Machine arrived on Friday 19th October and yesterday I decided to try cooking ribs. I turned the machine on at 7.30pm using the guide and setting it at 176f for 12 hours with a view to finishing the following day. At 2.00am I woke to the sound of dripping water. The unit had started to boil the water and was dripping from the kitchen bench. After switching it off and cleaning up I turned the unit back on to see the display showing -10. As the actual temp I checked for obstructions but the cover of the unit and the holes were all clear. Using your website I tried to find out how to reset the unit without success so I decided to use my multi cooker to finish the job and let the APC cool right down. Only after an hour did the display start to resemble normal.
I add here that if this is the standard of service I can expect from this machine for my first cook, I couldn’t be less impressed,
I allowed the unit another 30 minutes cooling and sat it in cold tap water which tested at 75.1F with the APC showing current temp at 32F
It is now 3.45 am on Sunday morning, a time when I would normally be sleeping, not trying to rectify a cooking process which as described in your advertising is the future of cooking. Sorry, but right this moment my barbeque is looking pretty good.
I’m wondering if the unit was under something that would cause it to build up moisture. Cupboards perhaps? I’m trying to think out loud at the moment to replicate the scenario. I have ran both of my WiFi units on long cooks, and one cook under the kitchen cupboard resulted in moisture inside the display portion. I left it in the sun and did not have any other issues since. Sorry to hear about the troubles. That stinks. I own seven different types of smokers and all of them have exhibited bizarre behaviors at some point, so I would say to try again. That’s the fun of this.
+1 that you were likely the victim of steam getting into the head of the unit and causing the electronics to malfunction.
The APC needs to be in a well ventilated area. You can’t put it in the corner of your kitchen counter, with overhead cupboards and expect there to be enough ventilation to keep it cool.
Also, You didn’t make any mention as to whether the vessel you’re using is covered or not. Having a covered vessel, with a hole cut for the APC to slide through produces a much better experience - virtually no evaporation and it minimizes the potential for steam (but, again, you need to be in a well ventilated area). If you look down from the vents in the head of the unit, you’ll see the exhaust vents for the APC - some moisture will escape through these vents as well.
I actually cooked my ribs at 145 (pork ribs) for about 36 hours. 176 sounds like it would produced a tougher result.
For future - if you have a similar circumstance, prepare an ice bath, flash cool the bag of food in the ice bath, then throw them in the fridge about 20-30 minutes later, so you can get back to bed. For most meats, you can stop and resume the cook fairly easily, with little impact to the end result.
Fingers crossed your APC is functioning ok after drying out!!!
It was at least 600mm from The base of the cupboards and the water was about 10mm below the max waterline with no visible steam until it started to boil ??? I am pretty sure I followed all of the directions so I am totally confused until I talk to customer support tomorrow. But thanks for the feedback.
Did you set temp manually or did you use app to set via bluetooth? I had some terrible experiences with the app resetting the temperature when bluetooth reconnects. In my case, it set it to the celsius temperature, but still in fahrenheit (e.g., if my recipe was 160F, it would reset to to 71F (the celsius converted temp, but in the fahrenheit scale). If I didn’t notice it happen, it would have been a disaster. If yours had gone the other way, converting your celsius temp to fahrenheit (i.e., convert 71C to 160C), then you would have a boiling mess.
I did set the temp via the phone josh but the display went crazy reading minus 16 when the water was boiling. After cooling down and being disconnected for hours it still reads zero or 32f when in boiling water. Anova has seen photos of the display together with and analogue thermometer and are sending me a new unit.
For most meats, you can stop and resume the cook fairly easily, with little impact to the end result.