Sous Vide on the very cheap

[21TonyK]

The other day I picked up one of the £12.99 slow cookers from Aldi. First thing I wanted to know was what the warm, low and high settings meant in terms of temperatures. After checking turns out they're 55, 82 and 100.

Didn't think too much of it at the time but haven't done confit duck for a while and today I was offered a pack of legs half price. Got home and really couldn't be bothered to set up a water bath so thought I'd give the slow cooker a go. Vac packed the legs with the normal bits and chucked them in the slow cooker with warm water and set it to low.

Six hours later I've got perfect confit duck and 55 is just about right for steak and you could get away with lamb at that as well.

Ask your friendly butcher to do the vac pack bit and you could have a basic but workable sous vide setup for £12.99.

Edited by 21TonyK on Saturday 19th September 16:29

[scottri]

You could probably get away with the immersion technique instead of vac packing as well.

http://www.sousvidelife.com/cooking-sous-vide-with...

[condor]

I'll have a go with my slow cooker on warm and see what temp it reaches. I'll guess most slow cookers would be in the 55 degree range for the warm setting.

Thanks for the tip and also for use of zip-lock bags too

[21TonyK]

Forgot about using zip-loc bags. So yes, very cheap.

It's not going to give you the finite control of a proper bath but I have used sous vide a lot for a lot of things and as long as you have a probe in the water as well you can always adjust as you go along.

With a bit of care you could cook most popular things on a small scale.

[peter tdci]

I know that it's extra expense, but there are units out there that can override the temp controllers of rice and slow cookers to give a finer temp control making them more flexible for sous vide.

[13aines]

You can also buy a temperature controller, mains socket plate, and a project box, and build a temperature control box that sits between the slow cooker and the mains and turns the supply to the slow cooker on/off to maintain the desired temperature.

A bit more expense, but still cheap sous vide, more accurate (if you buy a decent temperature controller) and also means you can make use of the slow cooker more rather than buy and store more kitchen gadgets

[Type R Tom]

I tried that with my slow cooker before I got the Anova, unfortunately the low setting was a bit high and not very stable. Thought about going down the line of switch on the socket etc. but took the plunge and went for the Anova and so far so good.

[PedroB]

Easiest way to make a cheap Sous Vide I have found is like this:

Get a cheap electric hotplate like this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fine-Elements-Electrical-S...

Buy a greenhouse/homebrew temperature control like this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Purpose-Fermentation-T...

Wire it into an old waterproof outdoor socket like I did:



Get you meat vac packed or wrap it in clingfilm/ziploc/whatever, bung it in one of your normal saucepans with water, temperature probe in the saucepan, programme your temperature controller to whatever you want, plug the hotplate into the control box. Robert is your mother's brother.

I didn't have to buy the outdoor plugbox as I had one knocking about but they are about £15.

Hotplate: £10.58
Temperature controller: £13.99
Socket £15

Total build: £39.57