Sous-vide, using nothing but your electrical stove.

Would you like to try out sous-vide with no risk, no soldering, no cost and no effort? If you have a electrical stove with thermometer outlet (very common) it is likely that you can use it directly to cook sous-vide.

Sous-vide is a great way to cook for many, when you don't really know when you are going to eat. It doesn't really matter if you cook the food a few hours extra in a sous-vide, it still comes out great. Combine this with a vaccum packed potato gratain that you boil in water directly on your hot plate and you have a winner that could be served at any time in no-time.

In short; put vaccum packed meat in a pot, cover with hot water, put the pot in the oven with the oven thermometer in the water, put the lid on, set the oven and wait for 10 hours.

Material:
Electrical oven with thermometer outlet.
Oven thermometer.
Cooking sheet.
Large pot with lid.

Optional:
Packing tape.
Cooking thermometer.

Not given in this tutorial:
Sous-vide recipes.
How to vacuum pack.

Please note! Cooking sous-vide might be dangerous. Strict hygiene is required along with quick heating, pasteurization and cooling. Please read up on sous-vide before trying out any recipes on your own.

Step 1 Will your oven work?

To test if your oven will work for automatic sous-vide you need:
Electric stove (with manual).
Oven thermometer.
A cup of hot (80 degrees+) water.

Attach the oven thermometer according to the oven manual. Turn on the oven heater to a high temperature. Set the oven to shut off at 60 degrees. With the oven door open, make sure the heater is on. Put the thermometer in the cup of hot water. Make sure the heater turns off and cools down (in my oven the oven light turns off as well, which gives a direct visual instead of checking the heater element).

The important part:
With the thermometer in the cup of hot water and the heater off, remove the thermometer from the cup. If the heater turns on as the temperature declines back below 60 you will be able to use your stove to cook sous-vide! Congratulations!!! If your stove needs a reset to turn back on, read below for possible solution.

Automatic reset:
Although my stove does not need a reset, it triggers an alarm when the target temperature is reached. Although set to low volume, it quickly became irritating. My solution to this (which might also apply if your stove need a reset to turn back on when the temperature goes too low) was simply to put a strip of packing tape over the acknowledge button, taping it pushed in.

Comments

[dustinandrews]

This is a great way to get into Sous-Vide if your oven can do it. Nice idea. I myself had luck with long cooking recipes just setting my oven to 150 and keeping the meat in a water bath. If you do a long running recipe, check the water every few hours and keep it topped off.

[websten]

Great simplification! Smart!