Waterbath and sous-vide setup

[soniaR]

A few years ago, Spoons posted a photo of a setup of a waterbath with sous-vide and stainless steam table insert, all in a plastic tub. It appears to be a good setup. I'd like to know if others have used this, and what the pros and cons might be. I'm still a beginner, and I find maintaining and slowly increasing temps to be a challenge. Also, I currently do no more than 1-gallon makes, but would like to increase it to 2-gallon (max) but this means upgrading my equipment so it seems like a good time to look into changing my setup. Any input would be appreciated. [I'm trying to paste in an image of the setup, but it's not working!]



 

[rgreenberg2000]

Sonia, I used my new sous vide setup last weekend, and it worked great.  This is a full size, 8" deep steam pan, and an 11 qt "vegetable/soup" steam insert.  I raised the round insert off the bottom of the steam table with a stainless steamer grate so that water can flow underneath as well as around the sides.  This setup worked quite well for me, and I was able to maintain and adjust temperatures with good accuracy.  Hope that helps!



Rich

[soniaR]

Thank you, Rich. That setup looks great, sort of similar to Spoons'. I imagine a local restaurant supply store would have a selection.

[rgreenberg2000]

Sonia, I got both of those items at my local restaurant supply.  I asked if they had any used gear, and got the steam table pan for about $12 (looks to have hardly been used.)  The round insert was $23.

R

[TravisNTexas]

Rich, how well are you able to control slow temperature increases (like 10 degrees over an hour or something like that) and how to you do it with the sous vide heater and circulator?

[rgreenberg2000]

Rich, how well are you able to control slow temperature increases (like 10 degrees over an hour or something like that) and how to you do it with the sous vide heater and circulator?

Travis, the sous vide circulator has a thumbwheel dial that allows you to change the temp target on the fly.  I've only used it once, on a 2 gallon batch, but I found that going from 84 to 92 for that particular recipe took about 20 minutes (stirring the curds constantly per the recipe), so just about right.  I just set the temp to 92, you could slow that rate down by changing the sous vide controller temp in increments from your current to target temp.  You could also increase that rate by setting the controller temp somewhat above your target temp (just need to be careful here, as you want to dial it back to target temp before you overshoot.

I'm sure I'll get it more dialed in as I use it, but all in all, it's pretty simple to make the temps do what you want.

R