$329 on Amazon $545 + GST on Australian importer's site.
65% premium.
Bring on Conroy's rip-off inquiry!

The cheapest one yet, but it's still no more than a glorified crockpot. Meanwhile, I am using a homemade system that I put together for under $100. Maybe as soon as it gets popular enough and they can mass produce it, the price will come down more. Economies of scale and all that. Remember when VCRs(CD players, DVD players, blu-ray players . . . ) came out on the market for $1000?

That's a lot of plastic for the landfill for one meal! Is it the kind that can be recycled? Even if it is there is this the energy expended to recycle it.

Sous Vide (French - Under Vacuum) (English - Boil in Bag) The video covers a small problem, this cooker needs to be loaded so water can circulate from convection for even cooking. The commercial units have a pump to agitate the water for more even heating. The DIY crowd can add an aquarium air pump to generate a little more circulation for even cooking.
http://www.packitgourmet.com/CookIn-Bags.html (no vacuum possible, or needed) http://www.bag-e-wash.com (One of many similar gadgets, good for greenies, but I'm just cheap.) Some reasons other than time window for home & restaurant use: http://www.molecularrecipes.com/molecular-gastronomy/sous-vide-equipment/ http://www.molecularrecipes.com/molecular-gastronomy/molecular-gastronomy-2-sous-vide-cooking/ It be nice to know if the machines manual includes some recipes, or Min. time / temp suggestions. Or if you need to buy one of the books on Molecular Gastronomy or Soux Vide (NOT the same thing!).

Somewhere I saw a claim of energy saving or use similar to a crock pot. However when looking at products I see a wattage rating of 11 amps at 120V not exactly the same as my crock pot using 80W at 120V. Not to mention which the heating time to bring all that water mass up to the cooking is significant and represents energy use. We already have a vacuum bagger and a deep fryer. All I now need is a temperature controller working in the right range. Somebody said they home built one. Care to give more details on this? Thanks.

Www.makezine.com has plans for a DIY version that can be as cheap or as expensive as you like...

I thought, Why not somehing like Sous Vide, but with steam UNDER ACTUAL VACUUM so steam would occur at temps lower than 212 Deg.? I went googling, and found out there have been steam ovens all along that do something similar, and the water-bath gadgets are an evolution from them. They use pulses of steam to control the cooking temp. Why steam? Well I figure the steam goes through phase change condensing on food - introducing large amounts of heat in the food fast, with no chance of burning or drying out.
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php/topic/134214-steam-oven-sous-vide/ "... The Art of Cooking With Steam (1995) translated by Stephanie Lyness ... Gaggenau steam oven in my home kitchen that cooks as low as 85F and 30-100% humidity. I experiment a lot, but I'm having difficulty finding recipes for cooking with steam (not in a stove-top steamer). Any clues out there? I've found one book by Jacques Maniere, but his recipes are all stove top. Also, I've wondered if my steam oven could function as a sous vide oven. ..."
http://www.mieleusa.com Products - Stam ovens http://www.sharpusa.com/forhome/homeappliances/supersteamovens.aspx http://www.thermador.com/cooking/ovens/mes301hp-masterpiece-steam-and-convection-oven http://www.gaggenau.com/change-country.do

I've been doing sous vide at home more than a year now.
I experimented with the method rather than the equipment, double-wrapping chicken breast in cling film, and cooking in a stockpot while checking the temperature every 10 minutes.
Sometimes the pot would get too warm, sometimes it would get too cold. I typically had a temperature fluctuation of about +/- 5 deg celsius, sometimes as high as +/- 10.
You know what? Yes, water baths may well be a glorified crockpot. But it means I don't have to check on the temperature all the time. It means my steaks don't accidentally get too tough because I was busy doing other things. Best of all, it means I can leave a pork belly in there for 48 hours (or a duck confit for 12!) and by God, it is *fantastic* doing that.
Now I'm hungry, and I'm going to go sous vide something. Pity there isn't a "time displacement sous vide" so it can happen instantaneously to us.

This may be the cure for my lack of cooking skills.
Now, where can I buy perfectly seasoned and bagged food?!?
I'll start up in the morning and pop it out 5 minutes before my wife gets home - no matter what time she gets home.
A little pretense that I actually did the cooking and I'd have a fantastic evening :)

The article has the chemistry confused. Collagen denatures at higher temperatures than the actin and myosin in meat, so by the time collagen has gelatinized, most of the other protein will have long since denatured. High-collagen cuts of meat are not as well suited for sous vide. (yes, I'm reading Cooking for Geeks right now...)