There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
Any air in the system will make your sous vide bags rise to the top. You will end up with uneven cooking due to your bobbing bags. Without the air, the meat is basically the same buoyancy as the water and will sit under the water while it is circulating - not on top. Also, you never have to worry about if the zip lock on the bag leaked and ruined your $100 worth of steaks due to water infiltration. I also question how well cheap bags actually deal with heat. They aren't intended to be sitting in 140 deg water and I doubt any of their chemical leech testing incorporated high heat for long periods of time.