Did a belated Valentine's dinner on Saturday for my wife and another couple....went with an "old School Steakhouse" menu theme...Frank Sinatra in the background....Gin martini's and bourbon for me and my buddy, the girls had champagne...."Filet Oscar" topped with lump crab meat and Bearnaise, asparagus, and "Potato Dauphine" which I cut into a heart shape....started with shrimp cocktail, followed by a classic wedge salad with a buttermilk/blue cheese dressing and candied bacon....Steaks were beautiful 8-9 oz, did sous vide at 129* for about 2 1/2 hours, bagged with smashed garlic and tarragon, then seared over a ripping hot cast iron pan (warm out so was able to use side burner on grill w/out the worry of smoking up kitchen)....meat was perfect with a nice sear...also did the shrimp sous vide at 135* for about 45 min, shell on, tossed with some baking soda and salt before bagging, peeled then chilled...came out really plump....

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silicone bands to help hold shape...
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My homage to St. Peter....
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Love these wedge ice glasses...
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Looks fantastic, Keith!
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That's some lovely food **** right there! :-)
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Bless you, my son.
:-)
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Keen eye.....:-)
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Simply beautiful counselor!:-)
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Proud new owner thanks to 8lug, got it in last night and set it all up but it was a little too late to get anything going. I prepped a few different bags for garlic confit (one with rosemary one with thyme) that I will be trying out tonight, gonna try to make use of the wifi feature to get the bath pre-heating when I leave the office so when I get home 30 minutes later I'm hoping to be able to just toss it in. If this works out as expected I think that'll be useful for making dinners after work, won't save the most time I imagine but at least it will be ready and waiting when I walk in the door. I'll post up pictures/results after I give it a go :-)
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How big a vessel are you using? The preheat might take longer than 30mins depending upon size, current temp and target temp. My 5 gal pot I recently used took a lot longer to come to 135F than my 3 gal pot. I"m guessing over an hour, which included heating the water on top of the stove.
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If I am in a hurry to pre-heat the water bath, I put the gas burner on high for 2-3 minutes. 5 tops.

Easy.
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Close to 5 gallons, I guess I should allow more time. I was messing with it last night and was adding hot water to a mostly full bath and it was increasing pretty well, about 4* for every big glass full of hot water I added (my faucet gets pretty close to boiling). Good method to keep in mind if I want it to start out hot while I'm there, I'll make note of what time I start the heating remotely today and what it looks like by the time I get home
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Like Peter says too, if you're in a hurry you can always preheat on the stove, if using a metal pot.
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Guess it doesn't matter for today anyways, just launched up the app and it says it's disconnected and I should unplug/replug the device. Gonna just drain the bin and refill with hot water from the faucet when I get home to get it up to temp. From reading a little this seems like a common issue, maybe I'll need to stick with just cooking when I'm physically there to start it
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I don't use the bluetooth feature at all.
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Found this series on lifehacker, haven't read any of the particular articles and some seem to be more for entertainment but there could be a few cool ideas buried somewhere

http://lifehacker.com/tag/will-it-sous-vide
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I've read them and have been keeping up with them. Definitely entertaining and some pretty interesting ideas.
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Ben, last night about 8pm EST my anova app popped open and said something like , water temp is ready. I disconnect your device from the app and deleted the app from my phone. How is it possible that I could still control the unit 2000 miles away?
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Why ask when there is soooo much fun to have?!? :-):-)
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Very interesting, guess I never thought about it but if it's hooked to an internet connection it makes sense. You definitely blew a good opportunity there :-)

Speaking of wirelessly starting, I was sitting in traffic last night so I decided to check the app again and this time it was connected, so I started the heat up. 30 minutes later it was up about 45*, still not where I needed for the garlic confit but at least it was on its way when I got home. I put about 75g of garlic each in two bags, covered with oil (also 75g worth) and one large sprig of rosemary in one and thyme in the other. I don't have a vac sealer (yet) so I just used smaller ziplocks then put both of those in one freezer bag. Somewhere along the way one of the smaller bags must not have sealed perfectly because after the 4 hours when I took them out there was a little oil inside the freezer bag, but not a significant amount. I pulled both bags out and emptied into separate mason jars, it was late so I didn't get a chance to try them but I will tonight. Overall it looks/smells like a success.

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I did a little experiment: my 6.5 gallon sous vide box (https://www.amazon.com/LIPAVI-Contai...eywords=lipavi) was at room temp (~70*) and it took about an hour and 15 minutes to heat up to 140*, so about 1 degree per minute. The box is clear plastic with a lid.
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