pep.

You can cook more than one jar of course. And the confit is not only cooked, but canned, so it's shelf-stable. Just do a bunch of jars at the same time and use those two hours to make a years worth of garlic confit

A question regarding the lasagne: Your Béchamel sauce seems very thick. Is that because the fresh pasta needs less liquid or do you always make it this way? I've never seen it made so paste-like.

I'm experimenting with SV custards. I just noticed that immediately after blending the mixture, I couldn't draw more than approximately 85 % vacuum before the incorporated air caused too much bubbling. I know it would start at some point, but I wouldn't want to get custard into the vacuum pump (one of the few drawbacks of my machine - the vacuum port is located underneath the sealing bar). What does everyone else do? Do you degas your custards in a hard container before sealing them in a bag?

E.S.E., if you use a dedicated machine like the SGL Podstar. Regular espresso machines where you just insert a different sieve don't work as well. Compared to other coffee pod machines, your choice of beans is much wider. In Europe, even some small artisanal roasters are creating E.S.E. pods and you can get freshly roasted pods (a few weeks) quite easily. The downside is that a good E.S.E. machine is much more expensive than a Nespresso machine (unless you buy used). Edited for typos.

Ah, OK, that makes sense. Since I'll probably get completely different curry pastes over here, how much is "half a can" by weight? I'd like to try that, "instant thai curry in the freezer" sounds like a great idea for weekday dinners.

Why the two-step process? Does something bad happen to the coconut milk when heated for a few hours (flavor-wise)?

You think that US$ 350 is expensive? Look at the prices for high-power blenders in Europe In Austria and Germany, the Vitamix costs 600 to 700 Euros depending on accessories. The Blendtec is even more expensive (~ 1000 Euros), but can be had slightly cheaper by self-importing from the UK. Apparently the current Blendtec importer to continental Europe is really gouging the prices.

I think I can answer your first question, whether it is possible to configure the controller parameters yourself: I'm quite sure you can't. Too many things that could go wrong and result in commercial liability. What could exist (but I'm not too confident that it does) is a setting for a temperature offset (since the Polyscience has that feature). The answer from VacStar regarding PID or no PID will interesting, however. I had assumed that it would be PID controlled, but you are right that the demonstrated behavior doesn't look like a (well-tuned) PID.

Thanks for the feedback. When youve contacted CuisineTechnology, did you call them or use the contact form/mail? I havent gotten any reply from them yet since two days ago I cant see any difference in the description on the oils on their pages, but i trust you know something i dont :-) I wanted to ask about that, too. Do the two machines really need different oil? I'd be a bit surprised, the pumps should be pretty similar. Of course, the amount of oil you need increases with pump capacity.

Well, if the book is just a collection of recipes without any interesting writing, I would not be interested in it. If, on the other hand, there is some stuff besides ingredient lists and preparation steps, posting rephrased recipes is not making the book a "giveaway".

Probably not French, if you look at the language The European equivalents to US copyright law are somewhat different, that is true, but the moral rights basically mean that if you create work X, you cannot reassign your moral right to be called the creator of X. You can give away the rights to all profits of work X. However, at least in German language countries' Urheberrecht there exists a concept of Schöpfungshöhe, which means the level of originality/creativity that a work attains. Not all artwork or texts are afforded the protection of the Urheberrecht. Mere technical descriptions are not protected. Unlike what is claimed in the Forum Thermomix post, this would include not only the list of ingredients, but also the "method" of cooking. What can be protected is the concrete expression of a recipe in the words of an author (if it attains Schöpfungshöhe). Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer etc.

It's the principle of the thing ;-) I'm a bit surprised by the results my acquaintance got, but maybe the problem is the lack of proper insulation. I'd like to do a side-by-side comparsion of the VacStar SVC and my Polyscience SVP, since the VacStar basically looks like a clone of Polyscience's device.

Sorry, so far it's all in PM. But I'll ask her to post a public report when she gets back from Barcelona.

