I have some leftover Reflectix that I used to insulate my home brew beer kettle. I thought I would the leftovers to insulate a pot I use for sous vide. For the brew kettle, I used 4 layers of Reflectix, which keeps the mash temperature within 2-3 degrees of the starting temp – this is over a 90 minute mash without any external heating. I decided to use just 2 layers for the sous vide pot since the Anova is actively heating the water during cooking.
@shetc Like you, I had leftover Reflectix (foil bubble wrap) after wrapping a carboy fermenter with a heat belt. I wrap it around the stock pots I use with the Anova.
I also cut out a “lid” as an alternative to shrink wrap, towels or ping pong balls.
Both the wrap and the lid work great and are much easier to roll up and put away than dealing with other containers, coolers and ping pong balls in a limited space kitchen.
Scissors and duct tape make it easy to create insulation wraps or bags for square and rectangular containers.
Why spend money on fancy reflective wrap? I just wrap my pots in two layers of bath towel.
The pot sits on a 1’’ sheet of rigid (pink) insulation, that was very cheap, at Home Depot. I used the same material, to make a cover, for my pot.
Have you also tried foil for you setup? How would you compare Reflectix to foil? I imagine it’s much more sturdier and holds heats a bit more efficiently.
One advantage of foil bubble insulation aka “Reflectix” is you can cut to fit the top of the container, pot, cooler. I found it far more effective both in heat and evaporation control than the suggested use of plastic wrap, especially with long 12 to 24 hour cooks. And more cost effective and easier to store than ping pong balls.
Old topic yes, but so valid & the ping pong solution is pure bringing hype to the party for the sake of self promotion (kenji)
The folk in this thread take the simple route with DIY left overs & ramp up the overall efficiency of heating & cooling, nice use of bungee straps too!
