The web is ablaze with projects for sous-vide (vacuum-sealed) and low-temperature / long-duration cooking. For those not familiar, the basic idea is that if a perfectly-cooked medium-rare steak is 120°F / 49°C in the center, by cooking traditionally on a grill, you overcook it everywhere but the center. Instead of cooking at a higher temperature and waiting exactly the right amount of time for the inside to warm up to the desired temperature, cook the entire piece in a water bath at the desired final temperature for a long time, then sear the outside to make it extra yummy.
My project this weekend, rolling around in my head for way too long and finally kicked into motion by EMSL’s omelette-in-the-shell post, is nothing new nor revolutionary; it’s merely mine. Like many others before me, I plugged a crockpot into a PID controller to turn the crockpot’s heating element on and off and maintain its temperature precisely over a long period of time.