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[ashecitism]

trailer for their product, Joule: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPjm5E5-HOk

he's briefly in the vid at 1:30

https://www.chefsteps.com/joule

http://venturebeat.com/2015/11/24/v...p-will-make-you-ravenous-before-thanksgiving/

A Seattle startup, ChefSteps, has announced a piece of hardware, Joule, that functions as an “immersion circulator,” making it easier to create sous vide meals. Cooking and eating awesome food may be on your mind ahead of Thanksgiving. But the Joule won’t begin shipping until early next year.

Newell supplied money for the high-tech cooking startup that Chris Young and Grant Crilly started. Both previously worked with Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer at Microsoft, on his Modernist Cuisine cookbook. Myhrvold is a big fan of sous vide as well. This company’s goal is to invite people to cook with passion.

“They came over and it was easily the best food I’d ever had,” Newell said. “Spectacular in its design and execution.”

Of his son, Newell said, “It was his bedside reading for six months. Even though, up until then, he’d never been interested in cooking at all, he suddenly decided he wanted to be a chef. And when I talked to him, he was talking about it like an engineer talks about it; he was talking about tradeoffs and fundamental principles and thermodynamics.”

So Newell started talking more with Young and Crilly, who were then just launching ChefSteps. They teamed up, and Newell supplied the funding in the form of a loan, but he did not take any ownership in the company. (Valve is not involved).

http://www.eater.com/2015/11/24/9788798/chefsteps-sous-vide-gabe-newell-immersion-circulator

Newell's son's enthusiasm inspired him to start a dialogue with Young and Crilly, who were then just launching ChefSteps. The three men talked the same language, Newell notes. "They talked to me like a scientist, like an engineer, and this isn't how I thought people in the cooking world talked. These guys are cooking nerds. And the science is super interesting. Their understanding of what's going on in the experience of cooking resonated with my experiences in the world of creating entertainment. In the end, your target is the subjective experience of the consumer. You have to know all this hard stuff, but at the end of the day you have to have a really good connection with the inside of someone's head to be good at it. This intrigued me. Every time I talked to them I felt like I learned something new."

Formally, Valve is not affiliated with ChefSteps. ChefSteps is a privately funded company that launched with the founders' capital and eventually took on Newell as a community member who supports the culinary incubator in the form of a low-interest loan. "He gave us a small loan to keep going," Young says, a bit quietly, "He never told us how to run the company. Every six months he'd say, 'What problems are you having, what are you trying to solve?' Gabe is known as a guy who believes you will be successful if you focus on solving problems for a real community of people."

I'm sure I read about his investment months ago, but that wasn't picked up by many sites and the product wasn't revealed.

 

[Jason Frost]

So, this is why Half-Life 3 is always delayed.

 

[Zaptruder]

Looks alright. Hope it takes off and I can get an international version here in Australia.

 

[Gattsu25]

I've watched a few of the videos Will Smith did with them before and they always seemed like a good crew.

Was also looking to get into sous vide cooking so this product may be perfect for me..need to look into it some more, though.

 

[kurahador]

sous vide
sou vive
survive

Left 4 Dead 3 confirmed.

 

[Guess Who]

I can't wait for Valve's next game to be delivered in the form of a delicious sous-vide ribeye.

 

[zelas]

Newell has no ownership in the company and is not considered a shareholder. He's sort of like a fairy godfather to ChefSteps — advising against VC funding and "premature monetization" — and is the reason why ChefSteps was able to hire 50 people to spend three years building Joule.

Gabe encouraging people to take years developing something?!

 

[Strax]

That trailer is something else

 

[johancruijff]

Half-baked

 

[Dennis]

This is the most hipster kitchen appliance I have ever seen.

 

[shira]

Mmmm can't wait

 

[fallengorn]

If the idea was just to create an immersion cooker for your pot, I think I've seen that before on kickstarter.

So what does this thing do? The trailer explained jack shit. You put it in a pot and somehow it cooks stuff and makes it taste good?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sous-vide

 

[Fug Slanderson]

So what does this thing do? The trailer explained jack shit. You put it in a pot and somehow it cooks stuff and makes it taste good?

 

[Zepp Twofist]

So it's a tube you put in a pot, and then food tastes delicious?

 

[ColdPizza]

The Anova is just fine.

http://store.anovaculinary.com/prod...ce=googlepla&gclid=CJvjyuTYq8kCFY-PHwodJPIDaw

 

[MrDaravon]

I had no idea Gabe had a son.

 

[soqquatto]

the trailer plays out like one of those shitty infomercials. the sequence with the guy that can't place a messy tray on a shelf that's too high is supposed to resonate with my retardedness? I'm a fucking idiot so I'll enjoy this product?

 

[daveo42]

I wonder if this'll work in a bathtub.

 

[Malvolio]

I'm impressed. $200 is a bit pricey, but I'm a believer in sous vide. Might have to dive in on this one.

 

[RubberJohnny]

Better hope this'll go better than CLANG did.

 

[Mendrox]

I had no idea Gabe had a son.

This... how does he look like?

 

[akira28]

So I strap this around my head...and then what?

 

[Chichikov]

Heh, my friend works there, didn't even know they're making a sous vide machine.
They're not that hipsters in real life.

So it's a tube you put in a pot, and then food tastes delicious?

The tube is a just a thermostat and a heating body (and stuff for their smartphone connectivity or whatever) , the whole idea of sous vide is to keep a very accurate and consistent temperature.
You usually cook things for a long hour, and yeah, it can taste mind blowingly delicious (and it's super easy to use).

