Sous Vide Cooking

Down to my home is a fantastic fish shop. I could not resist when seeing this huge and beautiful 2 Kg Atlantic salmon. This was a great opportunity for me to try my new toy…the Julabo EC immersion circulator.

Recipe: I just put some lemon slices inside the salmon, put the salmon in pouch and vacuumed it. Temperature 56°C (138.2°F)  for 12 minutes.

This Julabo is a war machine. The  56°C (138.2°F) target temperature was reached so fast (even with my 20 litres water bath) and was very steady thanks to the water pump. Haaaaaaa! The time when I was using a gas or an halogen stove to cook sous vide is now so far to my memory. What a pleasure to switch on a machine, fix the temperature and that’s all!

The result was fantastic…juicy, looking like row but in reality cooked. I invited my neighbour who heard about my experiments and where very curious to see what is cooking sous vide with an immersion circulator.

Jean-Francois

Addélice twitted yesterday and mentioned some new information about their immersion circulator to be released mid-August.

• Microprocessor controlled
• PID temperature control
• Precision ≤ 0.2ºC
• heating power 2.000 Watt
• Timer function
• Overheating protection and low water level protection
• Acoustic and optical alert
• Circulation pump

Addélice mentions on its online shop that their sous vide appliance will be price competitive…

Here a picture taken from their site supposed to represent Addélice immersion circulator…maybe a protection grid?

Jean-François

Summer holidays started some days ago and, as promised, a University professor provided me with a old immersion circulator. He confirmed this thermal circulator has not been used with dangerous chemical or bio stuff.

Nevertheless the appliance was looking dirty with a sort of sediment all over the immersed parts. I took time to clean it gently. Here are the pics of my new toy!

So far I only checked if the Julabo was working well and plugged it to my water bath and set the temperature at 58°C.
The water pump is noisy and very powerful. I think it could cause a problem if using a small pan instead of my high water capacity water bath. The Julabo EC heated my 20 litres water bath in some minutes (the manual indicates 2,000 watts) which is noticeable compared to the 20 minutes waiting time for the gas stove, halogen stove and water bath former ous vide cooking experiments.

The only drawback of Julabo EC immersion circulator is the way to set temperature. You have to turn a wheel to set the temperature but their is a gap between the actual temperature indicated on the screen and the one set on the wheel. Therefore you need to adjust manually the weel to fix the target temperature appearing on the screen. It seems this problem doesn’t exist anymore with Julabo’s last EC version.
This version of the Julabo doesn’t benefit from a float switch which is a security problem if you want to cook for long time periods.

Jean-François

Such information is so rare on the sous vide cooking “planet” that it mustn’t go unnoticed.

Immersion circulator manufacturer are historically laboratories equipment suppliers. Some of these suppliers have slightly adapted their thermal circulators to comply with sous vide cooking needs (refer to Molecularcuisine.org list and price comparison of immersion circulators). It is true that no cook need a machine that can heat above 100°C (212°F) as only water should be used for sous vide cookery. Some immersion circulators can even heat liquids at 200 or 300°C (392-572°F)!
Nevertheless the design of these machines dates back to the eighties and lab equipment manufacturers still have the “monopoly” of the sous vide cooking market.

It seems things are changing and, if the information is true, a new supplier enters the small club of sous vide cooking manufacturers. Contrary to some companies that only relabelled others products, Addélice seems to have designed its own immersion circulator. Addélice internet site is not very talkative
but indicates that their immersion circulator is a pure product from Addélice and will be price competitive. Addélice immersion circulator should be released mid August.

Wait and see…

Jean-François

I put a little announcement on the French part of Molecularcuisine.org forum to know if someone could sell for a good price an old immersion circulator.
I received a very friendly answer from a University professor, a cooking freak, who is ok to borrow me a Julabo EC during summer holidays. He confirmed this immersion circulator was used to cultivate algae stuff. He said the appliance is safe.

I feel very lucky and thankful to this person that I unfortunately can’t name as he told me to be very discreet (he is not really allowed to borrow me this immersion circulator). 

See you in some weeks with my new toy!