing my recipe for kimchi, I read a lot about natural fermentation. From which I learned the object is to produce lactic acid with the ubiquitous bacterium lactobaccillus plantarum. Meanwhile, I had long ago decided I prefer naturally fermented pickles (e.g., Bubbies) to those cured with vinegar (e.g., Clausen’s). What would happen, I wondered, if I prepared traditionally vinegar-cured pickles with lactic acid directly? At the time, though, I couldn’t find a source. Later, when looking for ingredients for Modernist Cuisine at Home, I happened upon Modernist Pantry and noticed they have the elusive lactic acid in powder form. After numerous trials, I worked out a recipe. It marries the convenience and flexibility of quick curing with the less obtrusive flavor profile of lactic acid. The result isn’t as complex as a natural ferment, but it’s a heck of a lot easier, more reliable and more versatile. The method works with pretty much anything that anyone pickles with vinegar, including cucumbers, beets, mushrooms, turnips, cauliflower, onions, asparagus, green beans, eggs, apples, etc. For convenience and ease of refrigerator storage, I built my recipe around 1 litre canning jars. (Quarts also can be used, of course.) How much main ingredient will fit depends on how closely it packs after prepping, but 1‑1/2 lb is typical. If appropriate, blanch or otherwise cook so as to be tender but not soft. If appropriate, cut into bite-size pieces. For the brine, combine 2 c water, 2 tbsp kosher salt (18 g) and 2 tsp lactic acid powder (6 g). For sweet pickles, e.g., Bread & Butter, I reduce the salt to 2 tsp and increase the lactic acid to 1 tbsp. Notably, according to my electronic pH meter, the 2 tsp lactic acid brine has a starting pH of about 3.2; once it equilibrates with the main ingredient, the pH rises to about 3.8; the recommended level is 4.0 (or less), which is well below the 4.6 needed to inhibit botulism. Flavorings may be added as desired, including garlic, dill, chile, spices, herbs and/or sugar. As with the main ingredient, the flavor profile of just about any vinegar-cured pickle can be adapted for the lactic acid brine. A few practical points. I like to sequester the flavorings in a bouquet garni bag. It’s not necessary, but makes for cleaner pickles. Also, I find infusing the brine works better than cold packing. Bring to a boil, add bag with flavorings and let cool covered. Put bag in bottom of the jar, add main ingredient and pour brine over. Most main ingredients float, so I insert a pickling spacer to submerge them. My favorite spacer is an inverted lid for a stainless steel dredge shaker, available from restaurant supply stores and online (e.g., here and here), as it happens to be exactly the right diameter (70 mm) to fit inside a wide mouth canning jar. An inverted plastic storage cap for regular size jars also works, though it’s a bit too wide (not easy to get in and out of the jar), solid rather than perforated (no brine above the top layer), and, well, plastic. Finally, curing takes at least a few days, but a week works better. Like most quick-cured pickles, texture and flavor generally suffer if held more than a month. Anyhoo, having learned a great deal from the forum, I thought I’d drop this in as my little contribution.

Thanks for the feedback. That's enough to warrant getting the book and looking at it myself.

As it happens, I glanced at the Codlo website less than a week ago, drawn there by a listing of the cookbook/guide on Amazon. At the time, I inferred the Codlo was a failed Kickstarter project. On closer review, I notice blog posts which reflect they're still gamely marching on towards completion and shipment. It's more interesting to me as a case study in how Kickstarter works than as a worthy SV/LT option. Here's a small group, Grace and friends, turning out for a small group of backers (just over a thousand) a device which was more-or-less obsolete before they started. (Not that I have anything against the in-line PID controller approach. Indeed, I still use mine, an Auber. But it's not something I'd recommend to anyone starting out today, or even last year.) It's all rather quaint. in a good way On a separate note, Jo, what's your opinion of the Codlo guide?. My sense was that it wouldn't be much help to me, as I have Baldwin (both his book and online guide), a few other books (including Modernist Cuisine at Home) and several years experience with the technique. More importantly, is the Codlo guide something you would recommend to folks just learning SV/LT? Not in place of Baldwin or MCaH, necessarily. There's a lot to be said for having more than one book on any technique. I'm just asking whether this is worth recommending to beginners. Or experienced low temp cooks, for that matter.

