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My perfect Sous Vide machine would be a Mellow[0] with an API. I want to throw some eggs (or other breakfast items) in the Mellow at night, it flips to a refri

My perfect Sous Vide machine would be a Mellow[0] with an API. I want to throw some eggs (or other breakfast items) in the Mellow at night, it flips to a refrigerate option, and then hooks up with my alarm (physical or on phone) to make sure the eggs start cooking a few minutes before I wake up, so they're perfect when I roll out of bed. Then I'll empty the machine, throw dinner in, and it'll automatically be ready by the time I get home. Even if it means throwing the steak in the pan for 5 mins, I'm ok with that. I almost bought one, but no API makes these way less awesome. [0] http://cookmellow.com/meet-mellow/ http://cookmellow.com/meet-mellow/

thurn 12y ago
They haven't put out any updates since May, it seems. Do we have any idea if they're still going to manage to ship in "early 2015"?
personZ 12y ago
It is somewhat fascinating how much the tech community seems to strive to try to solve non-problems. In this case, poaching or hard boiling an egg is so utterly simple, done in mere minutes, that it is simply impossible that this device could make it easier. And the grotesque proposed waste of energy borders on the absurd. And then, after you've had your perfectly cooked eggs that you presumably had to hop out of bed and rush to retrieve before they overcooked, in your busy morning you're going to vacuum pack a steak? Seriously? Or you can turn your oven to 200F. Toss a cast iron pan on your grilltop and sear at high heat, then move the whole thing to the oven. You'll quickly have a perfect steak without blowtorches or extended water bath time. As with the soylent thing, it's like basic skills are now lacking so people looking for a lot of menial work to replace trivial undertakings.
- ifelsethen 12y ago
  "In this case, poaching or hard boiling an egg is so utterly simple, done in mere minutes, that it is simply impossible that this device could make it easier. And the grotesque proposed waste of energy borders on the absurd." said like someone who has never used the sous vide cooking method. this is about precise cooking, which yeilds very specific results; it's very different than your 'toss a bunch of eggs into boiling water for 10 minutes! duhhh' method. you cant get these results with your 'utterly simple' method(s): http://www.cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/eggchart2.jpg http://www.cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/eggc... and we're just talking eggs here. your steak wont look like this either: https://d3awvtnmmsvyot.cloudfront.net/api/file/clFhHJTkRraOg8cc1MiD https://d3awvtnmmsvyot.cloudfront.net/api/file/clFhHJTkRraOg...
  - personZ 12y ago
    this is about precise cooking, which yields very specific results This is exactly what I'm talking about when I mention people intentionally making simple things difficult. Do you think someone, somewhere was sitting eating a hard (or soft, or variations thereof. Apologies if there was confusion on this) boiled egg and thought "Boy, this really is terrible. I sure wish it was..."? Do you think that was what yielded the invention of sous vide cooking? Are hard boiled eggs a current culinary problem? No, they aren't. The argument borders on comical. Adding a "Duh!" to denigrate the notion that this is ridiculous easy doesn't prove your point. Further the steaks look absolutely vile (they look like texture monotony, which generally isn't a good result). Sous vide came about in high volume kitchens. It wasn't because it yielded better results, but because it allowed for in-advance preparation, allowing the kitchen to toss little salmon meal baggies in hot water on spikes in orders, versus preparing it from scratch. It was a "traffic smoothing" technique, not an exercise for better results. In the classic "copy the chef" exercise, people emulated something for all the wrong reasons.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      Yes, I do think that. Hard-boiled eggs are gross. Set egg yolks are gross. An egg white that is even slightly undercooked is also disgusting. There's a relatively narrow band of doneness in which eggs are good. You sound less like an advocate of simplicity and more like, as Dave Arnold would put it, "an enemy of quality". :)
      - personZ 12y ago
        A "six minute egg" has been a benchmark for literally centuries. Apologies if there is confusion, but when I say "hard boiled", I mean all doneness levels of boiled eggs.
        tptacek 12y ago
        Yeah, you're right about this. Honestly: I usually just fry eggs; I use the circ only when I need to serve a bunch of them.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - personZ 12y ago
    For the maillard reaction, obviously. I assume you were hoping I say something asinine like "sealing in the juices", to which you could tut tut, but sorry, searing has a very important culinary taste purpose.
