Best Sous Vide Immersion Circulators 2021

Finding the right sous vide stick or immersion circulator can be quite challenging. In this guide we will go through our take on the best sous vide immersion circulators currently on the market in 2021.

The market for sous vide immersion circulators have evolved quite drastically over the years, for good and worse. If you are interested in learning more about the evolution and history of sous vide you should have a look at our article on who invented sous vide.

The great thing about technology is that as it progresses and availability becomes higher the barriers for getting hold of said technology becomes lower. This is all based on the supply and demand. Once a rare product only available to professionals, the sous vide technology has today moved into everyday folks homes. Just check out r/sousvide on reddit, at the time of writing this article it has more than 170.000 members. This is a clear picture that having a sous vide machine in your own house has become quite popular.

It is no wonder that this has become a trend, as preparing your food using the sous vide method provides many benefits – from consistency in cooking, to planning and prepping and because it is damn fun! Just check out our recipes for inspiration to some of the delicious food you can cook using your sous vide immersion circulator.

If you still have not purchased a sous vide stick to use at home, follow along as we try to highlight features of all the different best sous vide immersion circulators available on the market today. The intention is that this will help guide you in selecting the right purchase for you! Do you only need basic functionality? Or do you want more advanced functionality? Do you want to be able to control your sous vide immersion circulator using WiFi while away from home?

So without further ado here is our take on the best sous vide immersion circulators available in 2021.

Best Sous Vide Immersion Circulators

Functionality	Anova Precision Cooker	Breville Joule Sous Vide	Anova Precision Cooker Pro	Anova Precision Cooker Nano	Instant Accu Slim
Price
Watt	1000 Watts	1100 Watts	1800 Watts	750 Watts	800 Watts
Temperature control	+/- 0.1˚C (0.2˚F)	+/- 0.1˚C (0.2˚F)	+/- 0.05˚ C (0.09˚ F)	+/- 0.1˚C (0.2˚F)	+/- 0.1˚C (1˚F)
Temperature Range	0˚-92˚C (32˚-197˚F)	20˚-98˚C (68˚-208˚F)	0˚-92˚C (32˚-197˚F)	0˚-92˚C (32˚-197˚F)	20˚-95˚C (68˚-203F)
Flow Rate	8 L/min	6 L/min	12 L/min	8 L/min	Not specified by manufacturer
Design	Plastic & stainless steel IPX7 water and splash resistant Removable skirt	Sleek design No display or controls	Stainless steel and Teflon-coated aluminum IPX7 water and splash resistant Capacitive touch screen High fidelity speaker tones Removable skirt	Plastic & stainless steel IPX7 water and splash resistant	Plastic & stainless steel Touch-screen digital control panel Easy-to-use Removeable element cover
Clamps	Adjustable & detachable clamp	Interchangeable clip system Magnetic base	Adjustable & detachable clamp	Fixed clamp	Adjustable stainless steel clamp
Height	325mm (12.8″)	279mm (11")	350mm (13.78")	325mm (12.8″)	327mm (12.9″)
Controls	Manual time and temperature controls Option to control via app	Controlled via app, no manual controls	Manual time and temperature controls Option to control via app	Manual time and temperature controls Option to control via app	Manual touch-screen time and temp controls
Connectivity - WiFi/Bluetooth					N/A
App Required?	No	Yes	No	No	No
App availability
Warranty	2 years	1 year	2 years	2 years	1 year
Money back guarantee	Yes (100 days)	No	Yes (100 days)	Yes (100 days)	No
Bonus (e.g. cook book)	Sous vide recipes available in the Anova App	Hundreds of guides available in the app	Sous vide recipes available in the Anova App	Sous vide recipes available in the Anova App	1000s of recipes available in app
See current price on Amazon	Link	Link	Link	Link	Link

Price indication based on official list price:

: 1 – 150 $
: 151 – 250 $
: 251 – $

Keep in mind that you can often find any of the best sous vide immersion circulators available on sale, so make sure to follow the links to see the current price.