@Tjex. Those are valid points, of course. All I can say is that I have both, plus an Auber, and use the Anova least. As for terminology, I've always favored "low temp" and it's the term I use in everyday conversation. But I think the odds of its ever supplanting sous vide are remote. And I've always thought "water oven" was an unfortunate descriptor for the SVS.

I realize this thread is about the new Anova, but I think the pros and cons of other options is relevant to the decision whether to buy one and especially whether to wait what'll probably turn out to be six months before the new version is shipped. I'm not suggesting the Sous Vide Supreme is clearly the better option for everyone. As my mother likes to say, there's a reason Baskin-Robbins makes more than one flavor of ice cream. But I do think it's the better option for a lot of people. Chris asks what one gets for the higher price of an SVS. Mainly simplicity of set-up and use. Whereas we've had lots of discussions on what it takes to set up a bath to accommodate circulators. It's not rocket surgery, but it's neither easy nor cheap. In particular, for long cooks, one has to do something to reduce evaporation, an issue which simply doesn't exist for the SVS. Further, an SVS works fine with zip-top bags, eliminating the need for a vacuum machine (either a temperamental clamp model or an expensive chamber one). This can be done with circulators, but it's fiddly. Yes, the SVS is pretty big. But, then, so is a Cambro or large stockpot. And there are very few cooks where a normal stockpot will be large enough. For the same reason, I don't see an advantage either way in dealing with the water. If one is too heavy for someone to lift, so will be the other. In either case, the solution is to use a saucepan or large measuring cup to move the water in batches rather than all at once. Similarly, each is about as difficult to store as the other. But the SVS is something most folks would be more happy leaving on the counter, simply because it looks better than a typical circulator rig. Not a huge consideration, of course, but relevant. An appliance which is ready at hand is more likely to be used than one which has to be dug out of a cabinet or basement. Then there's the circulator vs. noncirculator issue, which is what prompted my initial post in the thread. As rotus says, there are a few circumstances in which the difference matters, e.g., eggs and seafood. Indeed, as I said, I'll agree a circulator works better in general for short cooks. If someone anticipates doing mostly those, that's a good reason to get (or wait for) the Anova. If someone anticipates mostly doing long cooks, though, I think the SVS is better. Reasonable minds can disagree on the point (hello Weedy), but that's my humble opinion. In any event, circulation is not the sine qua non of sous vide and low temp. As regards price, I guess I take a different view. My primary consideration is what's best. Within reason, I don't worry much about comparative cost. When discussing this with friends, I point out we're talking about an appliance they'll be using at least once per week and perhaps much more often. (If not, they probably shouldn't be bothering at all.) Allocated over say two years, that $200 price differential works out to less than two bucks per week. And the appliance is going to last much longer (though, of course, not forever). Meanwhile, it appears I'm the only person who is alarmed at the lower price of the new Anova. That fifty bucks less (net of Kickstarter's cut) while adding Bluetooth capability almost has to translate to lower build quality of the basic unit. Maybe experience will prove me wrong - indeed, I hope so - but I'm hesitant to recommend the new Anova until it has an established track record. Whereas the SVS already has that.

IMHO, your distrust of non-circulators is misplaced. I have two, an Auber (which I use with a 6 qt crock-pot) and an SVS. I also have a 1.1 Anova. I use the former more, as they're efficient and totally quiet. The only place where I prefer the Anova is short cooks. And the SVS works fine for those as well.

I agree with the latter point. Notably, according to the blog post linked in the OP and the FDA page linked by DDF in Post #6, whole package info is one of the FDA's proposals. As a consumer who actually uses nutrition labels, this would be a great step forward. I routinely gross up the per serving counts to get totals,, which I then divide depending on how I'm actually using the product, but this doesn't easily catch the per serving rounding games mentioned by others above.

Before you get much deeper, you should review this website, which is hosted by the Food Safety and Standards Agency of India. Apparently the FSSAI regulates food carts, among other things. The site includes much information, including links to the Code and Regulations. You might also find the following articles useful: here, here, here and here.

Be aware that preferences for long cooks vary widely. 70C/158F for 24 hours is as good a place to start as any, but you should follow this with another batch at a lower temp, say 66C/150F for 36 hours, then another at 60C/140F for 48 hours. All these, by the way, are for falling apart tender. Suitable for a ravioli filling but not necessarily for serving as a course in its own right. For the latter, you'il want to back off the cooking times as much as 50%. As I said, preferences vary widely and the only was to figure out what works for you is to run a few trials. On the bright side, SV/LT for long cooks is nicely consistent, so once you dial in your preferences, you're good to go pretty much any time you choose to use the technique. Just my $0.02's worth. YMMV. Etc., etc.