- tptacek 12y ago
  Hard-boiling an egg is trivial. Soft-boiling an egg, or making a perfect poached egg, is non-trivial; it's a finesse task. And doing it once or twice is one thing, but plating 10-20 for a bunch is another. Also: your definition of "a perfect steak" is different from mine. You either like a little overcooked steak or a little undercooked steak (or maybe a lot of either), because you can't get uniform doneness in a cast-iron skillet and an oven.
  - personZ 12y ago
    As I addressed in the other comment, yes, indeed, this is a technique built for traffic spikes. It is not a technique made for cooking breakfast. As to steak, just to be clear (since there seems to be a lot of misinformation in here), the best New York City steakhouses grill steaks in a 1800 degree broiler. This is a heat that is difficult to obtain at home, so the sear+oven actually yields a wonderful, very uniform doneness. I suspect you've never tried it, have zero experience with it, but nonetheless pass judgment on it? Why is that? As someone who has eaten the most expensive steaks, at the most expensive steak houses in the world, I think it's quite fantastic. I guess I defer to your judgment though?
    - alkonaut 12y ago
      At (steakhouse) restaurants sous vide is likely not used to cook expensive cuts perfectly. A good chef can do that in a pan+oven. The best cuts though imo aren't the expensive ones, it's the tougher ones that taste most. If you go to a restaurant and have a brisket cooked medium, that is so tender you can use a spoon, then it was likely done in a water bath over night.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      That's a funny bit of message board aggression. Suggesting someone on a cooking thread about cooking steak that someone has never tried cooking a steak in a pan.
      - personZ 12y ago
        Recall that you were the one who first said that I am an "enemy of quality". Somehow on HN your smiley-disclaimed trolls -- posts that are almost always the "enemy of quality" -- get a pass. So yes, accept it as some aggression: When you dare pass judgment on my opinions in such a vapid, haughty way, expect a negative response.
- joezydeco 12y ago
  There are some secondary advantages to sous-vide prep, like being able to hold the finished steak at temperature until you're ready to serve.
- tanjk 12y ago
  I want to put that phone-connected 'intelligent pan' in a 500 degree oven for 500 hours.
  - compumike 12y ago
    Pantelligent is not oven safe. (Modern semiconductor electronics do not operate at such temperatures.)
- cwyers 12y ago
  I have had my Anova for just a little over a week, and I think this is missing something. Yes, the "sear then oven" technique gives you a good steak. The sous vide steak I made tonight is the best home steak I have had - more tender than the cast iron steaks I have done. It's also easier - I can make sides while the steaks cook in the water bath, and my window to get them out and still have them at the doneness I want is literally hours, whereas I have to precisely time when I I remove the steaks from the ocen to get the right internal temperature.
- tripzilch 12y ago
  > And then, after you've had your perfectly cooked eggs that you presumably had to hop out of bed and rush to retrieve before they overcooked, But they won't overcook. That's the point of sous vide. It heats the water temperature to a very specific point. The food will heat throughout until it's uniformly at that temperature. A few minutes extra won't make any difference because it's the temperature that determines the texture of the food (for most dishes), not how long it's been at that temperature[0]. Boiling water is 100 degrees Celsius and egg-white denatures at what, 40-45C? So your eggs will overcook, the sous-vide ones won't. (edit: turns out it's more like 60-67C, before anyone runs out to try it based on my post, I'd have looked this up before trying) > in your busy morning you're going to vacuum pack a steak? Seriously? I never quite understood why it needs to be vacuum packed, actually. If you drop it in a plastic baggie, submerging into water will push the airbubbles out nicely. > Or you can turn your oven to 200F. Toss a cast iron pan on your grilltop and sear at high heat, then move the whole thing to the oven. You'll quickly have a perfect steak without blowtorches or extended water bath time. Ummmyeah... that would work. If you had gotten it right :) Steak goes into the oven first, cast iron skillet after (and then of course rest for five minutes before cutting it), and 200F is way too hot, that's like 93C, firmly beyond "well done" and into "shoe" territory. You can take it out before that happens obviously, but your steak won't be heated uniformly, in particular if you seared it before, you'll