seannymurrs

Not sure if I'll have time since the dinner is tonight. If I am able to go this route what temp should I warm the burgers up to before searing? Lower than 134-138?

I plan on searing all the burgers after cooking on my cast iron griddle. I left that step out since I knew I'd be doing that regardless. Only stuff I'm not sure about is how to deal with the different cooking temps.

I'm having some people over for dinner tonight and am planning on cooking some burgers sous vide using my anova. I'm running into some complications due to everyone wanting their burger cooked to a a different degree of doneness. I need some cooked well done, some medium, and some medium rare. I'm going to lay out my plans on how to accomplish this and I'd like some input on whether or not it will work and/or if there's a better way. According to the time tables I've looked at it should take about 75 minutes to cook and pasteurize the well done burgers in 160F water. If I put those in first and then as soon as they're done added some ice to the water to drop the temp down to 145F for the medium burgers and added those in. Those should take another 75 minutes or so to cook and pasteurize to the core. For the medium rare burgers it looks like if I add them during the last 45 minutes of cooking they should be cooked and pasteurized to the core and also relatively close to medium rare temps (may be a little overcooked but close enough). The only possible issue I see with this is the fact that, by the end, the well done burgers will have been in the water for about 2.5 hours. I've never cooked burgers that long sous vide before so am not sure if I'll run into any texture issues. Any thoughts?

I have two SideKIC sous vide units and the pump has died in both of them. Does anyone know the model number of the pump that is used, I'd like to try and replace them. They are both out of warranty so going that route won't help unfortunately.

I purchased a lid for my cambro and I plan on modifying it the way you did. I have one question/concern I'm hoping you can help with. Can the lid be lifted/removed in order to put the food in the water without removing the SideKIC? From the picture you posted it looked like it might be hard to lift the lid up once the SideKIC is in place. Do you place your SideKIC in the middle of one of the Cambro sides like Chris did? I've always put it more towards the corner, with the pump facing outwards.

I purchased a lid for my cambro and I plan on modifying it the way you did. I have one question/concern I'm hoping you can help with. Can the lid be lifted/removed in order to put the food in the water without removing the SideKIC? From the picture you posted it looked like it might be hard to lift the lid up once the SideKIC is in place.

The SideKIC is what I have now, and while it's been a great way to introduce me to the world of sous vide, I feel like I'm starting to outgrow it.

The Vac-Star SousVideChef II is a pretty new unit, I have read several people is having problems with it, including a friend. I'd personally choose Addélice SWID (in fact I did). Older SWIDs also had problems with the pump, but after a model revision their problems seem solved. Are either of those units available in the US? Seems like they both might be over my $500 limit.

Thanks so much for the awesome responses, extremely informative. After giving it some thought and consulting with the wife, I think I'm going to have to eliminate the eiPOT and SVS from the running. My wife took one look at the eiPOT setup in some of the pictures and almost immediately vetoed that option. I decided against the SVS as I think I'd prefer a circulator type device instead of relying solely on convection. The two I'm going back and forth between now is the PolyScience Creative model that is available from William-Sonoma and the soon (hopefully) to be released Nomiku. I know it's hard to compare the two since the Nomiku isn't out yet, but I was hoping some of the sous vide experts here could give me their thoughts on how it would compare to the PolyScience based on what we know so far.

Looking at upgrading my current Sous Vide system, and have about $400-$500 to spend. The two I know for sure fit in this price range would be the FreshMealSolutions eiPOT and the SousVide Supreme. Not sure if PolyScience has any systems under $500, but if they do I'd be willing to consider that as well. Anyone have any suggestions/recommendations? I'm currently leaning towards the eiPOT, but haven't been able to find anyone who has one and can vouch for it. *edit* Another option I forgot to mention is the Nomiku. It's not shipping until next month, but looks like it might be worth considering.

I used my SideKIC in a cooler for the first time, and noticed something a little troubling. I was cooking salmon and had the SideKIC set to a temp of 126F. After the temp had stabilized I added the fish and the temp dropped down to 125.5F. I expected this as it always seems to drop a bit after adding the food. What concerned me is that as it was bringing the temp back up it overshot by a lot more than it normally does. Usually it will overshoot by about .1 or .2 degrees and then level out pretty quickly. This time however the temp went up to 126.6F and fluctuated between 126.6 and 126.4 for over 10 minutes. Is this because of the added insulation of the cooler? Was the SideKIC expecting the container to lose heat more quickly and was over compensating?

Filled a glass with ice cubes (refrigerator doesn't do crushed) then added water. Put the thermometer in and it read 33 degrees after about 30 seconds. Haven't done the boiling test yet, but things aren't looking good for the accuracy of my sideKIC.

I just got my SideKIC on Friday, and have used it three times so far. Made some salmon filets Friday night, soft boiled eggs Saturday morning, and a few ribeyes Sunday night. So far it's worked quite well. I'm a little concerned about the accuracy of the temp probe however. When using my instant read thermometer the SideKIC was registering about 1.5 degrees higher than my other thermometer. Is there a good way to test and see which temp is wrong? Unfortunately I can't afford a nice Thermopen.