Precision induction: Tasty Onetop

[JoNorvelleWalker]

2 hours ago, ElsieD said:

I need to try this.  I bought some eggs last Monday at the farm gate and the eggs are really fresh which should help with this little experiment.  I could try this tomorrow but I have no idea what temperature to set the water.  @JoNorvelleWalker indicated that there is a reason why it won't work but neglected to say what that reason is.  Maybe she will chime in again?

 

Sorry, Dave explained it.

 

[ElsieD]

3 hours ago, Dave the Cook said:

There is no single magic temperature for egg poaching.

 

At the risk of oversimplification: it won't work because the proteins in egg whites coagulate at a higher temperature than those in the yolks. A poached egg works because the white temporarily protects the yolk. It coagulates first, and once it's firmed up, the task is done. If you leave the egg in the water, the yolk will coagulate, and you're well on your way to a hard-cooked egg. 

 

Now, if you could control the temperature instantaneously, bringing the water temp down from about 80°C (white coagulation temperature, more or less) to 60°C (five degrees less than yolk coagulation temperature, more or less) the second the whites have set, you might have a workable system.

 

ETA: as has been pointed out elsewhere, a poached egg is not a sous-vide egg.

 

 

Thank you for the explanation.  That makes sense.  So I guess if my Tasty Top was set at 80C and I set my immersion circulator to 60c in another pot, then in theory immediately when the whites have set (if we knew when that was) we transfer the eggs to the second pot we could hold them at least until the toast was done.  Practically speaking, this isn't going to happen, at least not by me.  But, I am interested in trying to poach an egg in temperature regulated water, if that makes sense, in order to get consistent results.  Right now my poached eggs range are anything but.

[ElsieD]

2 hours ago, CanadianHomeChef said:

Ah, it makes sense. You have to stop the white from cooking prior to the heat reaching the yolk. 

Sous vide you can get a similar to texture to poached eggs, but there's a layer of white that doesn't cook (I recall reading somewhere that the two layers of whites cook at different temperature.

 

 

Nothing worse than slimy whites.

[dtremit]

26 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

 

Thank you for the explanation.  That makes sense.  So I guess if my Tasty Top was set at 80C and I set my immersion circulator to 60c in another pot, then in theory immediately when the whites have set (if we knew when that was) we transfer the eggs to the second pot we could hold them at least until the toast was done.  Practically speaking, this isn't going to happen, at least not by me.  But, I am interested in trying to poach an egg in temperature regulated water, if that makes sense, in order to get consistent results.  Right now my poached eggs range are anything but.

 

Modernist Cooking and Food Lab both have variations on that with boiling water -- MC does SV first and then shocks in boiling water, while FL boils briefly, chills, and then SVs. I've done one (I can't remember which!) and it gave me a texture I enjoyed. 

 

I could see the OT being helpful to set the center of a poached egg more than you'd get otherwise. Cook the outside traditionally to set the whites, cool, then transfer into a precisely controlled bath at your target yolk temperature.

 

As an aside, the temperature control of the OT is really nice for scrambled eggs, though I need to play more with target temperature.

 

 

Edited January 7, 2018 by dtremit (log)

[ElsieD]

I used my TT the first time tonight to deep fry frozen sweet potato fries.  The instructions said to try them at 350.  I set the probe for that temperature and waited.  I tested it periodically with my Thermapen.  It quickly became apparent that the probe and the Thermapen were not on the same page, so to speak.  I adjusted the probe to 300 to get the oil to settle at 350.  I tested a couple of fries, that went well, and I shut it off until it was time to eat at which time i turned it back on and re-set the temperature to 300.  This time the oil reached 366 so I adjusted the probe again, downwards to 290 and waited. The oil then went down to 350 and I fried my fries.  I guess i can live with the discrepancy IF that temperature difference is consistent, as my main reason for buying the TT was to be able to hold the oil at a consistent temperature.  I plan on sending the TT people a copy of this note and I will let you know what they have to say.  Has anyone else done anything with theirs?  

[ElsieD]

I forgot to mention that I was deep frying in a cast iron enamel pot.  The probe is on the short side and the clasp thd probe fits into does not fit snugly on the rim of the pot.  In fact, the thing fell off three times, twice ending up In the hot oil.