get an unnecessarily large transition layer (which the tough layer on the outside of a non-perfect steak) between the perfectly rare or medium inside (which is the part you want most of) and the brown crust outside (which you also want, but just for extra flavour and appearance). It's just chemistry and physics. > As with the soylent thing, it's like basic skills are now lacking so people looking for a lot of menial work to replace trivial undertakings. I can accept the cynicism about the Soylent thing, but sous vide cooking is not just for "basic" cooking skills or to replace "trivial undertakings". Hey if you just want to cook a pretty good steak, go ahead and do that oven/skillet thing, mess it up like in your description if you like, because if you practice enough you'll get the timing just right and probably end up with a pretty damn good steak nearly all the time nonetheless. If you want a perfect steak, you want sous vide + blowtorch. And in fairness, I do want to point out that a "pretty good" steak made from good quality meat will totally blow away a "perfect" (not) steak made from shitty meat (e.g. cheap frozen steaks). I tried and sous vide doesn't help at all. In fact overcooking it the traditional way might even help to cover up the shittyness. I do feel for the cow, whose life destiny was to end up as mere shitty frozen steak .. :-/ Anyway, in addition, the workflow of sous vide has a few benefits with regards to attention and timing. However I grant that certain traditional ways cooking can have other benefits. You may probably also take comfort in the assumption that people that invest in a sous vide machine really love cooking, and that for that reason they will probably invest in a good cast iron skillet first. Because if you love cooking you simply need one. Finally, and I get a hunch you were thinking this but not saying it, I think the hacker / geek-factor of applying chemistry and physics concepts to the kitchen should not be dismissed either. It's a gadget with a thermostat and you even get to use a blowtorch after! You can quite easily build your own from basic electronic components (also check tropical fish aquarium supplies) and learn stuff about feedback control systems! You can experiment with crazy weird ways of preparing food! (what happens to cubes of marinated pork belly after 24 hours at ~55C for 24 hours is not just amazingly heavenly, but also impossible to achieve without sous vide) (try and find it at a restaurant if you don't care for the DIY, worth it). [0] Now if you keep it at that temperature for more than a few hours, some "interesting" things may happen. Certain meats will become unnaturally tender (which may or may not be desirable), I dunno what happens to eggs though. This is presumably why he wants to set it to "refrigerate" for the large part of the night.

thurn 12y ago

They haven't put out any updates since May, it seems. Do we have any idea if they're still going to manage to ship in "early 2015"?

personZ 12y ago

It is somewhat fascinating how much the tech community seems to strive to try to solve non-problems. In this case, poaching or hard boiling an egg is so utterly simple, done in mere minutes, that it is simply impossible that this device could make it easier. And the grotesque proposed waste of energy borders on the absurd. And then, after you've had your perfectly cooked eggs that you presumably had to hop out of bed and rush to retrieve before they overcooked, in your busy morning you're going to vacuum pack a steak? Seriously? Or you can turn your oven to 200F. Toss a cast iron pan on your grilltop and sear at high heat, then move the whole thing to the oven. You'll quickly have a perfect steak without blowtorches or extended water bath time. As with the soylent thing, it's like basic skills are now lacking so people looking for a lot of menial work to replace trivial undertakings.

ifelsethen 12y ago
"In this case, poaching or hard boiling an egg is so utterly simple, done in mere minutes, that it is simply impossible that this device could make it easier. And the grotesque proposed waste of energy borders on the absurd." said like someone who has never used the sous vide cooking method. this is about precise cooking, which yeilds very specific results; it's very different than your 'toss a bunch of eggs into boiling water for 10 minutes! duhhh' method. you cant get these results with your 'utterly simple' method(s): http://www.cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/eggchart2.jpg http://www.cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/eggc... and we're just talking eggs here. your steak wont look like this either: https://d3awvtnmmsvyot.cloudfront.net/api/file/clFhHJTkRraOg8cc1MiD https://d3awvtnmmsvyot.cloudfront.net/api/file/clFhHJTkRraOg...
