Welcome to the generic sous vide thread.
The idea here is that people can ask questions about sous vide, share tips, alert to specials, show experiments, demonstrate what they use as a container, and so on.
And we can collect all of the above in one thread, so it’s easy to find and read through.
And we won’t be hijacking the food thread, as we did a couple of days ago 
Go to it.
This egg was cooked for 45-50 minutes at 64C. I like the yolk a little runnier (63C does that) but the white is still really sloppy, so I tried 64C as an experiment. Effectively no difference, still not too nice.
OK, so here’s the first eggsperiment for today (the above is yesterday).
This was cooked at 63C for 45 minutes, AFTER it was blanched in boiling water for a minute before being cooked sous vide.
As you can see, the yolk is a fair bit runnier at 63C. However, the white is only a little firmer after the 1min blanching. My wife really hated the extremely loose white yesterday, but reported that today was better and she ate more of it. (Careful semanticists will note that “better” does not necessarily mean “good.”)
Yay 
Ordered last night & it’s on it’s way. Ended up cheaper on the Anova site though it turns out Amazon would have shipped if we’d wanted. Things might be looking up there after all!
Second eggsperiment for Friday.
This was cooked at 63.5C for about 50 minutes, after the eggs were blanched in boiling water for 90 seconds before being cooked sous vide.
The whites are definitely better set - I got my wife to come and look at them and she declared she’d eat the lot - and the yolks are def more creamy/less runny. Half a degree difference makes a noticeable change in the end product.
It’s 50 minutes rather than 45 because today is being a bitch, and I screwed up getting the spam cooked. However, the time doesn’t seem to make much difference. I’ll repeat these settings tomorrow and we’ll see what happens.
I love my sous vide… but I don’t understand why you would bother with taking an hour to cook eggs when I can pop them in a silicon cup in boiling water and have perfectly poached eggs in 5 min!
I can see the benefit of meat… but eggs taking an hour???
Just ordered my daughter a sous vide off Amazon. Will follow this thread closely to see if my wife might want one.
But, my first question is also — why poach an egg for an hour? It just looks like a 2-minute fried egg over-easy to me. Please school me.
The 63 degree egg is a thing - give it a google. Much loved by chefs & foodies the world over.
I, too, ordered the $99 Anova from Amazon. My daughter is a nurse and serious cook and her boyfriend is a chef. They are really looking forward to it. Therefore I want to learn more about it.
For example, what is the main difference between sous vide cooking and slow cooker meals? What is it best at? Why is it such a novelty in the U.S.?
My own reasons for wanting one are that:
a) I miss the type of ‘precision cooking’ & experimentation involved in baking which I obviously no longer do. I used to make my own brioche, crumpets, croissants etc… & I found it challenging & enjoyable.
b) I like the the cheaper cuts of meat & the connective tissue they contain but I don’t much care for stewed foods - sous vide will apparently enable me to cook them to a nice, even & tender texture without having to stew them with a bunch of other ingredients.
So basically - I like a challenge & I like simple, well cooked food 
I mostly use mine for steak. All I buy is rump steak. Cheap cheap rump steak. Cook it for 24 hours at 53.5C to be beautifully medium-rare. I much prefer it to the more expensive cuts.
Which is why I bought a second SV, because the old one is very often cooking steak
Have you tried draining off the loose white? I have tried eggs in the sous vide but didn;t like them so gave up on it… now blanch the eggs for 35-40 seconds in champagne bubble water. crack open and drain off the loose white using a tea strainer then pop the eggs in a ramekin to transfer the eggs to the water and cook for 2 minutes as the water simmers. Gets rid of all the crap and gives pretty reliable results.
And now I’ve gone a hi jacked the sous-vide thread with a non sous vide method… ooops! sorry all…
No, that’s partly kinda a sous-vide method too. I use a spoon with holes to get rid of the really loose whites, but I think a slotted spoon would be better, so I’m going to source one of them tomorrow (hopefully). I tried a mesh strainer, but it was too fine, but I think I’ve got a coarser one downstairs, so I’ll go see if I can find that.
the fine mesh seemed to work ok for me …just don’t get it near the warm water or all the loose white solidifies and blocks the holes…duh!
I love mine! I initially only bought it to make goat cheese for the precise temperature control cheese needs and it works perfectly for that. I was going to buy a separate yogurt maker so I could make some out of cream, which you can’t find in the stores, until I realized my sous vide would work.
As for slow cooker vs sous vide - much more precise temperature control so you can cook for hours and still have rare insides - can’t do that with a crock pot. And for tenderizing cheap, tough cuts of meats there is none better.
Your daughter and SIL will love it!
As for why such a novelty I can’t answer that. I had never heard of one until reading about it here. We don’t have cable so no cooking shows to watch anymore.
My first reaction was NO to another kitchen appliance but then I realized about the cheese and raw goat’s milk is expensive so I wanted to minimize the failures! So… once I had it I branched out to actually cooking with it and glad I did.
Mic, I see you have 10 days ‘recent read time’ on this forum. Ha! Man, that is really putting in your time. 
Going to do a couple ribeye steaks today for our first-ever sous vide.
There is an older thread that has a lot of good information as well:
