Modernist Cooking Blog: How long does it take a sous vide machine to heat up?

The primary purpose of a sous vide machine is to keep the water bath at an accurate and consistent temperature during the cooking period, whether that's minutes, hours or days. However, there are occasions when the temperature of the water bath needs to be increased significantly - one of those is during startup.

This post will address the question of how long this startup time normally takes. First, I will describe the various factors which impact the length of this startup time. Then I will introduce the Sous Vide Machine Benchmark I have developed and summarize the startup time information I have measured.

Read the entire entry...