- personZ 12y ago
  this is about precise cooking, which yields very specific results This is exactly what I'm talking about when I mention people intentionally making simple things difficult. Do you think someone, somewhere was sitting eating a hard (or soft, or variations thereof. Apologies if there was confusion on this) boiled egg and thought "Boy, this really is terrible. I sure wish it was..."? Do you think that was what yielded the invention of sous vide cooking? Are hard boiled eggs a current culinary problem? No, they aren't. The argument borders on comical. Adding a "Duh!" to denigrate the notion that this is ridiculous easy doesn't prove your point. Further the steaks look absolutely vile (they look like texture monotony, which generally isn't a good result). Sous vide came about in high volume kitchens. It wasn't because it yielded better results, but because it allowed for in-advance preparation, allowing the kitchen to toss little salmon meal baggies in hot water on spikes in orders, versus preparing it from scratch. It was a "traffic smoothing" technique, not an exercise for better results. In the classic "copy the chef" exercise, people emulated something for all the wrong reasons.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Yes, I do think that. Hard-boiled eggs are gross. Set egg yolks are gross. An egg white that is even slightly undercooked is also disgusting. There's a relatively narrow band of doneness in which eggs are good. You sound less like an advocate of simplicity and more like, as Dave Arnold would put it, "an enemy of quality". :)
    - personZ 12y ago
      A "six minute egg" has been a benchmark for literally centuries. Apologies if there is confusion, but when I say "hard boiled", I mean all doneness levels of boiled eggs.
      - tptacek 12y ago
        Yeah, you're right about this. Honestly: I usually just fry eggs; I use the circ only when I need to serve a bunch of them.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- personZ 12y ago
  For the maillard reaction, obviously. I assume you were hoping I say something asinine like "sealing in the juices", to which you could tut tut, but sorry, searing has a very important culinary taste purpose.
tptacek 12y ago
Hard-boiling an egg is trivial. Soft-boiling an egg, or making a perfect poached egg, is non-trivial; it's a finesse task. And doing it once or twice is one thing, but plating 10-20 for a bunch is another. Also: your definition of "a perfect steak" is different from mine. You either like a little overcooked steak or a little undercooked steak (or maybe a lot of either), because you can't get uniform doneness in a cast-iron skillet and an oven.
- personZ 12y ago
  As I addressed in the other comment, yes, indeed, this is a technique built for traffic spikes. It is not a technique made for cooking breakfast. As to steak, just to be clear (since there seems to be a lot of misinformation in here), the best New York City steakhouses grill steaks in a 1800 degree broiler. This is a heat that is difficult to obtain at home, so the sear+oven actually yields a wonderful, very uniform doneness. I suspect you've never tried it, have zero experience with it, but nonetheless pass judgment on it? Why is that? As someone who has eaten the most expensive steaks, at the most expensive steak houses in the world, I think it's quite fantastic. I guess I defer to your judgment though?
  - alkonaut 12y ago
    At (steakhouse) restaurants sous vide is likely not used to cook expensive cuts perfectly. A good chef can do that in a pan+oven. The best cuts though imo aren't the expensive ones, it's the tougher ones that taste most. If you go to a restaurant and have a brisket cooked medium, that is so tender you can use a spoon, then it was likely done in a water bath over night.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    That's a funny bit of message board aggression. Suggesting someone on a cooking thread about cooking steak that someone has never tried cooking a steak in a pan.
    - personZ 12y ago
      Recall that you were the one who first said that I am an "enemy of quality". Somehow on HN your smiley-disclaimed trolls -- posts that are almost always the "enemy of quality" -- get a pass. So yes, accept it as some aggression: When you dare pass judgment on my opinions in such a vapid, haughty way, expect a negative response.
joezydeco 12y ago
There are some secondary advantages to sous-vide prep, like being able to hold the finished steak at temperature until you're ready to serve.
tanjk 12y ago
I want to put that phone-connected 'intelligent pan' in a 500 degree oven for 500 hours.
