New to sous vide!

Hi guys I just bought a Anova and was wondering if someone could help me answer couple of questions. 


1. Is it ok to place the food while the anova is warming up to the target temperature? 

2. How do you take off the bottom clear cap to change the circulating direction? Is it a screw on because I can’t seem to take it off. 

Thank you in advance! 

 Hi.


I routinely put bags of meat in the bath when it’s still climbing towards target temp, it’s not a big deal IMO.  It’s a pretty powerful heating element, so it gets up to temp pretty quickly anyway.  I even go so far as to pre-pack vacuum bags with meat and herbs, then freeze them, and when I want to cook them, they go right from the freezer to the water bath.  Just give them an extra hour of cook time.

The bottom cap is a twist on.  It only needs to rotate about 1/4" counter clockwise to release the clips.  IIRC, the first time I tried to get the cap off when the circulator was new and unused, it would not budge, then after l2-3 uses it loosened up and now it comes off easily.

Hi Acs! 


Thank you for replying my questions!

I will try to get the cap off again later! 

Also, I have another question. How often do you clean the unit? And do you leave the unit in the water until the water cools down and take it out after?

Thank you again!

I just looked at my Anova, the bottom cap actually rotates clockwise for removal - I was remembering it wrong the other day and it was in the middle of  a cook so I couldn’t look at it.


I only clean the unit when the scale starts to get heavy.  Putting some white vinegar in the water and then running a cook for a few hours will usually take care of it.

I normally will remove the Anova from the water once I’m done with the meal and am cleaning up the kitchen.  I doubt it really makes much difference when you remove it though.  One thing I do make sure of is to always unplug it before taking it out of the water so I can’t accidentally dry fire the heating element, which is something that could potentially kill the heating element.  

I also only store the Anova vertically because I don’t open it up to dry it off and I don’t know how well sealed / watertight the head of unit is where the heating element and impeller shaft come through.