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

Arley, basically what FOAS have said. Leave the pump on all the time to make sure that the temperature is completely even and thermal conduction is efficient. The pump is typically a brushless AC motor, nothing much to be wormed out. Look on eBay for immersion heaters. I use one that is 220vac/2,000 watts unit. Running 220vac/2,000 watts on 110vac gives you 500 watts. It's cheaper, less than $10.00. Plug the finished sous vide controller in a GFP kitchen outlet just incase of leaks. This portable unit gives you the flexibility of cooking with any size container. I have cooked a couple of eggs in a small pot to an entire frozen 18-lb turkey in a bee cooler. Using a light bulb as a heating source, you can have absolute repeatable bread proofing. Have fun. dcarch

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

(aptosca will read your link later) DH says: There are several ways of doing this. Easiest is to set the oven to what ever temp you want. Put in a big heavy pot. Fill with water and cover. Take your food in a vacuum bag with spices etc, seal and put in water. Let sit and eat. There is no need to spend a lot of money on a temp controller, since the oven will do it. The large pot of water will maintain the temp stable. I am willing to try it however. Making an immersion bath with a temperature controller is quite easy. They can be bought on the used restaurant market not too expensive. basically a steam table. A crock pot can be converted to low temp cooking. I do worry about bacterial contamination however.