[dtremit]

14 hours ago, ElsieD said:

I used my TT the first time tonight to deep fry frozen sweet potato fries.  The instructions said to try them at 350.  I set the probe for that temperature and waited.  I tested it periodically with my Thermapen.  It quickly became apparent that the probe and the Thermapen were not on the same page, so to speak.  I adjusted the probe to 300 to get the oil to settle at 350.  I tested a couple of fries, that went well, and I shut it off until it was time to eat at which time i turned it back on and re-set the temperature to 300.  This time the oil reached 366 so I adjusted the probe again, downwards to 290 and waited. The oil then went down to 350 and I fried my fries.  I guess i can live with the discrepancy IF that temperature difference is consistent, as my main reason for buying the TT was to be able to hold the oil at a consistent temperature.  I plan on sending the TT people a copy of this note and I will let you know what they have to say.  Has anyone else done anything with theirs?  

 

14 hours ago, ElsieD said:

I forgot to mention that I was deep frying in a cast iron enamel pot.  The probe is on the short side and the clasp thd probe fits into does not fit snugly on the rim of the pot.  In fact, the thing fell off three times, twice ending up In the hot oil.

 

I think it might be worth trying this with a lighter weight pot. Cast iron pots are fantastic for many applications, but temperature control isn't one of them; they have extremely high thermal mass and very poor thermal conductivity. So it is probably throwing off the algorithm that the One Top uses to regulate temperature.

The other potential option would be skipping the probe for cast iron, and just figuring out what surface temperature produces the desired oil temperature.

Edited January 9, 2018 by dtremit (log)

[boilsover]

4 hours ago, dtremit said:

I think it might be worth trying this with a lighter weight pot. Cast iron pots are fantastic for many applications, but temperature control isn't one of them; they have extremely high thermal mass and very poor thermal conductivity. So it is probably throwing off the algorithm that the One Top uses to regulate temperature.

 

Doubtful.  The probe should be measuring the temperature of the contents accurately.  The Thermapen should agree with the reading.

 

There may be an overshoot/undershoot issue, but ultimately the oil should be PID-controlled into a steady state temp.

Edited January 9, 2018 by boilsover (log)

[ElsieD]

 

This is the reply I got from the TT people which is rather useless.  I have not yet responded.  My husband is of the opinion that the Thermopen and the TT probe should read the same temperature.  It was interesting that when doing the water test, the probe and the Thermapen read the same.  That water was heated in a regular stainless steel pot.   I will do some further testing, including heating the oil in a stainless steel pan.

 

 

 

James (Tasty Shop) Jan 8, 20:55 EST Hey Tasty Fan! We're sorry to hear that you're not completely satisfied with your Tasty One Top experience. We’re always trying to improve both the One Top and Tasty app, but we really don’t have direct insight to decisions made by our Product team. However, the Tasty product team does review all feedback related requests Is it an issue with the heating up process, is it intermittent? With the probe clips just double check they are not damaged in any way. I am genuinely sorry that you are having issues with the One Top. But if you do have any further queries let us know, we're always happy to help! Regards,

[BetD]

I just did some comparison readings with the OT probe and my Thermapen and found that the probe seems to be consistently reading about 5 degrees cooler. I can live with this and now know to double check anything needing a truly precise temp. 

 

Added observation... when the water reached a full roiling boil, both the both the probe and the Thermapen agreed... on 209 degrees  

[rotuts]

there is no reason to presume that the correlation between the thermapen and the TOT -probe is liniar

 

at higher temps   i.e. above boiling water they may diverge or may not.

 

there is no question the thermal mass of cast iron between the TT-surface and the TT-probed container contents

 

probably provides temperature swings even it the TT items are reliable and calibrated.

 

in the same manner that SV'ding in a Crock-Pot w a feedback loop is not the way to go for SV.

 

still , the TT might be help[ful for deep frying once you get the hang of it.

 

remember , even deep- frying on a stove top  gas or electric itsnt the easiest thing to do if you want 

 

to keep your oil at the correct temp.   

