NutriChef PKPC120WT Sous-Vide Prime Immersion Circulator-Precision Cooker, White

Great piece of equipment. The food is on a different level and can't wait to explore different cooking techniques.

I've been looking at sous vide cookers for some time now. The questions I had were: "How big is big enough"? "Where am I going to store it?" "How much is my wife going to complain about another appliance"? and "Where am I going to get the money"? I had pretty much decided against sous vide when I discovered that I didn't need a huge dedicated appliance, nor did I need to spend hundreds of dollars just to try a new (to me) form of cooking.I got this little gem, attached it to a small pot, and tried cooking a steak. Two hours later (plus a couple minutes on the grill to sear) I had a couple of perfect steaks, medium from edge to edge. Even the thinner part was medium. Next, I tried our standard loin pork roast. Seared it in a convection oven at 425 for 10 minutes and got a rave review from the family. [Have since repeated, with similar success.] Finally, using a bigger stock pot, I cooked a 5 pound rib roast (140 deg for 6 hours, finished in 425 deg oven for 10 minutes). Beautifully done from edge to edge with just the right amount of sear. The family and guests thought it superb. As an extra, I cooked some fresh asparagus by sealing it in a bag with a little butter and then cooked it 10 minutes @ 180 degrees. Bright green, tasty, and crisp. [I hate mushy asparagus.]By the way, most of the the food I've cooked so far was already in a vacuum bad (Food Saver) and in the freezer. It's a simple matter to thaw and cook in the same bag, although in the future I'll need to consider adding cooking spices before freezing.The only negatives I see is that the controls are not intuitive (the instruction sheet is clear, but you need to keep it handy) and the unit is a bit noisy unless you adjust the water level to the optimal point. Then, it's no worse than an aquarium. [Maybe I'll cook some fish next.]Update: I've been using this for over a year now, averaging three times per week. Still works great. I keep learning new uses. For example, we love 2 inch thick pork chops, but they are hard to cook properly on the stove or grill. Yesterday, I got a great deal on 8 of them (Kroger sell-by date discount). I seared them all on a hot grill. After sealing them in individual bags, I sous vide'd them for 3 hours at 150 and 1 hour at 170 (we like the taste better). Served one for dinner (tender, juicy, great flavor). Cooled the rest and froze them. Seven great meals that will be ready in minutes. Another tip: If you cool the cooked meat before freezing it, it will re-absorb most of the juices that cooked out.Update: Almost 2 years have passed and after using the unit 3 or 4 times per week, it is still working like new. I reread my review and would like to change my advice on cooking a prime rib roast. I did another one about a week ago. Five pounds, frozen in a vacuum bag. Dropped it, still frozen, in the pot and set the temperature to 130 degrees. Left it for 7 hours (6 plus 1 for defrosting). Removed the roast and put into a 375 degree over for 15 minutes to sear. It was a beautiful sight to behold, although not for long. Perfectly medium rare and could be cut with a fork. Served it to family and brother-in-law, who just now emailed me to ask what make/model I had (I'll send a link).Update: I've now been using this little gem for over 3 years, 3 or 4 times per week (it's cooking a ribeye roast right now) and it's still running great. A new recipe that has become a standard here is shaved roast beef for sandwiches. Take a whole (or half) eye of round. Trim all fat and membrane. Coat with olive oil, kosher salt (Diamond Crystal's "fluffier" salt), onion powder, and garlic powder. Rub it in and roast in a 500 deg oven for 20 minutes. This will really sear the crust. Let cool (won't take long). Place in a vacuum bag and sous vide to rare for about four hours. Refrigerate (in the bag) until cold. Shave the roast into a large pile and season it with the juices from the bag to taste (it may be too salty). Freeze in convenient portions. [I include a photo of the finished pile.]

Th unit worked fine the first number of times that I used it, then died - as others have noted. Really disappointed that something like this can't last.After I reviewed, the company got hold of me and replaced the defective unit, so I've upped my rating based on their after sale support.

