The Original Dry Bag Steak | Make Artisan Dry Age Steak at Home › Forums › UMAi Dry® Forum Questions › General Questions › Refrigeration Temperature creep. › Refrigeration Temperature creep.
Scott MarkI hope you have good luck with your crock pot.
My experience has been that for good results you will want to use as much water as you can, and get the temperature stabilized for a good while (20 minutes?) before you add one or two steaks. Crock pots do not seem to be responsive to temperature swings and the external sous vide units (I have six SousVideMagic units) can’t control them delicately enough. For steak — you’ll be in the range and probably OK, but you’ll be +/- four or five degrees F rather than the 1 degree F you can get with a very large rice cooker that has a larger water ballast and a more nimble heat transfer to the water.
More water is more ballast, and gentler adjustments. More insulation (such as the crock) means that the system notices the heat in the water after the heating element has heated the outside of the crock much past the target, and the system gets overshoot.
More insulation sounds good, for less heat loss. But the downside is a lack of precision in the system.
Best of luck.
Toasty