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Comment by heyalexej | Hacker News Reader

May be anecdotal: I have several friends who got really excited about this and bought anything from DIY kits to industrial grade Sous Vide immersion circulators. All of which are now collecting dust after using them 3 times. Reminds me of the phenomenon of sandwich makers in Germany somewhere in the 90s. Must have been 15 years since I've seen one since.

Edit: After all these replies, my evidence seems to be in fact anecdotal.

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I use my sous vide machine around 3 times a week (I bought it about a year ago). For most preparations, sous vide is not more convenient than conventional cookery–the long cook times are almost never worth it.

But convenience is not the benefit; with sous vide I can prepare expensive steaks without risk of ruining them (in fact without risk of falling short of perfection). Were I Daniel Boulud, I would not have much need for it, but as a mere mortal, I imagine I will continue to love sous vide.

I bought an ANOVA 18 months ago and two more people have bought one after eating food from mine.

We all use ours several times a week. It turns out so good and so consistent, I basically use it for all beef, chicken, pork, and lamb.

Bought one a year ago, been sitting in a drawer ever since. Just don't find it anywhere close to convenient =/

I use my Sansaire once or twice a week. There is no other way to make pork chops.

The nice thing about the Sansaire is that it supports temperature setpoints lower than most other (all other?) units. I use it for long proofs of no knead bread at 21C for around 18h. The dough sits in a one gallon bucket covered with plastic that I set into the water bath in a cool room in my basement. Perfectly proofed dough. Every. Single. Time.

The Anova goes down to 5C but annoyingly, does not go all the way down to 0C. If it did, it would be perfect for something like chilling champagne in an ice bucket as just the impeller would run and keep the water circulating. But because the limit is 5C, you can't get just the impeller running, it would also be dumping 800W of heat into the water at the same time.

I use mine at least once a week. In fact I won't cook any decent meat cuts any other way if I can help it.

Does the best eggs I've ever had and pretty great lobster too.

Sous Vide bacon is stunning as well: so creamy.

I use mine multiple times a week. YMMV.

I see a lot of people posting about "instant pots" in my facebook feed, and no one talking about sous-vide.

I imagine the industrial grade units are collecting dust due to size/weight. We have a few Julabo immersion circulators at work, and they're not exactly what you'd call conveniently sized.

i bought one too couple of yrs ago. Used it around 2 times, not even sure where it is atm.

Sorry “someday” is not today.

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