 

 

[boilsover]

3 hours ago, rotuts said:

there is no question the thermal mass of cast iron between the TT-surface and the TT-probed container contents

 

probably provides temperature swings even it the TT items are reliable and calibrated.

 

If anything, a cast iron vessel would ameliorate temperature swings.  And the TOT probe should read very close to the TOT button and Thermapen once the system reaches a steady state on preheat.  To the extent they read more than a few degrees differently, something's wrong with the way TOT did their design.

 

Once the food is dumped for frying, the TOT probe should signal the coil to heat as soon as the oil drops a predetermined number of degrees.  Because cast iron is such an effective insulator, you would expect that reading to remain slightly higher than the one for the oil.

 

It's easy to lose focus of the fact that the thermal mass of the oil is usually much greater than that of the pot--even a cast iron one.  When the oil temp plummets, what you want (per Sam Kinsey's "pipe" analogy) is a pot that will dump beaucoups heat back into the oil.  I know this bodes ill for cast iron on conventional hobs, but it might also be the case that a better, stabler construction exists for induction as well.

[CanadianHomeChef]

I just got mine. But I've ran into a few major concerns.

 

First thing I tested was surface temperature control. I put on an All-Clad Nonstick pan (got it as part of a promo, would never buy All-Clad for non-stick otherwise), and set the temp to 375 degrees for some pancakes. I went to grab my temperature gun, and by the time I got back (maybe 15-20 seconds), the pan was well over 500 degrees! I quickly turned it off, and now I'm worried what it did to my non-stick coating I tested it out at lower temperatures, and they too were overshooting by well over 100 degrees... when the one top would initially stop, and regulate temperature, it eventually started to go down closer to the target temperature. Although the temperature would flucuate a lot and sometimes overshoot by 50 degrees. 

 

Next I tried the temperature probe. Start up the app. And I get a "Thermometer not detected" error. I check, and sure enough I have it inside the One Top securely. I take it out and plug it back in... the machine makes a dinging noise indicating it's detected, but the app quickly says "Thermometer not detected"....

 

Emailed Tasty.... wonder what will come of this

 

 

[CanadianHomeChef]

This is going to be a pain, since the unit is now located in Canada. Hopefully Tasty will accomdate replacement units

[ElsieD]

@CanadianHomeChef  sent a pm

[ElsieD]

Today I heated a a pan of peanut oil and set the target temperature to 250, 275, 300, 325 and 335.  Once the app notified me that the target temperature had been feached, I took the temperature with my thermapen.  I kept measuring the temperature of the oil until i got a consistent reading.  

 

Target 250F, stabilized at 304F a difference of 57 F.    It took 19 minutes.

Target 275, stailized at 331, a difference 0f 56F this took 29 minutes.

Target 300, stabilized at 356, a difference of 56.  This took 12 minutes.

Target 325, probe refused to go above 322,  stabilized at 379, so i'm calling it a difference of 57.  This took 17 minutes.   It should be noted that when I set the probe to 325, i realized I hadn't turn on the stove fan.  I don't know if that had anything to do with it but I wanted you to know.

Target 335, stabilized at 331,Thermapen read 390, a difference of 59 degrees.  This took 7 minutes.

 

Since I have no reason that I can will be deep frying at a temperature higher than the above I called it a day.

 

I am presently repeating the exercise using water as I want to see how accurate it is for sous vide purposes.

[ElsieD]

I just had a chat with my husband and he wondered if the difference in the readings could be attributed to where the sensors are in the probe vs. The Thermopan.  Guess I will have to repeat the test as I want to be sure I raise the right questions with the TT people.  It seems odd to me that they would produce something that is so far off.

[CanadianHomeChef]

Support was super quick responding at first, although their questions weren't relevant. Showed them a video of the problem... and haven't heard anything in the last few hours  Guess things got too complicated for support. 

[ElsieD]

Good news.  I tried my little test with water in a stainless steel pan.  I started at 110, and increased it by increments of 10 degrees until I got to 160 when I bumped it up to 180.  All the readings were off by only 1 degree, on the high side.  I'm okay with that.

