Need recommendations for sous vide cooking machine. Going to get one for my wife as a present. I’m ok with spending whatever a quality long lasting device costs.
Pros/cons of the device you have.
I have had my Annova for 5 years and it works great still. They now sell kits with the sous vide, and a bin for the water bath.
No real con to it. You can set it using bluetooth or wifi or just using the regular scroll wheel. It keeps the temperature that you set it for, for the time duration you set it for.
Any of the top brands will work great and I am sure you and your wife will be happy with any of them.
I would recommend an Anova as it's the one I have and have used it going on 3+ years with no issues.
1 thing I would recommend is getting some plastic containers with lids designed for sous vide. It's definitely not necessary and I have cooked in all kinds of containers from coolers to the pull out drawer from my fridge but they are nice once you have them.
Once you cook chicken breasts and steaks with a sous vide it will be tough to go back to any other way of cooking them.
OH and also, since thanksgiving is coming, you should definitely try a sous vide turkey once you get a machine. Need to break down the turkey into it's individual pieces but man is it nice just heating up delicious turkey on the day instead of spending hours cooking it in the oven.
Anova. I took a little box cooler and cut a hole in the top to fit the Anova. Now not as much heat is lost through the walls and it can keep a very consistent temperature, not to mention save energy.
I've been using the Anova system for a few months now, using the cooker and their tub. Really great being able to control everything from the app and helps me not lose track of time.
I've used my Anova probably once a week or more for 4 or 5 years. Can't remember. Still going strong. I like the fact that I can manually set it without a phone app unlike the Joule.
Bought my wife the Anova one a few years back. It was trouble free but we never did warm up to the idea of simmered meat. Sold it for about what we paid.
Now days it’s Insta-pot and convection oven stuff she cooks with. LOL!
If I could offer one suggestion. Don’t have the kitchen utensil be the primary gift. Best to have something more toward the romantic side for the primary gift.
I have an Anova that sits in the corner of the kitchen, we used it several times, and just don’t care for it. Other then re-warming things some times. But it’s a pain to use for just that. So it goes pretty much un used.
Another consideration is an instapot with the sous vide function. I love our instapot as it does sous vide, pressure cooker, slow cooker, sauté, and several other modes.