FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Programmable temperature slow cooker/bain marie

Peter A

In article et>,
says...
> I'm looking for something that can roughly do the job of a commercial
> or laboratory bain marie -- maintain food at a fairly precise set
> temperature in the range from room temperature to boiling. Most slow
> cookers I've seen offer choices like high/low/warm. The ones that
> bill themselves as "programmable" are mostly talking about a
> programmable timer, so that you can, for example, cook at "high" for 6
> hours then switch to warm. I don't care about the timer, I want to
> program the temperature, and I don't want to be limited to a selection
> of 3-6 different temperatures either -- I want to be able to select
> any temperature up to boiling to a precision of +/-2F or so.
> Something with a probe that can be inserted into the food to determine
> food temperature would be an added bonus.
>
> I have considered getting a cheap countertop roaster oven, but the
> temperature controls on those things (a simple knob) are not precise
> enough, nor do they have the right range (most seem to start at
> "warm", which looks like about 160F to me). I have electronics
> experience, so I could rip the thing apart and replace the thermostat
> with my own digital controls, but that sounds like a Project, and if I
> can just buy something reasonably priced I'd rather do that.
> (Commercial/lab bain maries that can do what I want are in the $600+
> range, maybe less on ebay. I'm thinking <$100 for my purposes.)
>
> Anybody know of such a thing? I keep searching online, but it's often
> impossible to tell exactly what the capabilities of a slow cooker are
> from reading the descriptions. "Programmable" always refers to the
> timer AFAICT. I've seen at least one model at Target that had a
> temperature probe, but I couldn't tell from the outside of the box
> what your options for temperature control were, and I didn't feel like
> getting permission to open the box and get the manual just then.
>
> TIA,
>
>

I have seen laboratory water baths with precise temperature control but
none that go above 80C. I think you are asking for a lot for <$100.

--
Peter Aitken