temperature for several hours without any loss of quality (Low temperatures and a sealed bag prevent overcooking or loss of moisture from cooked foods This is an invaluable asset, allowing a line cook, or a harried spouse, to serve hot food at a moment’s notice, without having to worry about precise timing.) The ability to tenderize tough pieces of meat Traditional braises use relatively high temperatures— 180°F or so—to tenderize tougher cuts But at these temperatures, the muscle fibers will expel quite a bit of their juices With sous-vide cookery, much lower temperatures (say around 140°F) are applied for much longer periods of time—sometimes up to 72 hours The result is extremely tender meat with no loss of juiciness It’s particularly effective for cuts like beef chuck or short rib The ability to cook vegetables without loss of flavor Vegetables cooked in vacuum-sealed pouches naturally soften in their own juices In some cases, this can be overpowering (ever try sous-vide celery root?), but in others, the results can be downright extraordinary Sous-vide carrots taste more like a carrot than any carrot you’ve ever tasted Before I even began, though, I threw in the towel as far as categories and go There’s no way my beer cooler would stay warm for the requisite 24 hours Previous testing had shown me that it loses about degree per hour when it’s in the 140° to 150°F range Vegetables presented an even bigger problem Pectin, the tough glue that keeps vegetable cells connected, doesn’t begin to break down until 183°F Even after only 15 minutes, a beer cooler filled with water this hot will have cooled by several degrees—it just doesn’t work So for the time being, it looks like if prolonged (2 hours+) or relatively hot (160°F+) cooking is among your requirements for a sous-vide cooker, you’re going to have to spring for the real deal On the other hand, I’d easily argue that categories 1 and 2 are in fact the primary use of a sous-vide machine— particularly for a home cook A quick Google search of the types of recipes home cooks have been playing around with confirms this Confident, I then moved on to the field tests, cooking steaks to 125°F and chicken to 140°F (sound like a salmonella trap?—we’ll get to food safety in a minute) In both cases, the results were completely indistinguishable from each other Here’s the coolest part: it just so happens that the hot water from my tap comes out at 135°F—the perfect temperature for cooking steak What luck! The beer cooler is more easily transportable than a professional water circulator, and it doesn’t require an electric outlet So, last summer, I was able to start cooking a 2-pound dry-aged rib-eye in my kitchen, carry the whole cooler out to my deck hours later, slap the beef on a blazing-hot grill for 30 seconds on each side just to mark it and brown the exterior, and then enjoy the most perfectly cooked meat that’s ever come off my Weber Anywhere you have access to hot water and a cooler, you can cook sous- ... On the other hand, I’d easily argue that categories 1 and 2 are in fact the primary use of a sous-vide machine— particularly for a home cook A quick Google search of the types of recipes home cooks have been playing around with... confirms this Confident, I then moved on to the field tests, cooking steaks to 125°F and chicken to 140°F (sound like a salmonella trap?—we’ll get to food safety in a minute) In both cases, the results were... indistinguishable from each other Here’s the coolest part: it just so happens that the hot water from my tap comes out at 135°F? ?the perfect temperature for cooking steak What luck! The beer cooler is more