An acquaintance in German cooking forum recently purchased the Vac-Star SousVideChef. Using an uninsulated, uncovered polycarbonate container (1/2 GN), she measured an overshoot of 0.3 °C at a nominal 65 °C. After adding some jury rigged insulation and covering in the form of bubble wrap and aluminium foil, the overshoot dropped to 0.2 °C. Apparently, In her setup the controller never reached a steady state and continued to oscillate between 64.9 and 65.2 °C for the duration of the cooking. I may be misreading her report however, and she's gone Barcelona for the week (including dinner at 41°, I've been told), so I cannot ask her for clarification at the moment.

The only downside I can see to "permanently on" soft air is for vacuum infusing. I have no particular scientific reason for saying this, but the quick burst of atmospheric pressure does seem to cause better infusion. That said if I had the choice between a machine with permanent soft air or none - I'd take the soft air option every time. Yes, that's why I'm a bit disappointed. Everything else is fully programmable. Well, my disappointment isn't huge, overall I like the machine very much. Indeed there is a setting that somewhat looks like it might have something to do with soft air, but the seller/service technician told me it is only for maintenance and that he never changed the setting "because there is no point". Despite a follow-up question, he didn't want to tell me what it actually did, however. The setting is called "Sperrzeit" respectively "off-period" (the manual is multilingual), and can be a time up to 99 seconds (0 seconds means it is disabled). They recommend 10 seconds, so this somewhat looks like a setting for soft air to me. Alas, I'm a bit hesitant to try to change it after the response I got from the technician.

Finally, after Boxer 35 fiasco, I've got a new chamber vacuum sealer. It's a VC999 K2. VC999 is a Swiss company and apparently quite big in the packaging system, though not as widely available as the Henkelman units. They do not release their prices to everyone, but I found a demonstration model available for about 3700 Euros on another site. Of course I got mine a lot cheaper on eBay It's got six programming slots with a sensor-guided target vacuum level and automatic boiling point detection (with programmable sensitivity). The machine also has soft air ventilation, but as far as I can tell it can't be disabled (somewhat similar to Henkelman's Jumbo series). An optional GreenVac tube is available, as well as a magnetic liquid tray. I'm currently looking to get those. As you can see, VC999 follows a different philosphy regarding the top of the machine, only a small window is transparent. I guess the whole top can be constructed more sturdy that way. The sealing bar is removable and contains a sealing and a cutting wire (with a single sealing time/temperature setting).

Thanks, but as I said, I don't want to get a whole bale-ful of them, just a few (which I was able to do in Italy), since I use them fairly seldom (and I hate waste, so throwing the excess out isn't an option). If all else fails though, I guess I'll have to see whether can club together with a few other Italians I know in DK, and go that route. Yes, I just re-read your original post and amended mine: Shipping to Denmark is cheap and there are smaller packages available for a few cents. Shipping costs would be ten times the product cost, but not much money.

Just order them from Amazon.de. Edit: Sorry, I just saw that you don't want to order online. However, shipping to Denmark only costs EUR 6.50 and small packets of Oblaten are available for under EUR 1.00, so for under EUR 10.00 you could order a small amount for your needs. The shipping cost is outrageous for such a small amount of wafers, but I doubt that fiddling with substitutions is worth it in this case.

I'd say paper and/or plastic plates are okay for finger-food or maybe brunch, but not for a more formal dinner. Plastic cutlery, on the other hand, is an abomination that should not be tolerated

You put a piece of the tape onto the sealed bag and push the needle probe through (into the protein).

The SideKIC looks nice as a SV-to-go solution. Personally, I'm not too fond of using ghetto SV for reheating purposes and for longer distances, taking bagged & cooked food with you is often not possible due to cooling issues (dry ice is not readily available in Europe). I know it's probably a bit early, but have you got any plans for a 230 V/50 Hz version?

I agree this doesn't sound too good for a new unit. I find it fascinating, though, that the Minipack machines are apparently readily available in the States, but not in Europe (except in the UK). Strange distribution policy for an Italian company.

Pimientos de Padrón and croquetas de pollo are always favorites at my annual tapas party.

You mean besides getting a chamber vacuum sealer?

I wasn't talking about FoodSaver-style plastic containers, but about professional GreenVac stainless steel containers (a special kind of GastroNorm containers). Most of those wouldn't even fit into a Boxer 42.