Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

EDIT: New information at end of review. You should be careful to distinguish in reviews the commentary on the product itself and the technique of sous vide. Sous vide is simply awesome, and far better chefs than I have proven that. If you haven't experienced it yet, you should spend the $400 on a couple of trips to the French Laundry or Alinea or WD-50 instead. If you already have, then you know what you're looking for, and the real question is how close does this device come to giving the results obtained by a Fischer Scientific immersion circulator. I was little concerned about whether the device could maintain temperature without circulation. After playing with it and an thermometer, I can tell you that there is some gradient, but it was about a degree, which honestly is perfectly acceptable for food. After bringing it to 135 F and turning it off, 15 hours later it was 95 F, so the insulation works well. Essentially that's all there is to a sous vide machine. I can tell you that my poached eggs are perfect or that the flank steak was unlike any meat I had ever tasted, medium rare, tender, and incredibly beefy, but most of that is due to the technique, and this device competently executes the technique. As far as the user experience goes, it's silly that the lid has an insulation pad instead of built in insulation, you have to hold the button too long to turn in on and off, but the built in handles are cleverly placed. The only negative review here so far claims that the price is too high for what it is, and compares to a different product. I disagree. For this type of cooking you have 3 choices: high end chemist's rig for $1500, water ovens like this machine, and bubblers and crock pot hacks. Most of us are not willing to spend as much as a high end stove for this, and hacking a crock pot sounds fun until you can't find your soldering iron. The SousVideMagic mentioned explicitly in that review is a bubbler, essentially an immersion circulator without the circulation. With no insulation and no circulation, the temperature gradient will be large. Plus, although the base price is $139, that doesn't count the "1500D controller and an air pump". The whole kit costs $300. It is interesting to note that the same company has also come out with a "water oven" like the SousVide Supreme, and it's $430. Check out the website here: [...] . Sometimes there's a sweet spot in the price/performance ratio, and this machine is in it. EDIT: This review is now over four years old, things have changed, and my opinions have evolved. Notably, there are now several inexpensive immersion circulators out there that work much like the professional rigs for under $200. Seriouseats has a nice comparison. My unit is still working great after four years, but I've come to resent the large footprint this thing takes on the counter. A proper immersion circulator will fit in a drawer. The Supreme website has an argument there on why they still think an oven is superior to a circulator. Here they are, with my comments: -The oven is quieter. I don't care about that much, and the new circulators are pretty quiet, but I could imagine cases like a studio apartment the buzz from an immersion circulator could matter. -The fixed sized oven means you can't accidentally exceed the recommended water volume. *facepalm* No, just no. (to be fair, they don't come out and say, jus imply it) Anyway, the new circulators can handle larger volumes than the oven can hold. -The closed environment of the oven means there's less heat loss and no evaporation. Oven kind of wins on that count, though you CAN cover an open container with foil. The Anova website calls that the "first rule of sous vide." -Pumps can build up mineral deposits and need cleaning. True, there would be more maintenance on the circulator, but it sounds pretty minor. -*Some* circulators require calibration when changing temperature. Not 100% sure what they mean, but again, that doesn't seem to be a problem for the new circulators, which come calibrated. -The insulated sturdy oven is safer from spills or burns from touching the sides. I give this the the supreme. My two year old would get in a lot less trouble messing with the oven than the circulator running in a plastic bin. The sweet spot has moved over time and I no longer think this unit is it. It has some benefits over the new technology, but they're pretty minor and not anywhere near enough to justify an extra $200. If I were to purchase a unit now, I would certainly go with the Anova Precision Cooker, with the bluetooth control so you can drive it from an app on your phone, for only $179. I only dropped one star from the rating because the Supreme still works great four years later.