Today Polyscience made the demonstration that a non stired water bath cannot be as efficient as an immersion circulator. It is funny to see that Polyscience directly mentions Sousvidesupreme in the TAG of the article.

Polyscience video indicates clearely that a non stired water bath has a longer response time to reach the desired core temperature. Therefore, it is obvious that Douglas Baldwin cooking tables sould be used with care. Douglas Baldwin indicates in the Pratical Guide to Sous Vide “With all these digital controllers, I highly recommend setting the temperature offset (measured near the temperature at which you wish to cook) using a high quality digital thermometer. Indeed, at the default settings the thermistors used in the above controllers can easily be off 2–4°F (1–2°C)”.

Freshmealsolutions mentions clearely in the user manual of the SousVideMagic : “If you don’t have a proper food core temperature sensor probe, always cook at desired core temperature settings for the duration as specified by reliable recipes with an additional safety factor of at least 25% longer…”
In addition the manual indicates “The default settings are designed to overshoot 1 or 2 degree higher for safety reasons. You can reduce the overshoot by making your own PID adjustments. See the document “PID Tuning”.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jean-François

Three months ago I tried a soft boiled egg at 63°C during 1 hour. I have admitted that it was not the perfect egg for me and promissed to make another try. This time I cooked an egg 50 minutes at a constant 64.5°C temparature.

And here is the result!

(Soft boiled egg cooked at 64.5°C during 50 minutes)

 The egg at 64.5°C has nothing to do compared to the 63°C one (see the last picture down this post). The appearance of the 64.5°C is better, the white egg is more compact and doesn’t fall down like the 63°C one.

(Soft boiled egg cooked at 64.5°C during 50 minutes)

The yolk is also very different compared to the 63°C one.

(Soft boiled egg cooked at 64.5°C during 50 minutes)

See bellow the picture I made 3 months ago of the 63°C soft boiled egg with the Sousvidemagic and above the 64.5°C egg with the swid of Addélice. This is crazy to see how a difference of only 1.5°C can change so much the texture of an egg.
As I told it before I didn’t really like the 63°C egg but the 64.5°C was fantastic!! Absolutly incredible…I strongly recommend anybody trying it!
I read on internet that such egg was impossible to do without the precision and stability of an immersion circulator. I know understand why. If the temperature variation is equal or higher to 1°C then this can change the final texture of the white egg and yolk. The cool thing is also to be sure to reproduce the same result each time you set your immersion circulator at 64.5°C! I am definitely getting found of this cooking equipment.

(63°C soft boiled egg cooked during 60 minutes)

Jean François

I received the Swid this morning and had only time to take some pictures before leaving. I am very excited to share my first impressions about this sous vide appliance!

I was very surprised by the size and the weight of the Swid. I had to give back the Julabo EC that was borrowed to me during summer holidays and therefore I can’t show you pictures to compare the 2 appliances. Nevertheless I took some pics to compare the Swid with the SousVideMagic.

The Swid is compact and can be stored easily in one of your kitchen draws. This is an excellent point.
The casing is amazing, very soft and sensual to the touch. The protection grid is part of the whole metal structure of the Swid. For the record a metal grid is always coming as an option with the other immersion circulator such as Polyscience and Julabo…The Swid grid as a funny design with holes like bubbles carved in the metal.

I didn’t have time to try it so far but my first feeling about the swid is excellent. I’ll come back to you as soon as I have a little bit more time.

Jean-François

Yesterday I bought in supermarket pork ribs and found interesting 24 hours pork ribs cooking recipes on internet. As soon as my girl friend came back home I share with her my excitment doing a 24 hours cooking experiment! Unfortunately I was brought down to earth since my girl friend said she was scarred the SousVideMagic could burn during our sleep! I tried to explain that thousands of people experimented 24 hours sous vide cooking recipes and that Fresh Meal Solution appliance was reliable…but she didn’t see reason.

On the other hand she is a bit right. The risk of fire is expressly underlined in Fresh Meal Solutions’ manual when the thermometer probe is taken off the rice cooker or is out of work.  This point is a major drawback of SousVideMagic equipment, no float switch (in case all water evaporated) or excess temperature protection is available. These kinds of protections are usually provided in thermal or immersion circulators.

Hooo come on….I want to try anyway! Do i have to do sous vide cooking on the sly? Will this blog lead me to a divorce ?

