Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

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10 years ago Whirlpool introduced the Polara, a range that could also refrigerate the oven cavity until a timer expired or it was commanded to cook over the internet. It was a huge flop.

http://insights-2-ignite.com/2013/05/06/3-appliance-flops/

Obviously a refrigerated oven is a pretty complicated device - more than a cooled/heated water bath. The Polara had it's share of technical problems, but Whirlpool thought they were on to a new trend with this "smart" oven.

I'm a sous-vide enthusiast myself (Dorkfood DSV FTW), but by no means do I consider SV cooking a time saver. It's not going to make my day any more easy by kicking off a cook cycle from the office before I head home. In fact, part of the point of SV prep is that you can hold the cooked food for hours before finishing. Why do I need to precisely time the start if the end doesn't matter? Okay, perhaps eggs ready when I wake would be nice. But I could also kick it off before I go to bed and they would still be at a creamy 144F when morning comes.

The other problem is that you still need to prep ahead of time. Is a busy family going to handle breakfast and dinner prep before going off to work and school? American families barely make it through breakfast as it is.

It's a nice looking product and I wish them well. But the use cases escape me a little.

Hey joezdeco,

I'm one of Mellow's founders/designers.

I'd debate that "the end doesn't matter"; I've eaten a lot of drastically overcooked sous-vide over the past years. But still, overcooking is not the point, peace of mind is the point.

Take 10 seconds to put something in a bag and plop it inside Mellow. Act on the notification when you want to, tell Mellow to have it ready whenever's convenient, and you're sure to com back to very well cooked ingredients. It's not prep, it's 10 seconds.

It's a shift from the regular way you cook dinner, and it's not ready for middle america yet. But we're getting there. We need the help of guys like you to try it out and call out the bullshit, and help us make it better.

I'm still not following. It's definitely still prep. You're just doing the prep a day or two earlier. But you can do that with any water bath by prepping, stashing in zips, and sticking them in the fridge.

I think I see the value of being able to start a cook at 2PM as opposed to sticking to things that can run all day.

Most of the things that work really well in a water bath also hold really well for a day at temperature. I think you're right to feature white meat chicken in your marketing copy, because that's one protein that is iffy at long temps, but I can't think of much besides that (and eggs) that I'd worry about holding at temp a few extra hours.

I wouldn't let a fillet steak (or a hanger, for that matter) in a water bath for 12 hours, either. Or consider chicken thighs: We cook the best thighs in the world by taking them through a temperature curve. When we have the time, we cook them at 57C for 12-18 hours, and finish them at 63C for 1-2 hours. The end result is silky, sublime, but still firm.

On prep: It's not prep if you don't to put yourself up to it. It's not a chore, it's 10 seconds while the coffee machine heats up. Our idea is that reducing the need to do things, the friction, you'll end up doing them more often.

Thanks - I've been looking for a good prep method for chicken thighs. I'll give that one a go.

Let me know how you like the results - ze@fnvlabs.com . I'd be happy to dig out my notebooks and check the times/temperatures for you, too.

Are you using bone-in thighs or do you bone them out first?

Being able to come home from work with a protein ready to sear (Polyscience and hopefully soon Searzall represent) is definitely helpful. Also, have you held an egg overnight at 144f? That works well?

Proteins aside, auto retrograding potatoes is really nice. It's one of those techniques that makes a huge difference, but you'd never use on a regular day.

Starch retrogradation is neat, but you can do it with a normal circulator really easily. (I'm partial to the IiF 7 minute risotto trick).

What's the win with potatoes while I'm at work? I haven't done potatoes in the circulator successfully yet.

The win is doing it automatically. Maybe you use a technique I'm not privy to, but having to cook the potatoes, then cool them, then cook them again isn't a weekday activity for me.

Being able to go 'beep-boop' and having the cycle done for me makes a big difference; I just grab them out of the bag, toss them into a sauté or blender afterwards and I'm done in 5.

One more thing: have you read about the 6-minute risotto? It's up there with the 5-minute abs:

http://blog.ideasinfood.com/ideas_in_food/2010/12/6-minute-r...

I read the IiF article, and maybe I'm just a newbie with sous vide, but I don't get how you parcook the rice. Based on this thread and other articles, I'm guessing you soak the rice in water first, at room temp, and then stick it in a bag in the water bath?

No, you cook the rice at ~150f or so, then cool it, then cook it a second time in boiling stock on a stovetop.

So that first time, the rice is dry? I would not have thought to try that at all.

Actually, in the IiF technique, no: you bundle the rice in cheesecloth and cook it in direct contact with the water (this is one of the rare cases (other than eggs) where you deliberately expose the heating medium to the food).

What is auto retrograding potatoes?

Retrograding potatoes means raising them to a temperature where the starches are liberated from their initial structural networks, and then allowed to cool so that they recrystallize in a stabler network. Autoretrogradation means having a process that does this without needing human intervention somewhere in the middle.

An example of something you can do with a retrograded potato is tossing it into a stand mixer and beating the hell out of it without them turning gluey, which happens the starches get mechanically freed up and then crosslink.

Yeah, bad example. Eggs may not work that well at that duration.

(and the Searzall is pretty damn sexy)

I just wanted to point out on the prep part and American families.

The time invested in prep for a device like this is hardly different that prepping a meal and throwing it in a crock pot before work. Crock pots are fantastically popular cooking devices found in almost every American's (middle america especially) kitchen and used on a regular basis.

Personally I have no experience with sous-vide nor am I very familiar to it. Watching he video I was intrigued but a little confused at what and how I could use a sous-vide cooker.

However connecting it and the process of using it to the very familiar crock pot I use at home instantly helped me to recognize the potential use of a device like this.

Thank you bullfight, the comparison between sous-vide and crockpots is very adequate. I'd say sous-vide is crock-potting taken to the extreme.

Sorry if the video wasn't very friendly for people unfamiliar with sous-vide.

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