I set up my steaks, set the timer, and temperature…do you wait until your water meets the set temperature or do you place the food in the bath right away? I noticed that the timer did start to count down but this occurred once the set temperature was reached? But it took approximately 25 minutes to reach the set temp?
Boot, that’s a long time to reach your set point. Consider filling the water bath from a hot water fawcet. If you are not cooking a lot of steaks adjust the size of your water bath to accomodate the meat with just enough water to ensure ample circulation. With a few small steaks you don’t have to fill the water bath to the maximum line on your Anova.
I don’t understand your second and third questions.
For precise cooking always add your menu items when the set point has been attained. How precise do you intend your cooking to be? For SV cooks with times in hours it’s not critical when the items are added.
I always add items to be cooked when the set point is attained so i can exactly replicate cooking outcomes in the future.
I have the same question
Why doesn’t the guide give you this information?
Support doesn’t help you
You start the process with the app. Then it stops?
Why doesn’t it work?
The app is a problem all of its own.
One reason for waiting until the water is at temperature before adding whatever it is you are planning to cook is safety. You want meat to spend as little time as possible in the 40-130F danger zone. Having the water already up to temperature will aid in that quest.
It also means you are putting a little less load on your Anova during the heating phase.
What is the exact water line? I purchased the Anova tub and am curious if you need to cover the 2 slots on the device?
The two lines are a “minimum” and “maximum”. Anything in between the two is just fine. There is no “exact water line”.
Just keep in mind that water evaporates as you cook. More slowly if you cook using a cover, but it does drop as cooking proceeds. Just make sure evaporation won’t drop the water level below the minimum line as you cook. For cooks longer than 24 hours I add some water before heading to bed if it seems to be getting a little low.
My set time took over an hour! Does the recipe time start when you reach your set point or when you place the bag of food in?
By your “set time” - do you mean that it took that long for the water to reach the desired cook temperature? I bet you aren’t cooking in an insulated container…that would help, though it is not necessary.
What I do to get my bath up to temperature quickly is to fill it partially with hot tap water, then add water heated by my electric tea kettle until I reach the desired level and temp. Also, I go ahead and start my Anova as soon as the minimum water level has been reached. I rarely have to wait longer than 15 minutes, even for a large container.
I hope you find this suggestion useful.
You timer should be started when you place the food in the container. Personally, I don’t use the timer in the app. It achieves nothing anyway. If I need to use a timer which is seldom (very few things cooked sous vide are time critical) I would much rather use a standalone timer than using the in app one which has had some issues over the years.
In fact, I find the app to be almost 100% useless.
1 Like
Very helpful Mirozen…Thank You
I think part of my problem is that it is set directly on my marble countertop and it heats that up as well as the water.
Thanks for the tip on the app.
A towel or maybe a piece of Styrofoam (try “harvesting” some from old packing material) might help insulate the contact between the bottom of your cooking container and your counter-top. I use a towel pretty often. 
Stone and reconstituted stone benchtops have been known to break. Please isolate the cooking vessel and save the damage risk.
Always put something insulating between the pot and counter tops like you have. The the heat difference between where the pot is and the cold part has cracked some. I have used a folded towel under mine.
I have a crack in my quartz counter top that I am sure is from uninsulated sous vide cooking. Since discovering the small crack, I always use a couple of silicone heating pads under my container. For longer cooks, I get pretty aggressive with insulating the entire container on all sides as well as top and bottom.
If the water you put into the pot is hotter than the set temperature, does it not turn on until it cools below that threshold?
I have old models. With mine the propeller turns circulating the water but the heating element does not come on until the water drops below the set point.
I am new to this but when I start to use the remote cooking mode I think you can only remotely cook the bath and u must be there in the kitchen to put whatever you planned to cook into the heated water.
I received an Anova Nano for Christmas and have enjoyed using it. I’ve done steaks that everyone raves over. Your comment re: the app being relatively useless was a reminder that there is an app. I have never downloaded nor used the app. I suppose I ought to, at least, look at it.
My Anova is old
Heats water to perfection
No App in kitchen