Getting Equipped

There's two things you need to get started with sous vide cooking. A vacuum sealer and a immersion circulator. Aka something to seal the food into an airtight plastic bag and something to keep a tub of water a constant temperature. But if you're reading this you either are a friend of mine wondering what the heck I'm up to or you're trying to decipher how this all works and if it's worth the expense and time.

To keep the water bath hot I bought the Polyscience Sous Vide Professional Immersion Circulator. I was hugely relieved to find that I didn't need to buy an large electrified tub but instead something that clips to the side of a stock pot and sticks into the water in the put. One storage worry put to rest. It's definitely expensive ($799 - go points!) but from my initial inspection, it seems well made and easy to use. It also was bundled with a 20qt stockpot and a plastic professional sous vide container - that are claimed to be worth $200. The pot is great though and a welcome addition to my kitchen.

To seal the food in the plastic bags I bought the Caso VC200 Vacuum food sealer. It was $199 with an assortment of bags. It was very simple to use and worked great. I liked it.

I settled in with the booklet that came with the PolyScience machine. To my surprise it was written by Thomas Keller! (French Laundry owner/chef among other things...) It was very well written and comes with 18 recipes that highlight the unique advantages of sous vide cooking. As I was reading the book, I noticed a pattern with about every third recipe. "Because this recipe contains liquid in the bag, a chamber machine is needed for vacuum packing."

What? $1000 into the process and I can't even cook a maine lobster curry or any of the recipes where you add the main ingredient AND a marinade or other liquid?! I hadn't even started yet and I was being told that I needed different equipment!

Food sealer #2. After discovering I could use the points on Amazon too I found the least expensive chamber sealer. Least expensive is still pretty damn expensive. The VacMaster VP210c had some great reviews but it rings in at $909 and is a beast of a machine. I packed up the Caso sealer and sent it back. I hear people are making the non chamber sealers work by freezing the before adding it to the bag, but I was looking to delve in fully and thought that getting the right equipment up front was the way to go.

The unit feels like it belongs in a commercial kitchen. It certainly doesn't have styling that cries our for counter space. So mine is tucked away in the pantry. It works great. There are dials on the front and it's programmable so you can set how much of a vacuum you desire. For the mostpart it seems you set it once and are done with it. And unlike the immersion circulator, it doesn't need to warm up. Just turn on the switch, put in the food to be sealed (in the bag) and then press down on the lid. It starts automatically. I will need to find an inexpensive source of bags since this seems like it will be replacing the ziplock bags I seem to go though so quickly.