Biolomix Sous Vide Cooker 1500W

A powerful, more affordable, and generally more useful Sous Vide cooker without any gimmicks – I don't just own one of these sous vide machines, I actually own four of them, and have been running some of them for a couple of years now. I use them in a surprisingly wide variety of cooking and heating purposes. None of these devices have skipped a beat and they work very well. On paper, this device is comparatively basic to other machines on the market. You could go with a fancier model with app control over Bluetooth/Wifi, but those features honestly don't matter as much as you might think. By keeping things relatively simple, I've found this to be a very reliable and cost effective machine.

SETTING IT UP:

One of the things that I find amusing is that some of the fancier (and much more expensive) models of sous vide machines use magnets to hold the device to the bottom/side of saucepans. However, that's not going to work for non-ferrous cookware (aluminium for example) plastic vats, tupperware and many other containers. This unit has a simple clip that hooks onto the edge of any container. Whether it's made from metal, glass, plastic, and even ceramics.

THE INTERFACE:

The machine has only two buttons and a wheel. Press and hold the power for a few seconds, it powers up. Use the wheel to dial in the set temperature, then simply tap the power again to start (and later stop) the heating.

The set button allows you to:

1. Set a delay (labelled as "Set time"), so you can start cooking in a set period of hours. 2. Set the cook duration (Labelled as "Work time").

No apps, no mobile devices, no network problems, and thus less need for customer support.

The only documentation problem is that the manual doesn't include one piece of information, how to switch between Fahrenheit and Celsius. To do that, turn the machine on, and then hold BOTH power and set buttons for a few seconds.

The only other issue is the plug. This unit is sold in many countries, and this unit will often be sold online with an international plug. So even if you have a 220V model (as you'd need in Australia), It might not be "natively" connectable. My first and third ones came with an Aussie plug, the second came with a Chinese plug but included an adaptor, but on the fourth, the seller did not supply an adaptor.. and it had a European plug. They refunded me $5 to buy a plug at my end.

While adaptors aren't expensive, they're an additional device that I'd prefer not to need, and may not earth the appliance properly if there's an electrical fault. As such, I had mine converted to Australian plugs so no adaptors were needed.

WHY THIS MODEL?

I chose this model for its low price and more importantly, higher than average wattage. Most (even more expensive) machines offer anywhere between 650W and 1200W of heating capacity, and that's fine if you just want to do a few steaks, but if you're trying to heat up large volumes of of water that ALSO need to heat large quantities of food..then this is where the 1500W comes into its own.

At this price point, I can buy 2, or even 3 of these for the cost of a "fancy" model. I've even used three of these sous vide machines in one water bath to rapidly increase the temperature for making some recipes that are both temperature, and time sensitive. It's hard to argue with 4500W of heating potential (just make sure you have several circuits to power this or you'll trip a breaker/blow a fuse).

POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS:

Obviously, a sous vide machine can be used to cook meats, fruit and vegetables in any number of interesting ways. However, cooked doesn't mean perfect "out of the bag". Once you dry and QUICKLY sear the somewhat tender and disturbingly grey/wet meat afterwards, THEN you'll have an amazingly tender and flavoursome steak experience. Don't skip the last-minute searing on steaks, otherwise you will NOT be happy.

However, unlike most people, this is not my focus at all. The reason I have four devices, is that I'm a reasonably serious home bread & cheese maker. If you make any sort of fermented foods, then precise temperature control is very important.

I make cheeses using the water bath method (you can see me using two of my sous vide machines in the attached image), as the slower heating of the milk generally makes a better cheese and offers a slightly higher yield. So a sous vide machine is perfect for this task. However, if I'm spending a full day making cheese, I want to make as much as possible (sometimes in 1-4 varieties). Each of these may need a different temperature to culture appropriately). Using a sous vide machine for each to set and manage precise temperatures is life changing for cheese makers, as it frees you up from battling temperature fluctuations throughout the course of the day. Not only does this mean you can make more cheese, you are also more likely to succeed because you can focus on the tasks at hand. This means you learn more from each session, and it generally makes you a better, happier and more involved cheese guru. It also helps with some of the more "finnicky" cheeses. I've added a picture of some Brie made using the sous vide method. Brie isn't the easiest cheese, but fluctuations in make temperatures can have profound impact on the cheese as it ages. Clearly these wheels have worked, and by extension, the Sous Vide machine. :-)

If you're not a big cheese fan, there are some other uses for a sous vide machine such as:

1. You can also use sous vide setups to operate as a "proofer" to make yoghurts, kefir, and raise bread doughs during cooler months.

2. I've even used one of these to save the tropical fish in my aquarium when the water heater died on a public holiday. However, make sure you rinse the unit thoroughly to remove salt. To this day, I've not seen any rust.

3. There are interesting low-temperature ways to cook fruit without it turning into mush, while infusing it with flavours like spices, syrups, and spirits. You can even do this WITHOUT adding sugar, which is really handy for diabetics.. it might seem weird to have an almost crunch COOKED and spiced pears, with concentrated and enhanced flavours, all without extra sugar. But completely doable.

4. For the chocolatiers out there, if you can keep your chocolate BONE DRY, sous vide is an interesting way to get, and maintain tempering. However, if ANY moisture gets in, things can go wrong very quickly.

5. Our slow cooker suddenly stopped heating, so I transferred the ceramic insert to a water bath, and the sous vide did an amazing job of keeping the cook going. You truly can set the temperature and just walk away, but the sheer "customisability" and "granularity" of temperature and time blows ANY slow cooker out of the water.

There are many other uses, but this I think this review is long enough.

In short, I highly recommend this unit.