Hi all, Thanks for your advice particularly to FoxCrane for his detail explanation with photos. Actually it is not difficult to build a hot water bath for "sous vide" cooking. A temperature controller, a circulation pump, a heating element and a circuit relay would do the job. While I was in Industry, I have built several similar systems for temparture control on plastic injection molds. Omron offers a wide-range of digital temperature controller in market for precise temperature control. But I won't build this system in kitchen at home. I would buy the Sous Vide Professional on market. However before purchasing I would do some experiments in kitchen first. I tried poached eggs according to following video. The quality is perfect and wonderful! Perfect poached eggs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mr5QNLbLcY 4 min plastic film Poached Eggs - How to Perfectly Poach an Egg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rtst1iRXI1g I'll try "Sous Vide Steak" according to following video; Sous Vide Steak ⢠ChefSteps http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q21O515OLxU I don't have Sous Vide Professional nor Vacuum Sealer. I'll use the cooking thermometer to monitor water temperature and water displacement method for vacuum sealing. Seal Food for Sous Vide Cooking or the Freezer with Just a Bowl of Water http://lifehacker.com/5978333/seal-food-for-sous-vide-cooking-or-the-freezer-with-just-a-bowl-of-water Comment and advice would be appreciated. Rgds satimis

Posted by mike9 : " How large of a cooler do you recommend? " How big a cooler will depend on how much food you try to sous vide. Since the components of my system are portable, I have several container sizes, from a small one to cook a few eggs to a good size cooler for large roasts. "How much power do i need? " The pump is less than 10 watts, the rest depends on the electric heater. Remember the heater use not much power to keep the water at the set temperature. "If i had to raise that the temperature of the cooler 30-40 degrees above hot tap water then its going to take a long time with 300w. I'd have to pull out the pans boil water on the stove etc. Could say a 1500w heater be too much and have problems with overshooting? I plan on using a PID and solid state relay. " I always use boiling water to get the water bath temperature high enough. 1,500 W heater will not overshoot if you have a good enough circulator. PID controller with a solid state relay, I believe, but not sure, throttles the heater from low to high. PID will, using self-tuning, self-adjusting to compensate overall equipment overshooting. "How much power does it take to sustain the equilibrium temp after everything has been cooking for many hours? " Depends on the insulating property of your container and the size of the container. "How much power does it take to maintain the set water temperature after a bunch of frozen food has been dropped into the bath? That could be important if i have an item already cooking and then later throw something frozen in there, if the temp of the water dropped for a long time it could mess up the cooking time of the first item. " Just keep an eye on the temperature reading, add more boiling water if needed. "I was looking at these heaters. http://www.amazon.com/NORPRO-559-Immersion-Warming-Liquids/dp/B000I8VE68/ http://www.amazon.com/Bush-CH-101-Energy-Saving-Immersion-Heater/dp/B003DLB5KW/ http://www.amazon.com/Reliance-9000129-045-Electric-Heater-Element/dp/B000H5W1TQ/ " The first two not too good: 1. they are not long lasting. 2. They are not completely submersible. The third one is very long lasting, but requires you to build something around the exposed terminals to waterproof and shock-proof. ------------------------------------------- I would like to say this to those of you who may be reading this thread, do not worry about any of these tech stuff. They are not what sous vide cooking is all about. A ready-made sous vide cooker is not that expensive anymore, plug it in, set the temperature and enjoy the superior food. That is all. All these annoying tech stuff are for crazy folks like me, who hasn�t quite outgrown his toy playing delinquencies yet. dcarch

Yeh, I was wishing it was deeper but went ahead and bought it because it looked like it would be easy to set up and the price was right. After I got it home, I remembered that I have one of those kettle type warmers down in the basement...much smaller, of course & I haven't dug it out to see if it's much deeper. I was thinking that I would insulate the top some way....at first I was concerned that the rim would be too hot. Now I realize that shouldn't be a concern because the element is on the bottom and the rim won't be any hotter than the water. (Unlike if you're using a Nesco.) Now, can you point me to some directions on how to wire the relay? (And what to buy.) This spring I wired up a PID to control my seedling mats and noted on some of the blogs that they recommended using a relay. (I think those were prolly on the home brewing applications.) Others didn't mention it so I went without. Obviously, I'm pretty much electronics ignorant so I need to have a 'For Dummies' tutorial! Oh, and muchas gracias, DC!

Top round or London broil is a really good first try SousVide. I'm going with 134º and taking one out at 4 hours for tonight. 8-10 hours should be better but I'll leave the other three in and take them out before bedtime. I'll mark the time and temp on the bags. 2inches thick so more time me thinks. The others will be frozen, then go on the grill the next few weeks. Tonight will be cast iron stove-top. Doing a trial run with an affordable cut lets you experiment with time/temp. dcarch, it is Fairway this week with the sale. Butcher was pretty excited about it. Wanted to talk method being so thick. I had to make more Spring spice rubs being grill season. At the same session I made a Mexican, BBQ, Indian, EverythingBagel, and Zaa'tar. And a popcorn special mix. Steak/burger rub...only one side. 3 Tbsp black peppercorn, 2 Tbsp coriander seed, 2 Tbsp dried mushrooms, one Tbsp each of ancho, smoked chipotle, garlic powder, cumin seed, no salt.