LPTC Counter-top Temperature Controller with High Temperature Sensor 110 vac, 15A

I bought this unit to build a cheap sous vide with the addition of an analog slow cooker. I have my first attempt at cooking boneless chicken breast as I write this. The unit seems to function as advertised, so why the so-so rating? It's the useless printed instructions that were packaged with the unit and the poor on-line instructional video that downgraded my rating. They are just about useless. Admittedly, I am a bit technically challenged even with a few graduate degrees. It never fails to amaze me how some technically smart people can be so clueless about any form of effective human communication. In the video on perfect-cheese.com the instructor ripped through the calibration settings- there are about a dozen- so fast I could not follow them. This is a somewhat complicated unit to get to function as needed, and the instructions were of little help.Note: To those thinking about using a slow cooker as a sous vide there are a few downsides I should mention. The one I own, a Rival 7 quart, is very slow to come to reach proper cooking temperature. It took my cooker 45 minutes to reach 140 degrees, and If you think 7 quarts is large, think again. Tonight I am cooking four boneless chicken breasts - remember they are in vacuum bags, and they filled the pot. I am sorry I did not buy a large, high wattage rice cooker instead of the slow cooker.

I'm using this controller for a home-spun and super-low-cost Sous Vide cooking setup. I'm using this controller to temperature control a crock-pot slow cooker. It's working great for me, and I have a couple of tips if you want to try this:1 - The very first thing to do is to set the temperature controller resolution to 0.1 degrees using the "ST" command on menu-2 (Set to "01"). After setting this you need to press reset which will change other settings, so set this first.2 - Then set the temperature "differential" ("D" on menu-1) to 0.1 or 0.2 degrees. (Which you can't do until after step 1.)3 - Then make sure that the device is set to use a heating device (""HC" on menu-1, set to "H" for heating.) Mine defaulted to cooling..4 - Crock-pot slow-cookers don't have very many heating watts, so they're slow to heat the water. Filling the crock with hot water from your sink you can get it to about 120 degrees to start. Rinse the crock with hot water first to get the ceramic warm.5 - My unit was close to exactly on-temperature at about 135 degrees compared to my instant-read thermometer so I didn't need to adjust anything. While cooking very thick (medium rare) steaks for 90 minutes the temperature didn't vary by more than 0.5 degrees. (The steaks came out perfectly cooked, by the way. After they're cooked I sear them on my grill for just a few seconds per side.)6 - I use a tiny stainless cooking grate in the bottom of the crock-pot to keep the food from resting on the bottom of the pot. I picked up the grate here on Amazon, they come in a variety of shapes and sizes. This makes sure there's water circulating beneath the food.7 - If you put frozen foods like salmon or steak into the pre-heated crock-pot, the water temperature will drop (Like putting ice-cubes into a hot drink.). I use a 6-qt crock-pot, and two salmon fillets dropped the water temperature about 4 or 5 degrees. A bigger water bath helps, or you can start the temperature a little high for frozen foods and anticipate the drop. As I mentioned, the crock-pot will take a while (maybe 20 to 25 minutes?) to recover because it doesn't generate much heat.8 - Pre-season anything you cook. But go a little light on the amount of seasoning, it will infuse into the food better because of the relatively long cook times.Overall this is a great way to get started with sous vide cooking, and the lowest cost way I've ever seen... This controller was definitely worth every penny I spent on it. This is pretty obviously just a cheap temperature controller in a box with a relay controlling the outlet, but it works well, and it's hard to argue with success... I would definitely buy this again.

My first review had a few to many stars I gave it 4 and was saving one for latter. I told everyone how much I liked it.But one and half mo. later it quite working. SousVide is what I used it for and I loved it until it quite .Of course It was to late to return to amazon so I wrote the seller. They have not gotten back to me yet.So far not turning out to good for me. I sure hope you have better luck than me.Well I bumped my stars upto 5 .The seller got back to me and said the sensor was bad and would send me one right out.Seems it was not to be used for in water without a thermal sleeve To protect it. And it was mislabeled in the add which he will fix right away. The unit worked perfect with the other probe My steaks came out perfecto. Thank you Perfect Cheese.I love this thing it works perfect . But I broke it . I think my heating element shorted out and I melted the output plug .The unit still seems to be working fine. But I did order a new one It could not hurt to have a backup.I`m just wondering if I can send it back in for repair? If I can please tell me what I need to do. Thank Ron.

I like my new Low Profile Temperature Controller from Perfect Cheese. I'm using it to wet age 15-17 pound beef briskets. I'd struggled in keeping a steady temperature with the refrigerator I'm using to age the briskets in by just using the temperature control knob. The temperatures were erratic and spiked all over the place, both colder and hotter than the set point temperature I wanted to use. That's not good for the aging process.A friend of mine recommended getting a temperature control unit because he uses one for brewing beer and said that it'd work great for my application. I settled on the Perfect Cheese LPTC and I'm very happy with it.The temperatures I'm using to wet age the brisket have to be in between 34° and 38°. So far, the temperatures on the Perfect Cheese LPTC have run between 35.7° and 37.9° with my set point to set to 36°. That's perfect.To be sure I was setting the parameters correctly before I put a brisket in the refrigerator I contacted the tech support people at Perfect Cheese and they sent me their recommended settings which, also, included turning down my refrigerator control knob to its coldest setting.The Perfect Cheese LPTC works like a charm. I'd recommend a Perfect Cheese LPTC to anybody who needs a steady refrigerator temperature regardless of their applications.