"Here's the power supply I bought for the pump. Here is a link that might be useful: Velleman power supply" A very good power supply. Electronic regulated switching device. Just make sure one thing. A device like that has a tendency to produce RFI thru the power line. That why you see most of them include a "Choke" to trap the RFI. RFI can interfere with you home wireless devices or some computers. dcarch Here is a link that might be useful:

Oy. I'll have to check. Dcarch, do you have suggestions? ETA: In the preamble to his basic techniques chapter, he compares a convection steam oven's lack of consistent enough temperature (stated to be insufficient for using his tables) to water bath, and, in the next paragraph, explicitly states his converse, in the topic sentence, as "circulating water baths heat very uniformly". From that one may infer that he does, indeed, mean circulating. I was trained at a young age to read Engineer, and this is a prime example of the lingo. Sigh. And I'm grateful to FOAS for the link. There may well be some trial and error going on here... That's another great thing about starting with cooked. Not going to poison people with the experiments. :) But mostly, there's no point in partially cooking meatballs, and they'd squish too much if they were raw. I did one bag of turkey balls which weren't frozen enough before I vacuumed and they sort of squished too. Not big wet squishy, just not as solid as the ones that were frozen hard through. If they come out a little funny shaped, no one will care...but me. :( Much better booboo than undercooked!

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.

So two French guys give the cooking process a name. It happened and we all know what it means. I visualize a stick-type kitchen tool submerged in a container of water. A precise water bath circulator. They could have called it anything...KitchenJaccuzi, PrecisionHotBath... They called it SousVide. It went to print, maybe a book or two, then social media. It stuck like many named objects/recipes. Coined terms. Happens every day. Some 'cancelled', others are named and are recognized globally. We all know what a 'toaster oven' is. I visualize a small counter top oven. Most do not even toast that well. Any kitchen appliance or any object in your home is called a common word that most know what it is in conversation. Kleenex wins as a brand. We don't say 'nose paper' but we do say TP. (toilet paper). Why?...well the branding worked. Word play and language translation, definitions, even pronunciations can drive one bonkers. Not nails on a chalkboard, but more like a song stuck in my head and not necessarily a bad song. Last week I heard Ina pronounce ChickenMarbella Mar-Bay-ah. Yes Marbella, Spain is 'bay-ah' but it is not a Spinach dish at all. They were inspired by a trip to Spain and Turkey. (never made it being to sweet for my crowd) I might be the last person on the planet thinking 'Bella' like I call my pup when she is a sweetheart. (Italian pronunciation) SousVide is what it is. Literal translation not at all necessary. Too late for that. If one does not like the name, too bad. Why drive yourself nuts over it. I think Anova tried a brand change to 'AnovaPrecisionCooker' but it did not stick like the now famous InstaPot.