Sous Vide in UK

[fergal]

Hi,

I want to start giving Sous Vide cooking a go and wondering where's best to get the equipment.

It appears the only barrier to getting stuck in, is the exorbitant cost of the electrical bath, thermometer & needle.

Does anybody know of a way to get this equipment cheaply? is there a store perhaps in london which i can visit?

many thanks

fergal

[Matthew Grant]

As far as I can find it ain't cheap, your best bet is ebay, alternatively try Clifton Foods and barter with them.

[LornaC]

The latest Nisbet catalogue has water baths and vacume packing machines with clips for foam gun's etc

[jackal10]

See the Sous Vide thread.

For home and small scale use use a rice cooker or crock pot, or even a steam table or a kettle and an Auber Industries http://auberins.com/index.php?main_page=pr...&products_id=44 - they send to UK and have a 240v version.

Also available from http://freshmealssolutions.com/ (sous vide magic)

If you need agitation you can use a small aquarium air pump.

I use a Grant Instruments bath http://www.grantsousvide.com/

[fergal]

thanks for you reply,

in terms of getting started, what exactly do i need?

- waterbath / or way of maintaining temperature

- digital thermometer & probe

- bags for cooking

Do i really need to be able to vacuum pack food for cooking?

thanks

fergal?

[edaname]

thanks for you reply,

in terms of getting started, what exactly do i need?

- waterbath / or way of maintaining temperature

- digital thermometer & probe

- bags for cooking

Do i really need to be able to vacuum pack food for cooking?

thanks

fergal?

←

[edaname]

Hi,

I want to start giving Sous Vide cooking a go and wondering where's best to get the equipment.

It appears the only barrier to getting stuck in, is the exorbitant cost of the electrical bath, thermometer & needle.

Does anybody know of a way to get this equipment cheaply? is there a store perhaps in london which i can visit?

many thanks

fergal

←

[Baggy]

Fergal you are going to have so much fun!

But I’m not sure that sous vide can conveniently done on the cheap in the UK – few/no secondhand water baths and no decent inexpensive vacuum packing machines.

I started with a FoodSaver vacuum machine but found it unreliable in sealing bags. The vacuum they pull isn’t too great (not a problem if you’re just looking for something slightly better than an ordinary plastic bag, but no good for storage), and the cost of the bags is high.

There are other external vacuum packing machines, but they are as expensive/more expensive than the FoodSaver and use the same type of costly engineered bag for packing (has ridges to allow the air to be sucked out). Having progressed to using a chamber machine, I use it many more times just because it’s easy and works really well.

I also have a needle probe thermometer which goes through the pack. Apart from having major problems in maintaining a seal when the pack is floating around in the water bath, I find that I use it only when trying new food stuffs or new ideas. As the probe is so fine, it is much more responsive than a regular probe thermometer and I use it in preference to a regular probe most of the time (ie not for sous vide). But it’s a special bit of kit and I have not been able to find a cheap alternative.

If you are committed to this style of cooking, I suggest skipping over the ‘make-do’ approach – you’ll only get frustrated and waste your money. I consider the water bath and vacuum machine to be essential – the needle thermometer is a ‘nice to have’, but you can manage without.

[edaname]

Check out the article (on line) Wall Street Journal Aug. 30,08 "Trying Sous Vide at Home" and the video showing step by step sous vide cooking using a rice cooker/PID Temperature Controller(Sous Vide Magic).

I also have a Sous Vide Magic from Fresh Meals Solutions, a Foodsaver, and an inexpensive rice cooker(B&D with a hole for occasional stirring), and I truly enjoy experimenting with different sous vide dishes. The technical support from Mr.Hsu at Fresh Meals and his knowledge in sous vide cooking is outstanding. My Lawyer friend in UK is using the the same setup.

Good luck!

[origamicrane]

There are no UK stores that sell sous vide equipment that I know of.

But if you only want to give sous vide a try the only things you really need are a digital thermometer, a food saver and a pot on a stove.

Might be better just doing that initially to see if you like the results of SV before investing in a more professional set up.

A step up from a pot on the stove would be an Auber or Sous Vide magic as stated above.

Or you can try one of the following options

1. a large thermos vaccum pot (shuttle chef),

http://www.thermalcookware.com/

http://www.galtak.com/thermos.html

electronic thermometer from maplin

and a foodsaver.

Basically pack you food with the foodsaver put the food into the pot and bring up to temperature. Turn off the heat and put the lid on and the pot will maintain the temperature unattended.

The pot loses about 1.5C every hour. So this can be used for seafood recipes where cooking times are typically under an hour also suitable for recipes up to say 4 hours cooking time and recipes that can tolerate some temperature fluctuations.

2. induction hob - there are some good ones that can maintain a pretty constant temp but again those ones are probably in the couple of hundred pound range.

3. Lab digital hotplate with stirrer. This is a good option as you can buy the hotplate relatively cheaply on ebay.

You just need to get a new stirrer and metal pan.

The good thing about using a digital hotplate is that even with a second hand one there is minimal chemcial health and saftey risk.

You can also use it as a temperature controlled deep fat fryer

3. Buy new equipment off ebay. Every so often you can find brand new water baths, hotplates and immersion circualtors on ebay.

I bought a brand new one off ebay for £250 from a seller in Singapore.

You can always tell when they have been used as no matter how well you clean them they will have some limescale in the seams and joints of the housing.

4. Buy second hand off ebay. There is quite a lot of debate about the relative safety of using second hand water baths and immesion heaters as you have no idea what they been used for.

And this equipment is usually employed for chemcial and biological testing.

So there is a very real chemcial health and safety risk you have to be aware of.

If you do buy secondhand clean them thoroughly with detergent, limescale remover, bleach and alcohol. Then do it again and again and again several times! and run it through several changes of hot water with it on for a few hours.

5. Buy off industiral auction sites.

http://www.goindustry.com/en/

http://www.thebranfordgroup.com/

Again used equipment and usually cheaper then ebay.

Some of the photos of the equipment look pretty crudey!! but sometimes you see units that looks reasonably clean and new.

But you have to go collect the item yourself or get an agent/ courier to collect and that is usually very expensive.

I bought two fisher scientific immersion circulators from these sites at £60 each.

I ended up going to the Pfizer plant in Sandwich to pick these up.

They were in excellent condition and dirt cheap, I resold them on ebay for £200 each.

It looks like I made a really good profit on them? but once you factored in the fact I had to take half a day off work and the petrol used to get to the collection point I barely made a profit.

6. buy new

There are a several lab suppliers that sell new IC unit

http://www.fisher.co.uk

http://www.coleparmer.co.uk

http://www.cliftonfoodrange.co.uk/

http://www.cuisinetechnology.com/thermal-circulators.html

http://www.julabo-sous-vide.com/products1.htm

http://www.julabo.de/session_uk.asp

http://ecomcat.jencons.co.uk/action_catalo...asp?sat=2&saa=3

http://www.camlab.co.uk/

http://www.grantsousvide.com/checkout.aspx

the cheapest new IC unit I found was a Haake C10 from Fisher

Edited September 11, 2008 by origamicrane (log)