Jean-françois

SousVideMagic 1500B is definitely not an aesthetic cooking equipment but the finishings are ok and everybody who buys such machine knows that your kitchen will look a bit messy with all these cables…

My first problem was to read the 25 pages manual (available on Fresh Meal Solutions’ internet site)! If your are not comfortable with English and usually not enjoying reading manual then…back luck for you! Sousvidemagic’s manual is only available in English and gives you headache since you start looking at PID tuning!
It took me some minutes to understand how to shift the SousVideMagic from °F to °C. Trust me this was not a ”push one button” function key.
The major issues I had to face with were contained in the Fresh Meals Solutions’ manual warnings:

• “Use listed cookers with heaters rated accurately for their power wattage and with their own thermal cut off protection (thermostatic or thermal fuse) in case of any SVM failures. Do not use it with electric cook tops or hot plates. SVM is designed to control the cookers recommended by Fresh Meals Solutions only. Using it to control cookers not on the recommended list can be dangerous and cause fire hazards. Fresh Meals Solutions is not liable for damages caused by misuses of SVM”.
• “Always place the SVM sensor in the cooker’s water bath before turning it on. Leaving the SVM temperature sensor outside of the water bath while cooking will form an open loop operation. This way the sensor is measuring ambient temperature and not the actual bath temperature, as a result SVM will allow the cooker to heat at full power indefinitely. It will not only overheat the controller, but also damage your cooker, and may even cause a fire”.

After reading the manual it was not clear for me if my rice cooker was “listed” by Fresh Meal Solutions as a recommended cooker. Nevertheless I went further and wired the one I purchased in China Town for EUR 45.

The second warning (“don’t take the temperature probe off the rice cooker”) is easy to manage nevertheless I consider this to be a major failure in terms of excess temperature protection. No excess temperature protection switch is provided in this case. This machine will burn, that’s all! In otherwords no kids should go around the SousVideMagic pulling on wires and no scatterbrained people dealing with this machine. 

Fresh Meal Solutions also recommend using hot water to fill cooker’s water bath or pre-heat the water close to set temperature first, before hooking Sousvidemagic to the cooker.

I took for you some nice pictures to show the rear view of the SousVideMagic 1500B (I like taking pictures). As you’ll see this is a very simple appliance. You’ll also see the kind of socket adaptor you’ll need to purchase for European users. 

I also verified if Fresh Meal Solutions’ temperature probe was as precise as mentioned on their site. I took a glass of water and immersed the SousVideMagic probe and the Mastrad one together. I made the test in °F and the result was excellent: 1°F of difference! The response time of the 2 probes is also very good.

Now lets talk about my first experiment cooking sous vide with SousVideMagic: a beef fillet at 59°C for almost 2 hours.

I verified during the 2 hours cooking period if the temperature mentioned by the SousVideMagic 1500B was actual (you’ll see on the picture that I switched to °C). In fact I think I would have never trust the SousVideMagic would be so steady and accurate if I would not have made this test. I confirm this sous vide cooking equipment is precise and steady! 

Here the result: a fantastic colour for that beef fillet, very tender and juicy. I loved it!
For food safety please visit this link.

After having tested sous vide cooking with a gaz stove and a halogen stove here are my comments about cooking sous vide with a EUR 100 basic water bath.

For the purpose of measuring the range of temperature variation of my water bath I poured 14 litres of tap water at 43°C (109.4°F). My target temperature was 58°C (136.4°F).
I approx. need 34 minutes to reach my target temperature which is very long compared to the gaz and halogen stove experiment. This can easely be explained by the 14 litres water to heat compared to 4 litres container I heat with the gaz and halogen stove experiment. The range of temperature variation is of approx. 4 to 5 degrees if you are not taking care. But if you remain close to your water bath and play with the thermostat (see on the graph T5 for thermostat 5…) you can easily remain in a range of 2 degrees. This range of 2 degrees (that could be considered as acceptable) was facilitated by the fact that my container was fed with 14 litres water. Nevertheless you can’t remain close to your cooker if you want to cook a meat for a long period!  Therefore cooking sous vide with a basic water bath is not a good option.

I summed up my comments in the table below. Next step will be a SousVideMagic from Fresh Meal Solutions that I purchased on internet some days ago. I should receive it soon!!

Jean-François