[CanadianHomeChef]

awesome

[cdh]

Thanks for the rigorous testing regime!  Hope Tasty addresses the issue.  I wonder at the oil discrepancies... have they been too smart by half and built in the overshoot to compensate for the temp drop when the stuff to be fried gets dumped into the oil.  I wonder if you'd get the right results were you to deep fry something... 

[dtremit]

3 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Good news.  I tried my little test with water in a stainless steel pan.  I started at 110, and increased it by increments of 10 degrees until I got to 160 when I bumped it up to 180.  All the readings were off by only 1 degree, on the high side.  I'm okay with that.

 

I’d be interested to see what the same amount of oil does, in that same pan...

 

I’m also curious to repeat your tests with my TOT but am traveling until next week.

 

Assuming the probe is just a thermocouple, I wonder if there’s just an issue with the conversion? That could theoretically be fixed in firmware.

[boilsover]

9 hours ago, CanadianHomeChef said:

I just got mine. But I've ran into a few major concerns.

 

First thing I tested was surface temperature control. I put on an All-Clad Nonstick pan (got it as part of a promo, would never buy All-Clad for non-stick otherwise), and set the temp to 375 degrees for some pancakes. I went to grab my temperature gun, and by the time I got back (maybe 15-20 seconds), the pan was well over 500 degrees! I quickly turned it off, and now I'm worried what it did to my non-stick coating I tested it out at lower temperatures, and they too were overshooting by well over 100 degrees... when the one top would initially stop, and regulate temperature, it eventually started to go down closer to the target temperature. Although the temperature would flucuate a lot and sometimes overshoot by 50 degrees. 

 

Next I tried the temperature probe. Start up the app. And I get a "Thermometer not detected" error. I check, and sure enough I have it inside the One Top securely. I take it out and plug it back in... the machine makes a dinging noise indicating it's detected, but the app quickly says "Thermometer not detected"....

 

Emailed Tasty.... wonder what will come of this

 

 

Overshoot is a historic problem with temperature-set PICs--so much so that it's a joke.  It's usually blamed on the difficulty of inferring the true pan temperature from underneath the Ceran, and the lag between the under-glass sensor and the actual pan temperature.

 

But with through-the-glass measurement, there is actual contact between the thermocouple and the pan bottom.  It may be a switching or detection issue, like the fact that the original Viking induction hobs wouldn't work with Le Creuset iron.

 

The Hestan Cue tries to deal with this kind of issue by putting a chip in the pan itself.

 

I'm not optimistic the TOT is going to prove to be very precise...

[ElsieD]

I tried the oil test again and got much better results.  I waited to take the temperature until the probe informed me that the target temperature had been reached.  We used a stainless steel pan, and added more oil to make sure the probe was in deep enough. The probe was at least 2" into the oil. 

 

Probe set to       target temp reached      probe read-out    Thermapen temp.

                                   As per probe

 

250                            250                                      259                        259

275                            275                                       282                       280

300                             300                                      278                        274

325                            325                                        331                        328

350                             350                                       353                        353

375                              375                                      375                        371

385                              385                                       385                       381

 

Much improved and I can live with that.   I also got a message that the surface temperature of 410 had been reached.  I assume that is as hot as the TT gets?  Anyone know what that means?  Why can you set the surface temperature?

 

 

 

 

 

[CanadianHomeChef]

Thanks for a chart. Those differences in temperatures seem more than reasonable!

I'm still waiting for my probe to be fixed/replaced (hoping it's just the probe, not the entire unit). I'm talking to a senior customer service representative, and I should have a new probe shipped soon. 

 

I did another test on the One Top using surface temps. This time cast iron. It still overshot by 150 degrees at first, but it's cast iron, so no fear in wrecking the coating! Once it stabilized, it was within 25 degrees at all times. Created some really nicely browned pan-fried french fries. Impressed. Highly recommend using cast iron or stainless steel when using the surface temperature function -- not nonstick teflon coatings.

 

The size of the cooking area seems to be contained to the much smaller inner circle. I discovered this by shifting around the pan and feeling the heat. This is no different from other portable inductions on the market, but I was really hoping for something closer to 10 inches  The nice thing is that it's very clear which parts of the pan are getting direct heat. 

 

 

Edited January 12, 2018 by CanadianHomeChef (log)