The one I got is the Instant Accu Slim Sous Vide Immersion Circulator (From the makers of the InstantPot). Serious Eats rated it the “Best affordable immersion circulator”. It’s pretty no-frills, with just a small control panel to set temperature and time, but it does its main job well. Serious Eats calls it a “no-frills immersion circulator that punches above its weight.” It sells for just $75 on Amazon.
Here’s a link to all their reviews:
All of the ‘features’ on a sous vide circulator beyond setting a temperature and time are pretty worthless, IMHO. It isn’t as if you can leave a piece of meat sitting in a room temperature bath for hours on end before starting the circulator, or that you need some precise set of different temperatures at particular times. Most of the current wand-style sous vide cookers now offer a smartphone app, and many are starting to require it to eliminate the user interface, but I honestly just prefer to use the basic interface and set a timer to check on it.
I did purchase an integrated Inkbird cooker for doing smaller (basically single portion) cooks because I thought it would be more convenient, and frankly found it to be disappointing in both quality and reliability (front panel came apart and had to be glued back together, has difficulty maintaining temperature, sometimes shuts off without warning). A decent quality wand-style circulator in a sufficiently deep pot, along with some silicone bags and weights or magnets to keep the food submerged is really all you need to get started.
Stranger
I had my eye on an InkBird model for a while because it had a lot of positive reviews Amazon, until I saw the Serious Eats review I posted earlier rated it poorly. Now I feel all those reviews on Amazon are probably suspect.
Yeah, I found it to be disappointing; Also, the body of the tank is aluminum but the shaped frame they provide to hold down food is stainless steel, so you quickly start to see oxidation of the aluminum due to dissimilar metals contact which indicates poor design choices and concern about aluminum leeching into food if you get a slight leak. After the third time it spontaneously shut down on me I just dumped it. I have had zero problems with the couple of Anova wand-style circulators other than connectivity issues to their iPhone app that I don’t really need anyway.
Stranger
Bumping:
I have a semi-serious amount of Kohl’s gift credit from turning in a pile of hideous clothing gifts around the holidays, and decided to check Kohl’s sous vide options. Two initially came to my attention:
(which hits the 1000 watt recommendation)
And
Which @WildaBeast mentioned getting, though it’s a bit overpriced apparently compared to prices when they got one, and of course, is lower in power (800 watts).
Last one that came up was:
Which is also 800 watts, but was less expensive than the Instapot variant.
All are purchaseable within the store credit I have, but I solicit any additional advice from the posters.
I don’t have experience with any of those units but I’ll just note that you are trusting the safety of your food on the ability of the heater to maintain temperature, and if you are cooking anything larger than a single chicken breast I’d recommend a unit with at least 1000 watts of power. I’ll also opine that like a lot of ‘knock off’ kitchenware brands, you get what you pay for and the result of going cheap is an appliance that starts to malfunction or fall apart after just a few uses; as the adage goes, “Buy once, cry once.” I would really go with a known brand like Anova with a unit that has been out long enough to get real world feedback on long term reliability and functionality.
Stranger
I have no disagreements with your evaluation (note I was mentioning your advice for the recommended 1000 watt upthread) - just that the options offered via Kohls is quite limited. The ones I listed are the ONLY 3 models they offer.
More I was trying to creatively kill two birds with one stone - use the Kohl’s credit and get my feet wet with sous vide.
Again, I value the advice, and it may not be worth getting a subpar option that sours me on the whole thing. But right now I am watching my budget for various reasons, so I’ll be a while before I can justify the conspicuous consumption of a quality device.
Understandable. I will say, however, that of the numerous cooking appliances that I’ve collected over the years, the only thing that gets more use than my sous vide heater is the countertop convection oven. I use the heater just about any meat and frankly a lot of vegetables that I don’t want to roast or sauté because while I think I’m a pretty good cook (worked in kitchens professionally for several years) sous vide is just about foolproof in terms of getting a thorough cook without overcooking. And while the setup is a bit tedious if I do it in a large batch and chill the excess for later isn’t really a problem. (And I generally throw a sterilization tablet in the still-hot used water and then use it for dishwashing, to it doesn’t even go to waste.)
Stranger
I’ve been playing with the idea of sous vide since we bought our vacuum sealer, but I don’t want to shell out $100+ for something that may not work for me. Would the sous vide setting on the Instant Pot be adequate for a proof of concept set of runs?