Raamo

I've had my induction cook top for 6 months now. I don't think I could use anything else now. It boils water stupid fast. Yet I can control the level of heat with repeatable precision I could never find with a dial. Is 7 too much, 6.5 then etc. And when the element is turned off the temperature drops fast. Even when the pan is removed the glass surface is only around 200F and this is after frying at 380F. It's made controlling simmering pots of water easy, heats up oil in a fry pan quickly and backs off as quickly. This is a Thermadore unit and it blows the pants off a 120V wall plugged in unit. Which it better at 25x the cost

I've watched it eons ago when I was researching all this - I went looking for it on Sunday night and couldn't find it anywhere. I did watch it a few times many moons ago so I'm pretty sure I'll be OK - reading the manual brought back memories of that vid.

It's now sitting on a 12' counter. I need to add oil - maybe later today but more likely this weekend. At least it survived the unpacking The lid is thicker then I imagined - in person you can see just how beefy this thing is.

Thanks - it is a VP215 And it's now free of it's box

Ok the VP215 is in it's box and now sitting up stairs.... How do you get this out of the box? Destroy the box? I took everything out of the cavity to make it lighter - it's still heavy!

My VP 215 arrives today... I have not ordered any additional bags. Thus the 3mil vs 4mil debate for me I guess it will come down to the cost difference, if it's much at all - loosing 1 bag now and then might be a no big deal kind of thing.

The 24" Thermador Steam/Convection is much more reasonable at about 3k And it's one awesome steam oven / convection oven. We've had ours since spring. My wife was doubtful at first - now she can't live with out it - she uses it to reheat left overs - with the steam oven it's like eating it fresh all over again. And it makes darn tasty bread. I've made fish in it and steamed veggies. Here's a picture if anyone's curious: https://www.flickr.com/photos/26508103@N05/13424623865/in/set-72157642922040434 The oven it's above is no joke either - but that's not a steam appliance

What do other people think about 3mil vs 4mil bags? There seem to be a heck of a lot more available at 3mil.

Weekends tend to be planned, week days vary a lot. History does affect what we make as some dishes we don't want to do too often.

This is quite interesting for folks that find a grill is perfect for what they cook. But it won't fully replace sous-vide for many of the reasons folks have mentioned above. But more options / innovation is always a good thing. IPad requirement shuts this out for me, but hopefully that's temporary. Also the price is the primary factor - so hopefully this is a 1st gen and the price will come down. I've noticed through the sous vide kickstarters that < $300 really is the amount for the higher end of the normal folks. (Most of my family has nothing over $200 in their kitchen beside the large appliances)

1st question Yes - filling up the space will mean the pump has less air to pull out. 2nd questions - shouldn't make any difference. 50 seconds doesn't seem like a long time if it's mostly empty chamber. Then again this is all academic (from reading far too much MC and this site) for a few more days. I finally pulled the trigger on a VP-215.

I've ate quite a few Mango Salsa chips - alas when we went to the local grocery store they only had Wasabi Ginger left - saying something perhaps. So based only upon the Mango Salsa chips - I like this years batch a lot. Then again I liked the sriracha last year.

From the Ars article: The new Nomiku will replace the original coil heater with a PTC heating unit. I've got a Polyscience unit - the one thing that I see is really nice about the Nomiku v2 is how thin / small it is which would work well in a smaller container when cooking a single chicken breast or the like. Besides competition is good. Drives innovation as they try to one up each other. Some words were written about it here: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/sous-vide-startup-wants-to-take-the-tech-industrys-kitchen-darling-mainstream/

I finally obtained my own copy of MC. I've cooked one set of things from it and done a LOT of reading. And my dreams of owning a centrifuge have been dashed - they suggest ones the size of a washing machine (the only centrifuge I'll own for now) and are pretty spendy.... just no place for that in my house. It is interesting how steam ovens have changed since 2010 - there are a lot more avalible now.

MC did effeciency testing of Gas vs Electic Coil vs Induction.... and Induction is the most efficent - but not by leaps and bounds like some would say. If you can put up with it's limitations it's pretty darn amazing. I've got a 30" Thermadore induction cook top and from boiling water to searing it's got the power and the control. The surface doesn't get crazy hot even when the poots sure do and if I really need to use a flame that's what a blow torch is for.

I'd put in a solid vote that a Fuzzy Logic rice cooker is the way to go. We bought a small Zojirushi (NP-GBC05 3-Cup) shortly after returning from Japan. It works with as little as .5 "cup" (3 oz) of rice and produces perfect rice. It allows us to use brown medium grain rice and end up with a sticky rice that has the texture of white rice. We eat a lot more rice then we used to. And waste a lot less too (since the ATK method requires at least 1 cup of rice).

In all the research I've done those are your two cheapest bets, the 115 is a dry-piston pump and the 215 is an oil-pump. The more expensive ones come down to features (or branding). As long as you understand the limitations of any of them as well as dry vs oil. You'll likely come back to these 2 as options representing the lower end cost wise. Also the more expensive ones can be slightly lighter as these are not light machines.

Ok the waiting is over, it's very tasty, the crust is spot on just the way I like it. And it was made in the 100% auto setting - I'm pretty darn happy with this oven. Pics:

edit: Bah never mind the problem with split threads... In case anyone else is confused... (Or maybe it's just me) https://olivia-hayse-r7le.squarespace.com/meat-packaging-vacuum/vacmaster-vp215 That's the VP-215 - rotuts linked the 115 at the same site....

Thanks Barrytm - I started a starter last night, it'll become bread later today. The program setting for bread had the steam mode on for ~10 mins of the cooking time, and it accepts a weight as an input (so that might change, or it might change total baking time) . I was presently surprised at how well it turned out the one time we've used it so I'm going to gamble and try it again today. I was at first tempted to ignore all the programs on my oven, but so far they work quite well. The only ones I don't know if I'll ever use involve protein since I'm not sure if they'll not over cook it.

The cat is a she, and her name is Alex (came from Alexandrite... the rock ) She loves to sit at the table with us! So I guess I'll just start playing around, I noticed pictures seem good - of the loaf, and the crumb. I'll see what I can drum up. I think I'll have to start something tonight so I can bake something in a day or two. It's a Thermadore 24" steam & convection oven, installed into a cabinet just above a 27" standard oven. When I post some bread pictures I'll post the setup. Somehow I convinced my wife to let me get it, and it's been totally awesome so far (she even thinks so). It makes steaming veggies just so darn easy! Not to mention really good bread from the one time we've tried it.

I've got a 24" Steam & Convection Oven now - and we've made bread in it once - at the same time as a loaf in the conventional oven. The steam loaf won by virtue of a better crust (the only thing that should really change with introduction of steam). So now I've done it once and want to do it again and again. The oven has a program which only puts steam in at the start - and then switches to convection heat. It also uses 375 F which would be equivalent to 400 in a normal oven. Has anyone else done much baking in one of these? I suspect it'll work best for anything that doesn't require a loaf pan. I'm pretty sure I can play with the temperature of any recipe as long as the bread gets to the required temperature. For instance the one loaf we've tried we cooked at a lower temp for longer then the recipe called for - and it turned out better. But any insight some of you more experienced bakers might have would be appreciated.

I just got my latest club shipment yesterday from Whitehall Lanes out of St Helana Last night we started in on a 2009 Belforte which is fortified desert wine and absolute amazing. So I'll be drinking some more of that tonight.

My rice cooker is also living on the counter in the dining room and we use it right there - our kitchen is smaller then 8'x12' The food processor lives out there too in a cabinet - and we use it plenty. So I'm not too worried about location. A chamber vacuum sealer would have to be more like the rice maker - used in place or put on a cart that can be rolled around.

so MVS-35XP vs Vacmaster vp215 The MVS-35XP (if you get it without the printer) has an LCD display and programmable options etc. The Vacmaster just has a gauge and requires more manual control. So for the extra $ you're getting more ease of use and more complexity? Better components / build quality - or not? Niche high end cooking gear is stupid expensive. I normally shy away from programmable stuff - but my new Thermadore Steam Oven has a ton of preprogrammed stuff and so far it's worked stupid well. Any up to date feed back on the day to day use of VP215 or MVS-35XP? Unless you have both copious counter space and a high tolerance for mechanical kitchen clutter, you'll want to move it from storage to kitchen and back again on a regular basis, and its heft makes that a tall order. I use a heavy duty cart I found at a yard sale to roll it around (it also houses our Hobart meat slicer, which has similar issues). My kitchen is too small, this would likely end up on a cart in an adjacent room or on or at the end of a row of counters we put into the dining room. (The microwave already doesn't fit in the kitchen unless we put it on a counter which isn't happening, it's stuck in the dinning room on a cart- steam oven took it's spot.) If it's an oil pump do you roll it around? I would expect it should be ok if you're careful.