I cooked some eggs! (update: and some meat!)

[fromar]

Hi all,

I "finished" my cooker - or at least cooked some eggs in it. It needs a lot of work, but I consider the test run a success.

What I did:
I cooked some eggs. I heated the bath up to 64.4 C and put the eggs in for an hour.

What I got:
Delicious! The egg whites came out pretty runny. The yolks held together pretty well, but when I burst them, liquid goodness went everywhere. I ate the whites on one, but was not happy with the texture. At this temperature, the whites come off very easily with a spoon. I was also able to just crack the top of the shell off and pour the entire egg out on my plate. It pretty much matched what I found on this page: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/sous ... -eggs.html

Lessons learned:

• I need to use a cooler. I used a large plastic cold buffet serving tray.
• Heat the water up at least a little first. It took a long time to get to temp with one heating element.
• I need a better physical setup. Take a look at the diagram, and you will see how weird the circulation probably was. The glass baking dish in the middle was needed for support of the heating element. I needed the dish to support the heating element. The dish was glass and did not allow for any substantial flow between the water in it and the bath I was using to cook. The circulation pump on the side of the dish spraying water at the side of the entire setup, but not at the heating element or the thermocouple. I think the heating element needs support that doesn't block off half the water from the heater - maybe a tin can with holes cut in it? And the circulation system needs to not be blocked.

I'll post actual pictures later.

edit: Broke this into two posts.

[fromar]

Tonight I'm cooking some cheap meat - flatiron, and I took some photos of my setup.


This is my cooker as it stands with the cover off. The rags under the clear container are for insulation.


This is the cooker covered in blankets. This is a homebrewer trick - I do this in my mash-tun cooler when I brew.


And this is the cheap meat I'm cooking right now. Flatiron. I set the osPID to 130f, but when I checked with a thermometer, I found the osPID temperature reading was higher than reality. I turned the system up until the thermometer said 130. I am relying heavily on this page: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/03/how- ... steak.html


This is the final product. The meat was really tender but lacked a ton of flavor. I only seared it for a couple of seconds with minimal spices. Next time, I will salt and pepper before searing.