Having done a little research, I must say I'm less optimistic about the cooling feature than I was at first. A Peltier cooler, it turns out, uses a thermoelectric process (the name with which I'm familiar) instead of the more conventional compressor. Although described in the linked article as having near-infinite life, this hasn't been my experience. Rather, I've had two refrigerators and a few small dehumidifiers fail after a couple years of use (and none work much longer). I continue to buy the latter (though not the former), because I need them and can't find anything better, but regard them as semi-disposable. Importantly, the dehumidifiers only run about $40, so it's a reasonable expense. I would't take the same view with respect to a key component of a $400 SV/LT unit. Especially as the unit generally will be out of warranty when the problem arises and a thermoelectric cooler is not, AFAICT, easily fixed or replaced.

My point is that self-publishing gives one a book, but it doesn't give one distribution. If the former is all Dana is looking for, that's easy to do. (Well, not easy, but doable.) My read of the OP is that she's interested in the latter.

Heck, if self-publishing counts, I did that twenty years ago. And still do. I'm pretty sure that's not what Dana has in mind.

Shel, you might be interested in this eGullet article by Sam Kinsley: Understanding Stovetop Cookware. Although now more than ten years old, I still consider it the best discussion I've seen of the relative advantages of various materials. Among other things, SK discusses the importance of thickness (mentioned by several posters in this thread) in considering the value of those materials. FWIW, based on this article and other reading, I don't think copper is generally worth the price.

The thing which occurs to me is to make a goat curry. In the States, at least, this would be somewhat outre. There's a Caribbean version, derivitive of Indian but with a few quirks, especially the use of habanero chiles for heat. Don't know whether this suits your objective, but it's what I'd do.

Jo, I'm puzzled. Why are you trying so hard to like this vegetable? Cuz, frankly, blanch then saute is pretty much as good as broccoli rabe gets. If that doesn't work for you, ISTM you don't like it. Which, of course, is okay. No one is required to like everything. And goodness knows there are plenty of other greens which don't have broccoli rabe's bitterness. (I agree it's somewhat bitter, but for me that's a feature not a bug.)

FWIW, Zem, a little feedback from someone who has been following SV/LT for nine years and doing it for five. IMHO, the most interesting thing about this unit is its ability to hold food chilled before entering cooking mode. For folks cooking tender meats, seafood, etc. that's a funtionality not available with any existing technology. Kudos. That said, it's not difficult to work with existing technology to achieve this end. Get home from work, fire up the circulator or other LT machine, drop the food, do other things and dinner is ready soon thereafter. Not ready when coming in the door, but ready soon enough. For most folks, that's sufficient. Meanwhile, the SV/LT cooking I do most, and most recommend to friends, is long cook stuff, for which the chill-cook function is irrelevant. Here, existing technologies have the edge, ISTM, for the simple reason of being easier to set up. Pick a temp, pick a time and off you go. No smart phone, no WiFi and no program modes. Stated a little differently, if someone were to ask me whether to take an existing SV/LT machine or wait for the Mellow, I'd say take the Sous Vide Supreme. Or an Anova or Sansaire. A final point. The ability to skip a vacuum sealer is high on my list of considerations when recommending a SV/LT unit. In fact, it's one of my main reasons for recommending the SVS (there are others). If you want me and others to give the Mellow high marks in this regard, you need more than "it works for me." You need some sort of rack or clip which makes using unsealed bags easy and reliable. Or not. Up to you.

Sounds to me like what's happening is that you're not adequately releasing the larger air pockets after the first rise. With the technique illustrated in the video, this means you're not dimpling the dough aggressively enough. There are other ways to remove those pockets, but as you've used this technique successfully in the past, I'd recommend you start there.

Oil in matzo does the same thing it does in crackers. It makes them more tender. I've seen it in other recipes (e.g., here) and include it in mine. (I'm not Jewish but used to live with someone who was.) I assume the malt is there to facilitate browning, but that's just an educated guess.

I'd recommend a hybrid approach. Start with the paper bag - apple not necessary IMHO, as bananas are themselves very high in ethylene - then look to the oven method as a backup if they haven't ripened quite enough by baking day.