Sous Vide Energy Consumption
In the Sous Vide Equipment Forum
My wife is waiting anxiously for our electric bill .......
Poly Science Professional, any input as to how hard she'll smack me ?
The Pork Belly was in for ~ 48 hours at 160 degrees.
7 Replies So Far
Dave:Don't worry, cooking SousVide means heating just enough to cook your food right. At low temperature losses are minimal so this means it should use at the most the same amount of energy as cooking on the top range. Going SousVide you should be better off. Keep cooking.
On my rig I have a 1500 watt heater. the only time it is on full is heating up the first time to temperature. Once at temperature I have it set for 10% duty cycle every 2 seconds.
That means it is only on 200 milliseconds at a time to keep the temperature constant. My electricity is about 10 cents per kilowatt so less than a dime to heat up and then a tenth or less to hold at temp until done. Maybe I'll put my watt meter on it next time I cook and measure what it does take.
GeneK
I agree that with the other comments, however, you should consider maximising the efficiency by insulating the container and also filling space with other food stuffs.
Thank you everyone, makes sense. Here's my set up in case you missed it
I thought I would revisit this topic since I just started an Irish stew in my turkey fryer. It just reached the 160 degrees in 24 minutes. According to the meter that was .54 Kwh for 24 minutes.Now tomorrow when it ends I'll read the total Kwh's and that will give us a data point for energy consumption.
Also I agree that I would add insulation to that set up.
The Butterball turkey fryer I am using has double walls and little catch pans for the water that condenses in the lid. So far I'm very happy with this one.
GeneK
Wouldn't you know, we had a power failure just about an hour ago and wiped out the data for the last day. But any way, once up to temperature (160 f) I have been using 200 to 215 watts per hour.
Since I pay about $ .10 per Kw, that would be about $ .52 per day to cook sous vide. I'll bet making this stew in a crock pot costs more.
GeneK
Thank you for this great information, it is appreciated.
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