- compumike 12y ago
  Pantelligent is not oven safe. (Modern semiconductor electronics do not operate at such temperatures.)
cwyers 12y ago
I have had my Anova for just a little over a week, and I think this is missing something. Yes, the "sear then oven" technique gives you a good steak. The sous vide steak I made tonight is the best home steak I have had - more tender than the cast iron steaks I have done. It's also easier - I can make sides while the steaks cook in the water bath, and my window to get them out and still have them at the doneness I want is literally hours, whereas I have to precisely time when I I remove the steaks from the ocen to get the right internal temperature.
tripzilch 12y ago
> And then, after you've had your perfectly cooked eggs that you presumably had to hop out of bed and rush to retrieve before they overcooked, But they won't overcook. That's the point of sous vide. It heats the water temperature to a very specific point. The food will heat throughout until it's uniformly at that temperature. A few minutes extra won't make any difference because it's the temperature that determines the texture of the food (for most dishes), not how long it's been at that temperature[0]. Boiling water is 100 degrees Celsius and egg-white denatures at what, 40-45C? So your eggs will overcook, the sous-vide ones won't. (edit: turns out it's more like 60-67C, before anyone runs out to try it based on my post, I'd have looked this up before trying) > in your busy morning you're going to vacuum pack a steak? Seriously? I never quite understood why it needs to be vacuum packed, actually. If you drop it in a plastic baggie, submerging into water will push the airbubbles out nicely. > Or you can turn your oven to 200F. Toss a cast iron pan on your grilltop and sear at high heat, then move the whole thing to the oven. You'll quickly have a perfect steak without blowtorches or extended water bath time. Ummmyeah... that would work. If you had gotten it right :) Steak goes into the oven first, cast iron skillet after (and then of course rest for five minutes before cutting it), and 200F is way too hot, that's like 93C, firmly beyond "well done" and into "shoe" territory. You can take it out before that happens obviously, but your steak won't be heated uniformly, in particular if you seared it before, you'll get an unnecessarily large transition layer (which the tough layer on the outside of a non-perfect steak) between the perfectly rare or medium inside (which is the part you want most of) and the brown crust outside (which you also want, but just for extra flavour and appearance). It's just chemistry and physics. > As with the soylent thing, it's like basic skills are now lacking so people looking for a lot of menial work to replace trivial undertakings. I can accept the cynicism about the Soylent thing, but sous vide cooking is not just for "basic" cooking skills or to replace "trivial undertakings". Hey if you just want to cook a pretty good steak, go ahead and do that oven/skillet thing, mess it up like in your description if you like, because if you practice enough you'll get the timing just right and probably end up with a pretty damn good steak nearly all the time nonetheless. If you want a perfect steak, you want sous vide + blowtorch. And in fairness, I do want to point out that a "pretty good" steak made from good quality meat will totally blow away a "perfect" (not) steak made from shitty meat (e.g. cheap frozen steaks). I tried and sous vide doesn't help at all. In fact overcooking it the traditional way might even help to cover up the shittyness. I do feel for the cow, whose life destiny was to end up as mere shitty frozen steak .. :-/ Anyway, in addition, the workflow of sous vide has a few benefits with regards to attention and timing. However I grant that certain traditional ways cooking can have other benefits. You may probably also take comfort in the assumption that people that invest in a sous vide machine really love cooking, and that for that reason they will probably invest in a good cast iron skillet first. Because if you love cooking you simply need one. Finally, and I get a hunch you were thinking this but not saying it, I think the hacker / geek-factor of applying chemistry and physics concepts to the kitchen should not be dismissed either. It's a gadget with a thermostat and you even get to use a blowtorch after! You can quite easily build your own from basic electronic components (also check tropical fish aquarium supplies) and learn stuff about feedback control systems! You can experiment with crazy weird ways of preparing food! (what happens to cubes of marinated pork belly after 24 hours at ~55C for 24 hours is not just amazingly heavenly, but also impossible to achieve without sous vide) (try and find it at a restaurant if you don't care for the DIY, worth it). [0] Now if you keep it at that temperature for more than a few hours, some "interesting" things may happen. Certain meats will become unnaturally tender (which may or may not be desirable), I dunno what happens to eggs though. This is presumably why he wants to set it to "refrigerate" for the large part of the night.