 

[Dennis]

The evening went well until Emily decided to try the new vibrator she had found in Cathy's apartment.

 

[akira28]

Heh, my friend works there, didn't even know they're making a sous vide machine.
They're not that hipsters in real life.

I knew they asked that tattoo dude with the male model face to stand in front of the camera for a reason.

 

[shira]

This... how does he look like?

 

[ColdPizza]

I'm impressed. $200 is a bit pricey, but I'm a believer in sous vide. Might have to dive in on this one.

The Anova is $129 and has blue tooth with an accompanying app. Why pay up for $200? A slightly smaller tube? The Anova isn't loud at all.

 

[BeardyChan]

Given the nature of immersion circulators and how crappy most have been. I'm super excited by the news of the Joule. I've already backed several sous vide cooking devices and have been left disappointed. Knowing that these guys have the chops and following their huge success from the Modernist Cuisine which inpart kind of started the sous vide revolution. I'm super excited to see what kind of support they will give this and future products.

Also for those that don't know Gabe basically made Modernist Cuisine happen and thus ChefSteps as well.

 

[joe2187]

So what does this thing do? The trailer explained jack shit. You put it in a pot and somehow it cooks stuff and makes it taste good?

Immersion cooker.

It allows you to slow cook something at lower temperature.

We use them to make baked eggs, and cook prime rib at 52 degrees for 72 hours before serving.

 

[Sou Da]

These things, they take time.

 

[Applesauce]

Their YouTube channel is pretty neat. I subbed several months ago.

 

[rykomatsu]

Also for those that don't know Gabe basically made Modernist Cuisine happen and thus ChefSteps as well.

No, Gabe wasn't anywhere near involved with Modernist Cuisine.

 

[virtuoso88]

The annova is small enough and more power means you'll save a few minutes heating the thing up to temp but that's nothing in the grand scheme of cooking and not really caring too much about time. Bluetooth is nice but since I paid 99 for the annova, it's hard to justify the increase.

 

[ColdPizza]

No, Gabe wasn't anywhere near involved with Modernist Cuisine.

Yah, I wasn't sure about that one either...

 

[Ishan]

If the idea was just to create an immersion cooker for your pot, I think I've seen that before on kickstarter.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sous-vide

So what does this thing do? The trailer explained jack shit. You put it in a pot and somehow it cooks stuff and makes it taste good?

Agree

And okay saw the wiki link . Spark your passion for cooking lol . What a marketing ad tho !

 

[captjohnboyd]

yeah wasn't it one of the Microsoft guys that bankrolled Modernist Cuisine? My neighborhood burger joint has the entire set so I get to read it every time I go in to eat instead of shelling out 1K for a set of books lol

They're fucking amazing though. So is sous vide but I've been reluctant to get one of the in home ones after years spent in a real kitchen with 15K ones

 

[Kevyt]

Awesome.

But I'm really happy with my "boil everything" cooking technique. It's super modern because you just boil anything, meat veggies, and still tastes good.

o/

 

[triplestation]

This is the most hipster kitchen appliance I have ever seen.

^

 

[d00d3n]

sous vide
sou vive
survive

Left 4 Dead 3 confirmed.

People are blinded by rationality if they can't see this.

 

[lednerg]

Oh wow. I'm subbed to the YouTube channel. They teased about having some big news last week. Was not expecting anything like this.

 

[entremet]

This is the most hipster kitchen appliance I have ever seen.

You got it backward, Dennis lol.

Sous vide a relatively new type of cooking method. It's cutting edge in terms of cooking applications.

Hipsters have an affinity for the past even without a personal connection to it.

 

[triplestation]

So this has nothing to do with God king gaben??

 

[Zombie James]

This is the most hipster kitchen appliance I have ever seen.

Once you've tried a sous vide steak, you won't want it any other way.

 

[Lunar15]

Never should have said anything. Now this startup is gonna get hammered with emails about Half Life 3. Way to go, Gabe.

 

[lednerg]

$199's lower than I thought. Interesting.

I was thinking about getting a cheap temperature controlled switch and hooking it up to my crockpot to do sous vide. Problem with that is the lack of circulation.

 

[MrCow]

i don't understand this at all..

what does this thing do exactly? do i still need to cook normally?

 

[Fried Food]

I'd buy that. I don't have any sous vide technology, and yet I bought thomas Keller's book "Under Pressure" before Sous vide cooking became super popular.

 

[Divvy]

i don't understand this at all..

what does this thing do exactly? do i still need to cook normally?

It creates a temperature controlled water bath that cooks food slowly and evenly. It can make the most delicious and tender steak you've every had.

It does fail to mention that you also need a vacuum sealer for this to work since you have to seal the food in, before you put it in the water bath.

 

[Ray Wonder]

Never heard of Sous vide I'll have to try it

 

[nullref]

Looks nice enough, though it doesn't seem obvious to me how much of an improvement it's supposed to be over the already-available circulators in this price range (Sansaire, Anova). It's a little smaller, and maybe quieter, and a little nicer looking? Size and noise haven't really been major issues for me with my Sansaire. Is the performance appreciably better?

The reliance on a smartphone is kind of a negative for me, honestly. Seems pointlessly fussy compared to a simple temperature dial right on the device.

It does fail to mention that you also need a vacuum sealer for this to work since you have to seal the food in, before you put it in the water bath.

You can get away with ziploc-type bags that you just displace the air out of, for shorter cooking times (like you'd use for steaks and whatnot). If you're going to cook some short ribs for 48 hours or something, yeah, you probably want a vacuum sealer.