 Welcome back to the Fire and Water Cooking Channel, I'm Darren and today I'm going to do series, part two of the series that I've been doing on the basics of sous vide and today we're going to cover the equipment. So that's one of the bigger things. People get confused about what they actually need to get started cooking sous vide. Once they get their heads wrapped around what it is and what it can do, they also want to know what I need. And one of the first things you're going to need is an sous vide circulator of some kind or a standalone sous vide unit. This particular model here is a basic sous vide circulator that's made by Gourmia and all it really does is keep the water at a certain temperature and circulate it so that it stays at that temperature. This one's pretty basic, it doesn't have Wi-Fi or any fancy controls on it, it's pretty easy to use, there are manual controls, you pretty much set the time that you want to cook and the temperature you want to cook at, press start as soon as it gets to the temperature that you want to cook at, an alarm will go off, you press set again and then it will count down the time. As soon as the time is done it will go set off another alarm, you can shut it off and your food is ready. These start anywhere from $30 to $40 all the way up to a couple hundred depending on what kind of functions and different options they may have. You can get a good basic one like this Gourmia is like in the $60 range, GSB 140 from Gourmia and I've had this for over 6 months and I've cooked with it 3 or 4 times a week, sometimes for 48, 60 hour cooks at a time and I've had no problems with it so like I said, these are, this one's a pretty basic model, they do also make models with Wi-Fi control or Bluetooth control where you can control it with an application from your phone that hooks to either your Wi-Fi in your house or you can just stand with your, you know, if you're within range you can use it with Bluetooth. So those are just options, you know, if you want to mess around with that. You don't need the Wi-Fi or the Bluetooth, sometimes some of the models like the Jewel and the Innova have recipes and stuff built into it that you can use with it that makes it more easy for people that are new to sous vide cooking, they can just pick steak, you know, medium rare, press a button and the unit will cook for you. So that makes it, does make it easier, it also adds to the cost. So you know, the more options and just like anything, just like a car or anything, the more options you have added to the unit, you're going to be paying more for it. I know the Jewel's like almost $200 but you can't access the controls except for by a smartphone using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. So just keep that in mind, you know, you don't really need to get the most expensive unit to start out with, you know, get something basic to try it out. That's what I did. I got something that was, I knew was going to be a better quality but basic so I could try out the cooking method and see if I liked it before I started spending any more money. This particular unit by Gourmia is a multi-cooker. You could also start out that way. These are good for people who live in apartments or college students or somebody that doesn't have a big kitchen and store a bunch of different equipment because what this thing can do is act as a crock pot, you can do cook rice in it, you can cook stews, all that kind of stuff. Same thing you can do in a crock pot but you can also, you know, it has a rice cooker, sous vide function. It has about seven or eight different functions that you can actually use this for and they all work pretty well. The only thing that you have an issue with with a unit like this is you don't have a whole lot of space that you can, you know, cook in. They're also good as backup units if you want to use it for, you know, if you're cooking meat in your normal setup you can cook vegetables in this one. So it's all what you're looking for. They also make stand-alone just plain sous vide units that are similar to this but like I said you run into size constraints and some of them are actually a lot more expensive than getting an immersion circulator. Now we're going to go into the containers. What kind of container do you need to do sous vide and I tell everybody you don't really need to buy an extra container if you already have one at home. If you have a big stock pot or a big roasting pan that's, you know, deep you can use that. I happen to buy this or actually got this for Christmas when I asked for my sous vide unit and this is a polycarbonate food container which you can get pretty much at any restaurant supply store. You can get them on Amazon. I have links below for those as well but in all it really does you're looking for something that's hard plastic here that can take, you know, a good amount of heat up to 250 degrees so it's not going to melt and that will hold your immersion circulator when it clips to the side so it doesn't move around, doesn't bend. You don't want to get one of the plastic containers that's used for like storage or anything because they're not as thick and hard plastic they kind of once they start getting hot they'll, you know, get a little loose and get, you know, break easy leak. These are kind of designed to take on and not really break so also you can buy a cooler. I use a cooler for my bigger cooks like if I do a big brisket or if I do a couple pork butts stuff like that I'll use an actual cooler that I converted. All I really did I took a Coleman deep cooler it's a stacker cooler and I cut a hole in the lid to stick the immersion circulator in and that works real well for your bigger, bigger type cook so I usually if I have a couple, if I'm cooking a lot of pork for pulled pork for people I'll use that cooler if I'm doing racks of ribs, if I'm doing, you know, a big huge brisket I'll use that as well so you can get these type of containers on Amazon anywhere from 25, 30, 40 bucks that are pretty basic. Some of them you can buy the lid for them. This particular one didn't have a lid available for it when I bought it so I actually ended up making my own little made up lid here with wine corks and you can also use saran wrap to cover or aluminum foil or some other way and all you're trying to do when you have a lid or you use any other method is to eliminate evaporation and to be able to keep that temperature more stable. So when you're cooking for a longer period of time, you know, like 10, 15, 20 hours you're wanting to have very little evaporation you want to keep as much of that water in there as possible. So that's why you cover it, use the plastic wrap or what have you. You use a container no matter what it is if it's a plastic container, if it's a stock pot, if it's anything that you're going to use, you got to make sure that you protect your countertop. If you're going to put it on a counter to cook, use either pot holders, some kind of trivet like this silicone trivet, something to set it on top of because you don't want it on top of a granite or wooden countertop because it will affect the finish on it. Even though this is granite, if I left this on here for let's say I did a 24 hour cook on steaks directly on it, it's going to discolor the granite