Anova CulinarySous Vide Precision Cooker Nano 2.0

I thought I had the perfect smoked chicken in my charcoal smoker. When done to the proper temperature, the breast would be moist and a dark smoky bark would form. But I experimented with the Anova cooker.All of the whole chicken sous vide recipes called for spatchcock, but I kept my chicken whole in the zip lock bag for 3 hours at 150 F. Then into the charcoal smoker for about 1 1/2 hours until a nice dark brown formed.The big difference is that the moisture does lock into the bird. Even the wings were still moist, and the breast was moist and fork tender. Also, the seasoning was more even throughout the meat.It's different from 4 hours in the smoker without sous vide. Is sous vide smoked chicken better? I would say yes for most people. If you like a strong smoky bark, then straight smoker is probably better for you. But if you want a mild smoke flavor, tender, moist and evenly seasoned, then sous vide is better.And the Anova is super easy to use and does the job well.

Love love love this. Definitely worth getting

We LOVE this product. Great quality and makes meat so easy to cook and so much more tender and juicy. Easy to use. Pretty quiet and super easy to clean.

(Edit: The complaint I had about the micro controller locking up (and locking to the last heater coil setting), hasn't happened again, and I've used it probably a couple dozen times since. So I've added back in more stars the rating.)Got this yesterday, and last night I picked up a tri point roast. Figured this would be a good cut of meat as a first test of this cooking method.The temp and time was easy enough to set, very intuitive touch interface. Put the roast in a bag with seasoning, and set time time for 5 hours, at 130 F. Checked on it periodically, and observed that it displayed the current temp, which floated between 129.9 and 131.1 (this is normal, the processor is constantly adjusting the heating coil power based on input temp). Well, later on I noticed the temp was right at 129.9 and never moved anymore. Went to check the timer on the unit, and the display didn't respond. The water was still circulating, however when I checked the water temp with a meat thermometer, it read just above 134 F. Unplugged and plugged back in the unit, and it confirmed water was now at 134. This was around the 5 hour mark, so I took it out, and sure enough the center of the meat was at 134, a bit higher than I wanted (was wanting to keep it at 130, slightly rarer, as the temp would come up a bit when flaming it on the grill to finish it off).So this loses points for the lockup and overheating issue. I'm assuming that the coil was last set to a temp a bit warmer than the desired water temp, because the uncooked meat is constantly absorbing heat from the water -- so to keep it at 130, i needs to initially have the coil set to something like 135 or 140. So it was probably about midway through the cooking cycle that the lockup happened, and when the meat temp finally equalized, the water came up to 134 and over-cooked the meat.The roast still came out OK, I just had to be a bit more careful when finishing it off on the grill. Still mostly pink in the middle, even cook, and really tender. I highly recommend this cooking method if you like your steaks to be close to restaurant quality. But I'm going to make sure I double-check the temp every half hour next time I use it.

Great product. I really appreciate the fact that I can control the time and temperature via an app. However the app is HORRIBLE! The app constantly disconnects from the device and sometimes you will have to uninstall and then reinstall the app and then re add your device. It’s a real pain in the rear end 🤦‍♂️

I finally broke down and ordered this sous vide cooker about a month ago. I'm glad I finally took the plunge. I have already cooked 4 beef roasts (tritip and chuck, 137.5 degrees for 30 hours) and chicken thighs twice (145 degrees for 3 hours). Everything turned out great. I ordered the reusable silicon sous vide bags off Amazon, because one of the things that had kept me away from sous vide was the whole cooking in plastic thing (health concerns).Temperature control is excellent, generally within 1 degree of target. The Anova is not noisy but makes a bit of a whiny sound. Bluetooth is so-so, because range is very limited, but it's not really needed at all. The app is a great source of recipes and cooking time suggestions, however, so do load it on your phone.The immersion cooker is very straightforward and easy to use. I didn't even the read the instructions. I use a large Calphalon stock pot as the container for water.If you buy one, I recommend ordering the silicon bags, magnets for holding bags in place, and a silicon cover if you are using a deep stock pot to hold the water (see pic).Recommended without reservation. If it ever dies, I will order another.