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!

Yes, crispy brown comes from dry heat. There are a few ways of doing it, but as you surmise, it happens outside of the actual sous vide cook. The advantage is that it's cooked 100% through and through to the temperature of your choice while sous vide. There's no perfect sear with blue raw meat happening. For a steak, it's often sous vide cooked, all the way through, then removed from the pouch, juices dried off, then seared in a screaming hot pan. You don't have to hold back the searing temperature, because the meat is thoroughly cooked. This is how the famous "edge to edge" is achieved. There's the dark caramelized sear edge, but no ring of brown, dryer interior and pink center. Just the desired doneness, color and texture all the way. You can make red meat "well done" this way, as in killing pathogens, while still having the soft texture of medium rare. You can also cook it at a higher temperature if you want a firmer texture. It's the temperature setting you're cooking to, not the time, though, of course, higher temperatures still take a bit longer. For other uses you can also do "reverse", where you sear first and then seal sous vide and cook with the circulator. I forget when that is done. That wouldn't be for crisp, of course. You can use sous vide ("under vacuum") to hurry marinades. That's just sealing it in the bag with the vacuum machine, not cooking it. One of the catering joys of sous vide is that on Wednesday, when you receive your poultry order, you can prep Friday's skinless chicken breasts, including the flavorings and herbs, vacuum seal and refrigerate them, then put them in the circulator to cook a few hours before service. When you're approaching time to plate, you can remove them to a sheet pan and put them in the oven for five minutes to brown, or just plate them with a sauce. You're never going to get crisp skin sous vide. All the moisture is held inside, which is great for the flesh, but doesn't dry the skin, which is what makes it crisp. You're not going to get fond, either. There's no Maillard reaction. But you can also just roast off some trimmings and make a pan full of fond. This is where cooking sous vide at home parts with catering. There isn't enough fond in catering to do the job so you're making it anyway. At home, it's a side benefit. Other than to try recipes before serving to company, I don't bother with sous vide for just us. There's no point when I have so many other tools. If you go to the Anova website, you can find all kinds of recipes using their circulators that seem a bit ridiculous, like making cakes in mason jars. As experiments in what you can do, however, they're interesting, and could inform a decision later. The great thing about an immersion circulator that you use with your own vessel, like I have, is that you have an instant spare oven. But what if one kid has football practice, another has show choir, and the third has cub scouts. Besides screaming, you need to chauffeur them and feed them after the boys get home and before the girl leaves. There's drive thru. Ugh. Or crockpot. Or, if like me you have two circulators, you can set your chicken and potatoes to cook sous vide before the scout meeting and have your salad ready, and by the time coats are off and backpacks stowed, everybody's eating a wholesome, perfect temperature, dinner together, whenever you got home, and all your time going to eating it and talking to the kids, rather than fixing the meal up (even microwaving or other reheating takes time) and being late to choir. It's just a tool. There are other ways to achieve what you need to achieve, and people have been cooking for thousands of years without it. I think it was invented a bit over 200 years ago.

I was planning on pounding out a turkey breast to flatten it and roll it up into a log and then wrap it with bacon and sous vide it at 145 degrees for 3 hours. Question: Is it safe to put some stuffing in the center since I will only be cooking to 145? I know I will maintain an internal temp of around 143 degrees for 30 minutes. With the other breast I was going to wrap a cooked smoke sausage which I believe I wouldn't have any problems there since it's cooked.

Thanks, bbstx, I'm going to give FOAS' method a try next. There are several reasons that I thought I'd use the pork chops for my sous vide experiments. I have quite a few of them, and since pork is not my favorite meat and it was pretty cheap, I'm not as leery about "wasting" them. They were languishing in the freezer, and I'm trying to get some freezer room for those 23 meat chickens that'll be ready to process in about 2 weeks. And, of course, the dog likes everything I mess up, LOL. So, I figure I'll keep trying different methods/temperatures/times/seasonings until I hit that "sweet spot" where Elery likes them and I think they are edible. (shrug) I am disappointed that I can't just chuck them into the sous vide in the morning, work at the farm all day and come home to a perfectly cooked chop that just needs a quick sear to be supper. It was the reason Elery wanted one, so he could do a bunch of chops/steaks/whatever and then just toss them on a grill to finish when the family was ready to eat. Unfortunately, that results in a mushy and sub-par finished product, which I did not expect after hearing others say they could "hold" a steak for 12 hours or whatever and still have it be perfect. I remember Grandma telling me that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, so I should have been suspicious. However, Elery wanted one and it made a good gift, so it accomplished something already, and I bought it on line, didn't have to go to a store! Mother, wants everything to be soft, so maybe she'd like it that way! Annie