because there is a coating on your granite and most of your even your if you have wood or any other kind of countertop has some kind of coating on it. You're going to have a certain amount of heat for a long period of time. So make sure you use pot holders, trivets, couple dish towels that you're going to set it on or you can set if you're using a pot, you can set it on your stove top. You just want to make sure you put something under it so it doesn't discolor your countertop. So I wanted to make sure I touched on that because that is very important. Next step from containers is actual rack systems and racks aren't really necessary to get started. They just make just like with a lot of different accessories. They make life a little easier, especially a rack like this when you're cooking a lot of you know some steaks or you know roasts. This is an adjustable rack where you can take these out and adjust it. They actually make it to where I'll actually hold it down in the water real easy. So that they don't float. Sometimes a lot of the meats can float like pork, beef with a lot of fat in it, some vegetables they float real real bad. So you need something in there to hold it down. You can also get a rack like this which is from Ikea. It's actually a I think a pot lid rack. I think it was like $7 at Ikea. I use this a lot because it's stainless steel so it won't rust. But it's kind of heavy, probably weighs a good you know half a pound or so and it's flexible. So I can use it to hold steaks down and tighten it up or I can turn it over and hold the roast down with it. So I use this a lot for oddball shaped stuff. And that's all you're really doing with these racks is you're trying to keep the food under the water. So they're not necessary, but sometimes they make things a lot easier. So now let's talk about bags. Things that you need to put your food into to be able to cook it. A lot of people will buy a vacuum sealer, a lot of people will use Ziploc bags. You don't need to buy a vacuum sealer to cook sous vide. You can use a regular Ziploc bag and you can use the air displacement method. What you do is you can Google it or look it up on YouTube. You take a bag with the food in it, you stick it in the water and when you stick it in the water the air is naturally being pushed out by the water. So you stick the bag of food into the water almost all the way up to where you can seal it. Then you push any of the remaining air out that may be at the top and you seal the bag. Then you can just put it right into your water bath and you can clip it to the side of the container and it usually will stay down pretty good. But I actually chose to buy a vacuum sealer because I use it for other things as well and I find that easier for me to do. It's cheaper because you can buy the rolls of generic vacuum sealer bags for cheap and they turn out cheaper than the Ziploc bags. So it's all personal preference as far as that goes. So if you don't have a vacuum sealer you don't need to buy one to do cook sous vide. But just like with other accessories it does make it a little easier to store your food. What I do, since I do use a vacuum sealer, when I buy meat I buy it in bulk usually and I will vacuum seal it and freeze it. But much when I buy the meat I vacuum seal it, season it, throw it in the freezer. When it's time to cook, grab it out of the freezer, throw it in the bath and get it cooking. Add a little bit of time for it being frozen and that's it. So that comes down to personal preference. They also on vacuum sealer bags, a lot of people don't know that they make different sizes of bags. They actually have the 11 inch wide, the 8 inch wide but they also have what's called the expandable vacuum sealer bags that are pleated that will actually open up so you can use them for bigger meats like brisket or pork butt. They're a little bit more expensive than the regular vacuum sealer bags but they work real well. I have, especially in my Facebook group, a lot of people who just want to do a brisket for the first time. They don't have those type of bags so they try to cook it in the packaging from the store which I never recommend but if you buy the expandable bags you can just get one roll of them. I think it's like 25 bucks for a roll of them. It'll probably last you a good two or three months unless you cook brisket every week but they make it a lot easier to use it with the big pieces of meat. So the last thing I want to talk about is the searing, how to sear or finish your meat. When we cook sous vide, you know, when we take it out of the water bath it's really, it's cooked completely but you still need to finish it because it looks kind of gray and ugly the outside does so you want to sear it somehow and there's several different ways to do that. You don't need to buy any extra equipment to do it. You can actually use a cast iron pan and do it on your stove top. I do a lot of grilling. I have a couple different grills that I use. You can use a gas grill, you can use a charcoal grill. A lot of people will buy this particular piece of equipment which is a searsaw that you can attach to a torch and with propane, you know, propane tank and what this does is it just lights up like that and it disperses the flame so you can actually sear your meat. There's a lot of people who use that. It's not necessary. This particular setup right here costs over $100 because this is $75, this is like $30 and this is probably another $10. And it's not the most optimal way to sear as far as I'm concerned. I can get a better result on a charcoal grill, on a gas grill, in my pan on a stove. I even use a convection oven on larger pieces of meat like a turkey breast or a big chicken. I can throw it in my convection oven, just crank the heat up to 500 degrees, let the oven get up real hot before you put the meat in there because you're not really wanting to cook the inside, you're just wanting to get a good sear on the outside. So, same thing with your grills, your gas grill, your charcoal grill, before you take the meat out of the sous vide, go ahead and crank your grill up as hot as you can get it and then when you're done, you know, when this comes out of the bath, your grill's nice and hot, you can finish it up, dry your meat off real well, put some seasoning on it and sear it up so you don't need fancy equipment to do searing. In this particular unit here, this Gourmilla Multi-Cooker, I could actually sear in it, but actually this whole little unit comes out, but it's a non-stick pan in here that actually gets up to 425 and I could sear in this if I wanted to. It's not optimal, but you could do it, so it all comes down to personal preference, you try what you like and then do it that way. If you're not having good luck doing it on the stove, try it on a grill, if you don't want to do that, try the sears all, but they all work well and that's about it. There's really no other equipment besides other little gadgets here and there, you can buy little weights that are made specially to go in the bag to keep the meat down, you can buy little rubber insulators for some of these type of containers, but none of that stuff is really necessary. I hope you guys enjoy these videos, I hope you get a lot out of them. 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