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Comment by fn-mote | Hacker News Reader

> The site has been bought by Breville

At $69/year I’d say it’s pretty clear the direction the site is going.

Chefsteps has been in that direction for a very long time. I was in their community early on, like 2013 or so, and the content they put out then was truly excellent. A paywall was reasonable really; the classes were well researched and informative and I am sure their operation is quite expensive.

But over time they became a bit less focused on interesting stuff and more focused on stuff that would play to social media. Their candy class was a hallmark - very informative, very interesting, and several great recipes that you typically wouldn’t find anywhere else. Like they have a starburst clone recipe that honestly most sites wouldn’t bother with because it’s unbelievably labor intensive. But I made it and it was extremely satisfying

If you go on their YouTube and go back a decade you can see the change in content. Their current stuff is basically cloning Epicurious but occasionally shilling really expensive brevile appliances that have very short warranties despite being 5x the cost of comparable products.

Also followed them pretty much from the start, bought all their classes, pass, but ended up not renewing this year (and probably shouldn't have last year either).

They tried to make money with their own sous vide circulator (joule) which had some good pros (very compact and works in tiny depth of water) but at least for me, infuriating cons (no screen/buttons to adjust on the fly, check remaining time, etc, must use their app for all that and with dirty hands in the kitchen, it's really not great). Mine failed early too which didn't help my impression.

Content started pivoting post joule release and now you can't even sort the recipes to see the latest they posted, if they post any. But still worth a look for the free, older content.

I went through my third joule and I share the annoyance you feel, what did you ended up using instead? I do value its compact form factor.

It's a bit orthogonal but what I ended up doing is buying a dedicated polycarbonate sous vide bath (basically a rectangular container) so that I don't have to constantly mess with grabbing out my pressure cooker (which I used previously). I leave it on the counter of my kitchen as I sous vide 2/3 times a week. Some have lids, or you can get some balls to limit evaporation (I went with that solution).

I did have a Sansaire model from a previous Kickstarter that I reused for a while, but ended up replacing it with a bargain bin "KitchenBoss" from Amazon with no connectivity, just buttons and a screen but with a high wattage (1100W). At the time I wanted to get an Anova but that was out of stock.

I did have a bunch of other circulators including one I bought in 2012 that was basically a laboratory pid. The most important thing in my opinion is preheating speed, which is directly connected to how many watts it uses. Most compact models (including Anova's smaller models) have a lower wattage so, unless you don't care about time, I would definitely avoid those. I would go for a dedicated bath and a high wattage model. Anova is likely the best option but I find the basic KitchenBoss (no app) perfectly fine too.

I never got a joule because I couldn’t fathom why they would build a device without physical controls. It seemed like such a hostile decision imo bc even back then I had cheaper “smart” devices like lightbulbs where the apps were quickly abandoned and then delisted/no longer working after 3-4 years and several iOS updates. I had some confidence Chefsteps wouldn’t do that (and tbf they didn’t) but why risk it? If they hadn’t been successful, purchased by breville, etc, would that have come to pass?

The control freak is really what gets me. It does look like a very well made piece of kit tbf. And the feature set is quite nice, there are comparable devices for 1/3rd the cost like https://www.sunpentown.com/product/sr-658rt/ . Also I already mentioned this but given the extremely high price of the control freak I would expect more than a 1 year warranty

Yes and the app wasn't even that great in the beginning, trying to put you into a "flow" where you have to pick a recipe, pick the width of your food, pick doneness from pictures, etc... and at least back then, you couldn't adjust much afterwards, you were set in what it decided for you (and I disagreed with the durations).

There was also no manual mode where you could just say, I want 54°, beep me in 45mins but keep that temperature afterwards. It was just needless friction if you had the modicum of experience. And that's without the e-waste question if they didn't get bought out. I think they had committed to opening their app if they went under at the time (I could be completely misremembering that), but such commitments don't mean much.

I think seeing them pushing the control freak all the damn time was also the tip of the iceberg that got me to cancel my pass. Setting the "temperature" with a sensor below the glass seems completely futile to me as a concept on top of it. I just don't see a practical application for it, but maybe I'm missing something.

Doesn't look like they sell it here in France, it's really a baffling, absolutely overpriced product.

setting the temperature is very useful when you need control, like keeping the oil temperature stable when frying or avoiding overcooking a creme anglaise. That said, the constant ads (because they're ads) for Breville products are tacky and off putting

I think the turning point was Chris Young leaving, that really lowered the technical level of everything they published

Yeah. Grant and Nick worked on modernist cuisine but it’s become clear they were more of the chef side where Chris was more of the food science side.

Chris does have a youtube channel now that has some okay content but the best stuff is like a lot of the peak Chefsteps stuff: rehashed fat duck recipes. It’s a shame Heston blumenthal seems to have stopped making as much around 2014-15 because his books and tv content were truly excellent and most of the modern “haute cuisine” stuff goes right back to him. More recently it appears he had manic depression, was pushing himself far too hard, and finally got treatment. I hope he is doing well. His contributions to the culinary world are tremendous and imo under appreciated.

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