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spott
1
Oct 18, 2017
Can anyone compare this to the Anova Wifi?
Cloaca
1906
Oct 19, 2017
spottI have the Anova pre-WiFi one. It's built like a tank. I suspect that the WiFi one is more consumer grade, but Anova was originally a lab instruments company, while Nomiku was founded by a couple of Bay Area hippies, as a crowdfunded thing, so I think Anova has the manufacturing angle down better.
braswes
110
Oct 19, 2017
CloacaI own both this Nomiku and the Anova Bluetooth unit. Given that the Anova comes on sale for $99 all the time, it's a no-brainer to get the Anova at that price. The "wi-fi" or "bluetooth" features on these units? You'll never use them, as they're too unreliable and quite frankly these are so simple to run manually. I do find that the Anova can struggle to regulate at higher temperatures (>170). The "community" and "apps" and "recipes" that both companies push as value-add features? Yeah, I find them worthless.
Cloaca
1906
Oct 19, 2017
braswesWiFi and recipes are worthless, yes. WiFi is worse than worthless if they remove the simple time and temperature settings from the device itself, which I pray they haven't. If you have to unlock a cell phone to cook, what a pain in the ass. It's like how you can't change the channel on televisions now without the remote.
I would like basic reference stuff, but not recipes. For instance, what temperature range for shrimp? For pork? For various sorts of egg results? I looked at the Anova reference stuff, and it's just a bunch of recipes with different temperatures, no better than surfing the net randomly.
If you perfectly seal your pot, the temperature regulation is no problem, as long as you cook for long enough. Of course, you cannot perfectly seal it. But I made an insulated lid for my stock pot that does a decent job, and has a form-fitted hole for the Anova. I just took two stiff picnic plates, stapled them together with an air gap, lined them with aluminum foil, and cut out the cross section of the Anova.
Honestly though, after screwing around with sous vide I decided it wasn't a miracle (except for onsen tamago eggs). For instance, you can eat beef raw. In Japan, where I am, you can eat the higher priced chicken raw. Of course you can eat fish raw. Most steak here is raw, not rare, in the middle, and grilled on the outside. The fact that the grilled-surface-to-raw/rare transision depth is 2 mm rather than 5 mm, as from a fry pan, is insignificant and silly.
braswes
110
Oct 19, 2017
Cloacaseriouseats.com is my go-to place to answer sous vide questions - I have the same questions as you. They publish time-temperature tables for various meats, describing color and texture achieved. Sous vide does work best on thicker cuts of meat. As you said, thinner cuts can just be directly grilled/seared to achieve desired results.
dqniel
125
Oct 19, 2017
CloacaI'm not sure where eating raw fits into the discussion. If I'm buying a sous vide, it's not because I want things to be raw. It's because I want things to be cooked to an exact temperature with minimal effort to eliminate error.
KrystalP
8
Nomiku
Oct 19, 2017
CloacaThe Nomiku was founded by an astrophysicist and a chef from some of the best Michelin-star restaurants in New York. They moved the company to San Francisco to manufacture here in the US. Nomiku also holds the first patent on the home immersion circulator technology.
KrystalP
8
Nomiku
Oct 19, 2017
CloacaNomiku doesn't make the product dependant on WiFi. It has the largest screen on the market so that you can clearly see the current temp, cook time and to adjust right on the device. Nomiku is also in the midst of adding a lot more time-table features to the companion mobile app so that you can easily cook recipes or ad lib based on precise temperature charts.
Cloaca
1906
Oct 20, 2017
braswesYes, it was J. Kenji Hernandez-Koch's recommendation at Serious Eats that made me decide to buy the first Anova, but only after a back-and-forth with the company on whether it would work on Tokyo mains electricity (no problem, it's like a Macintosh, works everywhere). JKen's comprehensive sous vide egg test is the kind of stuff I like there:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/10/sous-vide-101-all-about-eggs.html
"founded by an astrophysicist and a chef"
Q.E.D.
Let me know when he lands a job as an astrophysicist ... or at least as an adjunct at a community college.
dqniel
125
Oct 20, 2017
Cloaca" Let me know when he lands a job as an astrophysicist ... or at least as an adjunct at a community college. "
I guess having a PhD in Astrophysics from Princeton doesn't count?
Cloaca
1906
Oct 20, 2017
dqnielMy point was that these guys, compared to Anova, are not as experienced in product design and manufacturing. Maybe they got VC money and the VCs hired people who knew what they are doing and gently nudged the astrophysicist manqué and chef to the side, I don't know. The initial development process on Kickstarter of the previous Nomiku is in the public record and was a bit shaky.
braswes
110
Oct 20, 2017
CloacaNomiku did have some real stumbles out of the gate in manufacturing and quality. I was a kickstarter supporter for their second model, and had to endure the seeming endless wait as the planned ship date slipped by about a year. Also, when I received my unit it failed after about a month (firmware bug). That said, the customer service was efficient in replacing my unit. My Anova unit (which I purchased when I despaired over whether Nomiku would ever deliver) has been rock solid.
In my opinion, Nomiku seems to be trying to pivot away from being a manufacturer to being a more app-oriented / community building / sous vide recipe amalgamation company. It makes me wonder about the long term commitment to developing the hardware.
bgps
11
Nov 22, 2017
CloacaWhat do you mean about Anova working with Tokyo mains electricity? The 110v or 220v versions? Isn't Japan 220v?
Cloaca
1906
Nov 22, 2017
bgpsJapan is 100 volt, 60 or 50 Hz, depending on the region.
With a lot of appliances it just doesn't matter. For instance Macintoshes work everywhere with no adapters other than the plug shape.
LeCheffre
42
Dec 26, 2017
spottI use the wifi on my SV units to monitor cooks while I'm at work. I like the recipes, and with apologies to J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, have better resources for SV cooking than him (a general complaint about Kenji is that he tends to either jump his temperature in overly large increments while experimenting and doesn't let low temp items go long enough).
While both the Nom and the Anova have stories of reliability issues, Anova has better customer service. Nom folks are B- customer service on their good days. Both of their Kickstarters were hugely funded and both were delivered over a year late, with some rewards from the first kickstarter never delivered. Abe and Lisa are nice people who got on this early. Anova is a big company with more than one product, who can support their product better.