Absolutely – I have the non-connected Gen 1 anova and use it at least once a week, but for the life of me can’t imagine why it would “need” a remote. I turn it on, set the temp and pretty much forget about it until I’m ready to finish the dish. While most of the time I don’t cook anything past 2 hours, I have cooked ribs for as long as 36 hours. Checking casually as I walk past, I’ve never seen a deviation of more than 0.1ºC.
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We play with sous vide at the Shapiro house too - I met the CEO of Nomiku and she talked me into buying one. It’s fun, and as a bonus, hard for the kids to burn themselves. My son made sous vide steak with me doing the final sear; came out great.
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I usually do it all manually unless I’m starting it from work or something.
My wife likes being able to look through recipes and just hit ‘go’ on her phone. I imagine if an update required a reconnect that she would probably stop using it though.
Hopefully the searing was on the Glowforge?
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Love my Anova that I got for Mother’s Day from my awesome husband. You all should try salmon (with brining first). And I love the wifi. I’ve used it to start dinner while at soccer practice…it’s like the cooler older cousin of the crock pot!
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Dry brining is so great for just about any meat, however you prepare it.
I use my SV gear for more than meat…
- Homebrewed beer – pasteurizing yeast starters, pasteurizing honey
- De-crystallizing honey
- Reheating all kinds of leftovers. Why nuke leftovers in the microwave, overcooking bits, when I can reheat them to exactly the desired temperature?
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Yes! We use ours for that, too. Also a great way to thaw frozen foods for conventional methods.
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This is cool! I thought about getting one but I have a Sous Vide gadget already. I use my Instant Pot Smart to Sous Vide. It works amazing and The Instant Pot does so many other things! Plus it syncs to my phone telling me when my food is ready! It’s a week day dinner saver!
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Okay Sous Vide people…
I had read topics on the forum that informed me of this technique existing. Then I happened to watch a cooking blip on YouTube which showed faux sous vide. Gave it a shot by setting my range top at a simmer and using a candy thermometer. Did up some chicken around 150 F, and the wife was impressed.
So, now I am looking at getting a proper Sous Vide setup so I can try doing chicken at 140 and numerous other things (Forgot about chocolate, that will be good since I am also building a vacuum former right now). But the wife wants to replace our crock pot.
I see TONS of results about making a crock pot serve as Sous Vide, and mostly it is saying that crock pots aren’t as reliable for temperature stability and work at higher temperatures.
Problem is, I am trying to find out if you can use a Sous Vide system (like this one) to do the same things you normally do in a crock pot. I assume you can, but am not sure if there are higher temperatures required, or problems cleaning other than water out of the main unit.
Having the ability to start/stop and monitor the cooking from a web app while out of the house would be nice. But mostly, she just wants a crock pot and I want a sous vide. As mentioned (long ago) by some in this thread, the app control is cute, but possibly of limited actual value (the remote start/stop has often come up as desirable when we have had crock pot meal cooking, but wanted to come home later than originally planned)
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I would be more apt to use a connected Crock pot. My Anova is the Bluetooth model and after the first couple uses I found it just as easy to set it with the dial and not bother with the app. I trust it to be at temp and just set it and walk away till what ever timer I happened to use goes off.
I believe I’ve posted a link to this device before but it really looks like a good value. I’ve used Monoprice for many purchased and have never been disappointed. It is unfortunately currently out of stock.
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=21594
The one argument I’d make for having a separate appliance for Crock and Sou Vide cooking is that you’re not just tied to one size vessel for the Sou Vide cooking.
These are the listed “Features” for the monoprice one.
Note you can go up to a 4 gallon water bath…
+41 ~ +212°F (+5 ~ +100°C) temperature range
800 watts maximum cooking power
±1% temperature stability
2.25 gallons (8.50 liters) per minute circulation pump
4.0 gallon maximum bath size
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Crock pots can run at much higher temperatures than you’d do with sos vide. Food in a crock pot can actually simmer whereas a sous vide machine won’t let you run that hot.
I would never buy a sous vide machine that had its own attached water bath. They take up too much space and are inflexible. Get the stick variety and use the pots and picnic coolers you likely already own. If you also need a crock pot, get an Instant Pot and it acts as crock pot, rice cooker, and pressure cooker all in one.
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can’t begin to second this enough.
although to be completely accurate, it’s slow cooker, not crock pot. there are some subtle differences.
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I can’t speak to that particular model, but I do have a Sous Vide Supreme. It is one of my favorite purchases. I have used it religiously ever since I bought it (mainly for meats). I can’t say enough great things about it. It’s even changed my restaurant habits… I get so disappointed now when we go out and spend $100 and the food isn’t as good as our home made stuff.
As far as crock pots, not that I’ve researched the hacks people are doing, but I can think of two things to watch out for…
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As someone just pointed out, I’m not sure you get the same temperature range that you would with a dedicated sous vide system.
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Temperature stability. A sous vide system will maintain your set temperature to within a degree (without all the ups and downs), which is kind of the point of sous vide cooking. Once you’ve gone over the intended temperature, you kind of loose the affect.
Hope that helps! 
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Oh, and here’s a great resource… this guy has taught me so much!
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Now stop that!
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so much good stuff on that site.
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SeriousEats is great, especially Kenji’s Food Lab section.
Y’all need to check out ChefSteps.com too, another sous vide/modernist cuisine mecca.
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I’m a little late to the discussion, but I agree that you can have both Sous Vide and slow cooker. I also highly recommend the combination pressure cooker/slow cooker. Mine’s a Breville and I love it. But yeah, both devices are doing different things, so you can’t really achieve the same results of either with the other. I’d say for versatility go with the pressure/slow cooker. But sous vide is also very fun!
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