Lakeland Sous Vide Multi Cooker

This review is for an older version of this product

This was bought for someone as a gift and the feedback has been incredible!! It really is easy to use and ensures that food is cooked beautifully. No more over-cooked, dry meat thats for sure!! According to the person the gift was bought for, it has changed the way he cooks. It is certainly not another kitchen gadget that gets pouched to the back of the cupboard. It is kept on top of the worktop and is currently used between 2 - 3 times per week. Amazing product and a fantastic price.

I got one of these and also kept checking the temp with a calibrated digitals thermometer, the machine was set to 58 degrees and it fluctuated between 58.0 and 58.3 throughout the duration of the cook. The food is raised on a rack and testing the water in various areas around the meat I notice no significant change in water temp (hot spots). Yes it does not circulate the water but its £70 and acts as a slow cooker as well, I couldn't justify forking out 200+ for something I wont use that often and this certainly does the job for £70 A+++

Just cooked two rib eye steaks sous vide at 60 degrees for six hours, then seared them in a frying pan to get the Maillard reaction. Result absolutely marvellous 100% edible medium rare steaks. Checking the temperature suggested it was a couple of degrees cooler than indicated but this is easily remedied by adjusting the temperature setting. The controls could be more user friendly as any alteration to the original setting requires it to be switched off and reset. Nevertheless I think it a good value piece of kitchen equipment and recommend it to anybody interested to try sous vide cooking.

Sous Vide is often described as "precise temperature cooking". Using a calibrated digital thermometer (also bought at Lakeland), I found that the temperature fluctuates up to 4 deg Celsius from set. It also does not circulate the water so you can get hot spots at the bottom. However, it does work really well as a slow cooker and as a water bath for fermenting yoghurt.