I had the unexpected experience of discovering a crack in my quartz counter top just under where I do my sous vide cooking. I don’t know if the cooking, or the dishwasher beneath, or some other factor caused the crack but it got me thinking about the heat transfer.
Now I use insulated pot trivets (the silicone kind) under the vessel and I wrap the vessel in the insulation barrier from a Plated food delivery box (I had it handy). This keeps the heat in the vessel and not in the room, lets the APC do its job and helps me feel better about trying to heat large amounts of stone along with dinner.
It would also be quite easy to create an insulation blanket using that foil covered bubble wrap insulation and cutting it to fit, sealing the edges with metal duct sealing tape to create a custom fitting blanket. I always use a cover, even for short cooks, to slow evaporative loss of water and to help retain heat, I insulate this as well.
My tap water is just about 130 degrees, so I usually don’t have much preheating to do and this lets the APC work easier than having to preheat as well. I am going to buy another APC soon to save a bit of time for cooking (1 unit for meats, 1 for veggies and/or those “well-done” requests).
Just something to consider, especially if you have temperature sensitive counters.
Of course, when summer gets here, everything gets moved outside so there are different considerations.
You MUST protect your counter top, from the heat of the water pot!
Go to Home Depot, and get a sheet of that 1" thick, rigid foam insulation (the pink stuff), Cut a piece large enough to hold your largest water pot, and you are DONE.
The foam board is CHEAP ($6.50), it cuts easily, and you will have plenty left over, to make custom pot covers.
I also wrap my pots in two layers of bath towel, also cheap, on hand and multipurpose.
“A towel, [The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy says], is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
All kidding aside, I do use a towel underneath my cooking container whenever I’m not using my Coleman cooler for my cooks. As @M_HAND noted above; cheap and on hand!
Holy crap! I wasn’t aware this could be even a slight possibility. I use the So-Vida container sleeve. I hope that is sufficient, but will be putting a towel underneath it henceforth. Thanks for the heads up.