Sous Vide Circulator 1000 Watts with Recipe, Digital LED Immersion Accurate Cooker, Stainless Steel Base, Silver Body

This review will be possibly a bit long.. yet my story on how I was introduced into Sous Vide cooking....I work with a person who was sharing what he was having for dinner, so I asked him... He said he had received for Christmas a cooking device that uses a Sous Vide process? I had never heard of the term, so again I asked him what type of cooking was this...???He stated that he used his device to cook his steaks, because the steak turns out perfectly and a person cannot over cook it... I was baffled, and asked for more info. He shared that it is cooking process that brings water to a consistent and stable temperature. I have cooked both professionally and in home for years, and cooked steaks in all traditional ways... being, broiled, pan fried, grilled, and smoked...yet never Sous Vide style.The process takes a steak (Rib Eye) in my case, putting it into a sealed plastic bag, setting a temp for how one wants it cooked, and in about one hour the steak comes out perfect. I am a doubting type person, so I went to You Tube and sure enough...there was scads of videos about this Sous Vide type cooking.I went to my Amazon Prime account and found several cooking devices, read lots of reviews and found the Jefal Sous Vide cooker. The person here at work had one that came with a phone application that included lots of recipes, and also allowed turning on the cooking device remotely. I found the Jefal was the only one with a 5-star rating and it was $50-$60 dollars less than the one my friend here at work had.I bought the Jefal on a Thursday and received it the following Tuesday... while I was waiting to test the Jefal, after watching lots of You Tube videos on how to cook the perfect steak... I was aware of the misc. items needed to do the cook. The first item was a good sized plastic type container... as the Jefal sets in it filled with water.. (see photo). Also needed was a cast iron pan as most everyone stated cast iron types seared meat best, so I bought a "High" sided cast Iron Pan... (see photo)...The plastic containers used were also available on Amazon Prime yet averaged $20.00 on up... My container was found at Walmart in a 96 piece set..with lids for all. $8.96 total... I ended up donating the rest of the 94 pieces to a co-worker who said she could always use more... as for the cast iron pan... I like high sides when I have to do any hot grease type frying, as it helps curb the clean up.. The pan was also bought at Walmart $17.00 with nice lid...I received the Jefal, opened the box, and it looked exactly like the pictures... I began to set up... filling my plastic container with luke warm water (120 degrees per my thermometer). I placed my Jefal cooker into the plastic..and noticed that the water temp showed up immediately without being plugged in. There is a Minimum/Maximum level on the side of the Jefal... per the instructions... you are to fill your container till the water level is in between...both.. I plugged in the Jefal Sous Vide cooker... I went thru the set up process, with temp desired, and cook time... the instructions are generic yet simple enough to get all up and going.The steak was just over a pound..which I marinated prior... and I cut it in half... (see photo) ... the meat was placed in a regular zip lock type plastic bag, and I took the air our of it. There are several ways to do this per videos, yet my way was to close the bag till about 1 inch, and just sucked a bit... it was successful... the bag was secured, and I placed into the container with water. *(note)* I have heard that to cook meat that is at room temperature..due to it does allow for a faster cook...I turned on the Jefal, I noticed that the device circulates the water as a sauna would... I watched the cook temp come up to my desired setting... 130 degrees... most of the videos plus instructions state that this is good temp for desired medium rare to medium cook. The time set was to 50 minutes... most of the videos and instructions provided stated time should be between 45 minutes - one hour... I picked 50 minutes.I have never physically watched a piece of meat cook like this, so I was glued... after about 35 minutes I decided to pick up bag with my Rib Eye and pinch the sides... sure enough... it had resistance, which showed it was cooking... yet the color was a pasty pale look which after you watch videos.. this is normal..Time remaining got to 40 minutes...so I turned on my stove... that had my new "High" sided cast iron pan ready. I put about 1/8th inch worth of cooking oil into pan and with the legs on the bottom of the pan was worried about being able to heat it properly to my desired temp of 340 degrees... I turned the temp on stove to med-high and within 8 minutes or so...easily reached 340 degrees...The Jefal alarm chime sounded which meant that my Rib Eye was done... I removed the bag, took the meat from it, and laid it onto a cutting board... The instructions state that you must "Pat" dry the meat to remove moisture prior to searing it in the pan. I picked the meat up, moved over to my cast iron pan and laid the meat down to sear the first side... I timed my sear to 30 seconds, and took a peak... it was perfect... I then seared the other side for 40 seconds..and put only my plate.. (see photo)In conclusion My dinner was perfect.. as I was able to make a small salad (photo) to eat with my Rib Eye.. It was a perfect 130 degree's and tender... the color was 100% from one side to the other.. a pinkish color... near medium yet still on the rare side. I made some sauteed mushrooms for finishing effect on my meal... yet this was an 8 once Rib Eye perfectly cooked..I did not rate the durability as cannot see how one could abuse something that just clips onto a plastic container... also, cleaning should be easy... as it just sets and cooks in clean water... never gets dirty?? Yet, I did rate cleaning as excellent...I recommend the Jefal as it was easy... also, you could cook multiple steaks in my container..the timing is easy to sear each added steak...

There are not enough guidelines for temperatures to get the outcome you want. It takes a few uses to get use to the controls.

I had this for about a year and all of the plastic - which all of the critical components are plastic - all started to easily crack and break under essentially no pressure at all. It started with the guard on the bottom which slid out and after traveling maybe 3 feet to floor shattered as if it were glass. Tonight I grabbed it to clamp it on and the hinges both broke rendering this worthless piece of junk...well it rendered it a worthless piece of junk. I would not buy if I were you.

It’s soooooo crazy easy and tidy.The JEFAL is Compact ( easily stored in a drawer), lightweight and attractiveIt works great. Heats up the water fast,This can heat 10 quarts of water from 90 to 130 in about 5 minutes. And holds the temp, only needs 3.5 inches of water, is slim enough that it doesn’t dominate the pan . I could start at a plain temperature setting screen,I cooked a steak at 118 degrees for 1.5 hours and it was a perfect medium/rare all the way through.You can leave it in longer if you aren’t ready to eat yet, you are busy getting the rest of the meal ready or someone is late arriving. In this case it says it could stay in for up to an additional 2 hours - it doesn’t cook more so you won’t end up with well done - how awesome is that !You can also put meats in straight from the freezer so consider freezing in vac sealed bags/ziploc with air out, add oil and seasoning and then just pull them out and drop them in the water.The result were perfectly cooked, absolutely the most tasty tender edge to edge and they took almost no work to prep and cook.Of course,it will be a little noise, but I fully enjoy the convenience it brings to me.Highly recommend!

This circulator works perfectly. We've done filet mignon, sirloin tip roast, and even little cheesecakes in jars...all perfectly cooked. The main reason I chose this model was because time and temp are set directly on the unit itself. Unlike many other models, you don't need an app to control it, and it's not dependent on Wifi to keep running. If you want a great immersion circulator that you just start it and forget it, then this is the one for you.