[6-Year UPDATE] Unit died with the often-reported EO5 error. Device instantly started heating as soon as plugged in (runaway heating, no control). Fortunately the ribs were done! It seems I got a good one and got just over six years use out of it. I used it approximately 1x per week, from 2.5 hrs for steak to 7-8 hrs for ribs.[UPDATE] I have now used the unit 15-18 times in three months. All is well and the tool keeps working as expected. I simply posted a cheat sheet near where I use this so I can find the temp in Celsius and range of cooking times for what I'm making. I use an 8-qt stock pot so I'm fairly limited on what I can put in there (2-3 steaks is the limit). Some observations: Cooking meat vents gasses that were causing my bags to float so hot water was not on all sides which affected proper cooking. I didn't want to put anything in the pot that might possibly leech into the food (like lead weights). I ended up purchasing a strong magnet to which I attached a pair of paperclip hooks. Once the food is bagged, I attach silicone cooking bands (food grade rubberband) to each and sink the magnet to the bottom of the pot. Note that aluminum and most stainless steel pots are not magnetic so the magnet won't stick. I either use the pot in my sink (enameled cast iron) or slid an electrical junction box face plate ($2 at my local hardware store) under the pot, and then the magnet sticks just fine. Cold water in that pot comes up to temp in about 10 minutes. I lay an acrylic cutting board over the top of the stock pot to keep most of the heat in.I cook steaks (for example) at 54.5-55.0 C for 2-2.5 hrs and they come out a PERFECTLY moist and tender medium rare all the way through. I heat a bit of oil in a cast iron skillet and add a hot sear (approx. 1 min each side). I will sometimes add things into the bag like shallots, garlic, etc., or lemon if I'm doing chicken of fish. Fish cooks quickly! 20-30 min for salmon steaks.I'm very satisfied with this Nutrichef immersion cooker. The "noise" is no more than a quiet burble, especially with an improvised lid on.[ORIGINAL REVIEW] I have only used this device twice, but both times have been good successes. It's quiet (as long as you have sufficient water in the pot) and fairly easy to use once you decipher the Engrish instructions. I'm using it with an 8-qt stock pot, so I put at least a gallon (probably more) of cold, filtered water (to reduce lime) in and turned it on. The water was 16 C at the start, and it took 10 minutes to get the temp up to the desired 56.5 C for medium-rare steak, which I cooked for 3.5 hours. Very tender and juicy. I also did salmon steaks which cooked for 30 min (next time I'll use a slightly lower temp and knock 5 min off the cook time). This does a good job of keeping the cooking water temp within 1 or 2 tenths of a degree. Since the cooker prevents the use of a lid, I wrapped a wooden cutting board in tinfoil and used that as a makeshift cover which should help keep some of the heat in. The time to cook most meats is too long for weeknight, after-work cooking unless you really eat late. You don't need a vacuum sealer as zip-lock type bags will suffice as long as you are REALLY diligent about getting air out of the bag so it doesn't float.One week after I bought this for $100, it was marked down to $80, which kind of bummed me out.

The people giving this 5 stars must not have tried many other immersion circulators. I own a Sansaire and Anova BT, this comes no where close to their quality.I'll start with the good. 1200 watts means it heats faster than my Anova, and it is functional so far. That's about all the "pro" I can give it. I can't decide if I want to give it a 2 or 3 stars and if I'll return it or not.Now for the bad.The interface is crap. Doesn't stay on °F, have to press power and set for 2 seconds every time it is turned on. Press power to start the cook, but press too long and it powers off. Minor things that only matter when first started. Combine the UI issues with the following issues and my wife tells me to "pay whatever it takes to get another Sansaire", which is almost 3 times the cost.It is noisy. I don't mean it will prevent you from watching TV or listening to music in the same room, but compared to the Sansaire and Anova you can definitely hear this thing running. Except for my blender and mixers, definitely the loudest thing in my kitchen, even when it is in the next room on the other side of a wall. Not even my dishwasher is this loud in the middle of the scrub cycle. The less water in the container, the louder it gets, which brings me to the next negative.The minimum water level is a joke. I got barely halfway down the water level marks and it shut off. Likely because the pump wasn't picking up enough water as I could hear a lot of air mixed in with water in the pump. For longer cooks, make sure you have a lid or it won't take much water loss before the unit shuts off and stops cooking, which would suck at 3am.Bad clamp. So the water level is extremely picky and this only has a clamp to hold it to the side. The spring is not strong enough to keep it at a set height. This must set on the edge of the container, the clamp just keeps it upright only. My Anova has an adjustable clamp. Not having this adjustment will limit your container choices.That label stating the metal is hot is no joke. Both my Sansaire and Anova are warm after use, but usually only the temp of the water they are in. The metal part, just heating water to 135°F, was enough to burn my fingers. I'll give it 3 stars just for the fact it does the core requirements (keep water hot and circulating). Otherwise look at one of the other big names in sous vide.

This was really inexpensive for an immersion circulator. But . . . it makes a lot of bearing noise when it is on. It works so I'm keeping fingers crossed, but I have others that are significantly quieter. In other news it also comes up in Celsius every time and that is pretty annoying.