I'm cooking to temp, not to time; I pull them when the Thermapen says the steak's near 115. But I set the timer on my toaster oven to 20 minutes (after preheating, starting immediately when the steaks go in) and watch out of the corner of my eye for the display to go blue when the timer expires, which is when I check the steak temp the first time. I guess every once in awhile I end up giving it another 5 minutes, but it's pretty reliable.

Two things:

1. The toaster oven is probably more efficient than your regular oven (put an electronic grill thermometer in your oven and watch the temperature fluctuations; do the same with a toaster oven, compare).

2. I've usually got the convection thingy on in the toaster (I just forget to turn it off).

It doesn't much matter either way, though: the point is, it goes in the oven and comes out when it reads ~115 when I stick it. :)

I'm jonesing to get my hands on a countertop combi oven like the Anova.

You could automate this entire process with much better temperature control and an internal probe to get the timing right. I've done engineering on professional combis and what you can do with those is pretty awesome.

Anova won't be the one to make it in the mass market but eventually one of them will step up to kick off the next air fryer craze (since combis can do that too)

I really enjoy my APO, but honestly, for steaks, between it, reverse sear, and the circulator, I still go for the circulator most of the time. I generally will be juggling a variety of things trying to get them all to finish at the same time, so being able to hold the steaks there if I get behind is nice. The APO could do it too, but it's generally handling something else for the meal that would suffer from being bagged.

I have used the APO's psuedo vide mode for steaks using the probe and it does work very well and is quite quick. It's also killer for bread - way easier and (for me) better results than the dutch oven methods.

Now that the APO has a new tank design it solves the only real complaint I've had it it though, so I do highly recommend it. Between it at my Breville SOA I haven't used my regular oven in years.

I am too, but I assume countertop combis are going to do the same thing circulators did and cost and arm and a leg now and then like 1/3rd as much 2 years from now for much better products.

The Anova is $600 so it's already reaching the asymptote. I don't know if I want an oven built much cheaper.

The one thing I wish the APO had was a controllable vent to purge the steam but it gets by with quick temperature swings.

>It doesn't much matter either way, though: the point is, it goes in the oven and comes out when it reads ~115 when I stick it. :)

But shouldn't the oven temperature matter? The hotter the oven is, the hotter the outside of the meat will get, even if you pull out the steak at 115 exactly. If you want the steak to be as even as possible, you want the oven temperature to be as low as possible.

If you read Kenji's reverse-sear guide, I think you'll see that I'm right in the middle of his suggested temperature range. I've also triangle-tested steaks against circulator cooks; I'm confident I'm getting even cooks. :)

I just double checked, and not only is my temp right, but my timings are just about his timings too. I'm getting his mid-rare result 5 minutes faster than he does, but again, I'm cooking in a convection toaster oven, and I'm guessing he tested in a "real" oven.

Quality convection makes a big difference. Think about the experience of a sub-freezing morning with still air vs. a strong wind and the thermal dynamics become obvious.