Sous Vide Immersion Cooker Buying Guide
When you own a restaurant, you do your best in order to please your clients and provide them with quality food, so they will be happy and come back to you when they’re hungry. However, sometimes it’s hard to do that, and you end up either overcooking the food or not cooking it enough, and it results in unpleased customers and bad reviews.
Thankfully, sous vide immersion cookers exist. They can help make sure that the food is well cooked and that your customers benefit from visiting your location. Basically, you have to store the food in a vacuum-sealed bag first. That is where it cooks in its own juices. The sous vide immersion cooker works by gradually heating the water, using the temperature you set. It works by itself, and once it’s done, your customers can enjoy their perfectly cooked steak.
This buying guide was created to show you what you need to take into account when shopping for such an item. Your business requires constant development, so you should choose the best sous vide immersion cooker to suit the restaurant’s needs.
1. Important Factors
Speed
When you have clients waiting for their food at the table, you can’t afford to waste time. Food needs to be cooked fast enough, but it also needs to be prepared in such a way so it’s not overcooked or undercooked.
Sous vide immersion cookers are available in many types and come with different powers, speeds, and features. For a restaurant, you would need a powerful heating element that could do the work quickly. If it takes too long until it heats, you may not get that extra money from your customers. A good heating element can quickly warm a large amount of water and keep it warm during the whole process.
Onboard and Remote Controls
Technology has evolved to a point where you can use it for things you couldn’t imagine before. Now, even cooking items have Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, and sous vide immersion cookers are no exception to that.
Having these features can be helpful from many points of view. For instance, moving between the immersion cooker and your activity can be annoying and time-consuming. Through a smartphone, you can connect the immersion cooker to it and use the phone as a remote control.
So, if you want to lower the temperature, you can easily do that from a distance, while only using your smartphone.
Moreover, there are devices that have onboard controls and don’t require a second device to be operated, so it may be a better option sometimes. You can just use them and let them cook your clients’ food at the optimal temperature.
Built-in-Timer
A very helpful feature when it comes to sous vide immersion cookers is the built-in-timer. Not each device has it, but it’s a useful feature to have, especially considering you aren’t cooking for one client only.
Basically, it allows you to know how the cooking process is going through a count-up that shows the cooking time, and countdown. It also rings an alarm when it’s done.
2. Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
| It’s a healthy cooking method. Whereas other cooking methods eliminate the food’s nutrients, this technique is different. Sous vide cooking will keep all the nutrients, so you will offer more benefits to your clients, besides delicious food. | This technique doesn’t work for all types of foods. There are some that lose flavor through the sous vide method. For instance, you can’t cook with alcohol, use garlic and many others. The taste of garlic can become too pregnant, and the alcohol can’t evaporate through the tight seal of sous vide. |
| The food will result in a very flavorful taste because of the delicate process. A lot of things can be cooked, such as short ribs, pork shoulder, and many others. Vegetables can be cooked as well. | Although it has temperature settings, sous vide immersion cooking is not always as good as traditional cooking techniques. When you have to cook in a rush, this method is not the best option. Cooking through this method is a slow and gradual process, depending on what you cook. |
| It allows you to cook the meat in advance while it doesn’t lose its quality and taste. The food can even be cooked 2-3 days before serving and then it’s frozen. This way, if there are too many clients to cook for on the same day, you have food that is ready and you just need to reheat it. | Sous vide immersion cooking requires equipment. You need the sealing bags, and large pots or containers for the water bath, so there will be additional costs too. |
3. Information on the Costs of Owning a Sous Vide Immersion Cooker
Immersion cookers can bring a lot of benefits in your restaurant’s kitchen. Not only that they allow you to prepare the food without overcooking or undercooking it, but they also preserve the food’s nutrients.
If you take proper care of the device, you may be able to keep using it in the distant future too, without worrying about having to purchase another one. It needs to be cleaned accordingly, not only so it keeps functioning, but also to not be harmful to the food.
Maintenance
As mentioned above, a sous vide immersion cooker needs to be maintained properly, so you should ensure it’s always cleaned and taken care of. There are many ways to clean it, depending on the model, but here are some top ones that are relatively simple and effective.
For instance, you can remove the skirt and the end cap and put them in the dishwasher, or you could just use dish soap to clean them in the sink. This way, the dirt, and bacteria can be eliminated.
To clean the build up on the cooker, a vinegar bath can be very effective. After using tap water to cook the food, build up is something to be expected. You could dilute equal parts water and white vinegar in a small pot, and place the cooker there. The next step would be setting the temperature to 140ºF/60ºC and letting the device heat the liquid. Once the temperature is reached, the cleaning is complete.
The insides of the product are also important, so they should be taken care of as well. You can simply use a toothbrush with a mild cleaner, such as dish soap. Then, you can scrub the heating coil, sensor, circulator, impeller and pump shaft, and rinse with a damp cloth once you’re done.
However, make sure you don’t bend the impeller shaft, because it may rub against the steel skirt after reassembling.
You can also clean the cooker’s display with a damp microfiber cloth and then wipe it dry.
The Accessories
Basically, you can’t own the immersion cooker only. In order to effectively cook the food for your customers, you need to have additional items, such as a container or pot, and vacuum bags or sealers.
The pot or container you use needs to be large enough for the water bath. No need to worry, though, they are not the most expensive items, and you can find some that are quite affordable. It depends on the amount of food, and the type of food you will cook at a time, so then you can determine the size that you need. Keep in mind, though! The immersion cooker’s capacity also has to be taken into consideration when purchasing a pot. Not every device can work with the same amount of water, so take care of that aspect as well.
You will also need vacuum sealers or bags. Sous vide immersion cookers work by cooking the food in a water bath, but the food is sealed. This way, the water can’t affect the edibles, and the possible bacteria in the tap water won’t negatively affect the food either. Moreover, they hold the flavors and juices that are infused in the meat.
If your customers order steak, you can simply seal it without any seasoning, and it will have a delicious flavor because of the juices. You can even marinate the steak within the vacuum sealer if you want to take it one step further, so the flavor gets even more intense.
The right accessories can ensure that your clients will enjoy a delicious and nutritious meal.
4. Final Thoughts
Your business is important, and you need to do everything to ensure that it is successful and stays this way. If you own a restaurant, your clients are the most important ones, because they support you.
The right food is the key to their heart, so you need to make sure that it is cooked accordingly. The right sous vide immersion cooker can do that, so it can be a great investment and a useful tool to have in the restaurant’s kitchen.
Now that you’ve read this buying guide, you know what these devices can do and how they can help you. Moreover, you know what to look for in immersion cookers and you can choose the best one for your restaurant.
Share This!