Anova Precision Cooker

Anova is one of the big guns in the sous vide market. They are known for making quality products and have several different sous vide immersion circulators available all with different features and price points. In this part we will address the Anova Precision Cooker, or should we say their regular immersion circulator, that we imagine would be great for most buyers.

The Anova Precision Cooker is designed in plastic and stainless steel giving it a pretty look that will blend in to most homes. It is not to techy nor minimalistic but hits a sweet spot in terms of design. It comes with an adjustable and detachable clamp, which makes it super easy to adjust the immersion circulator so that it sits correctly in your container of choice.

It is easy to clean as it comes with the option to remove the skirt, giving you full visibility to the heating coil.

In terms of watts it sits right in the middle of the pack, with 1000 watts. This should be plenty powerful for most buyers, ensuring that you can quickly heat of the water to your desired temperature. On the topic of temperature, the Anova Precision Cooker is true to its name, enabling you to precisely set the temperature within a +/- 0.1˚C (0.2˚F) degree range. Again this should be more than precise enough for most consumers.

The Anova Precision Cooker comes with manual time and temperature controls allowing you to precisely dial in your cooking time and temperature directly on the immersion circulator. A great feature with the stick is that you also have the option of dialing it in using the Anova App. The app is available to both iOS and Android devices and also comes with tons of recipes directly in the app.

What really sets Anova apart from the their competitors is their warranty program. This program gives you 2 years of warranty where as most of the other manufactures typically provides 1 year.

On top of the warranty, Anova also provides a 100 day money back guarantee. This means that if you are not satisfied with the product, you will be able to ship it back and get your money back. This is a great testament to how much Anova believes in their products.

To round off, the Anova Precision Cooker is a great buy and definitely one of the best sous vide immersion circulators available on the market today. We are sure that it will likely meet most peoples expectations.

Breville Joule Sous Vide

Formerly named ChefSteps Joule, however after Breville purchased ChefSteps they have rebranded the Joule to fall under the Breville product line. Together with Anova the Joule is battling for the top spot as the best known and recognizable sous vide brand.

Its available in both stainless steel and polycarbonate. We have looked at the stainless steel version, but besides the more exclusive outer appearance there are not much difference between the two models.

The Joule Sous Vide is built with a very sleek and minimalist design. In fact it is the smallest of all the best sous vide immersion circulators we have shortlisted rocking a height of only 279mm (11″). Meaning it fits perfectly into any kitchen drawer. Furthermore it has a very clever clamp feature, where it actually has a built in magnetic base which allow it to attach to any metal surface. So if you use a large pot as your water container this is a brilliant feature.

For those not using metal containers, the Breville Joule also comes with an interchangeable clip system so you can clip it to whatever container you are using.

The small design is among other things achieved by completely removing any type of manual interface. This means that the Breville Joule 100 percent relies on the use of a dedicated app to control time and temperature as there are no manual controls available. Therefore you should decide for your self whether or not manual controls are crucial to you prior to making your purchase. If manual controls is a requirement for you, the Breville Joule is not for you.

However, if you do not care about manual controls – in fact you may think it is super cool with no controls, then the Joule could definately be for you. You do kind of feel like you are part of Star Trek when you dial in your sous vide immersion circulator using your smartphone.

By utilizing the app you also get recipes for almost any kind of product, which you can directly apply to your machine once you have found the type of meat, fish or vegetable you are about to cook providing you with the time and temperature needed for a great result. Breville calls this feature Visual Doneness. Let’s say you want to cook a perfect chicken breast sous vide, you simply find this in the app and apply it to your Joule.

The Breville Joule is packing plenty of power with 1100 watts out of the box, which allow you to fairly quickly heat up the water to your desired temperature.

Contrary to its competition from Anova the Breville Joule only comes with 1 year warranty and no money back guarantee. I would not be too worried about this as the Joule has been tested thoroughly by all the many people who own one. However if this is something that is important to you, this should be kept in mind.

Ultimately the Breville Joule is in our humble opinion one of the best sous vide immersion circulators available on the market today.

Anova Precision Cooker Pro

The Anova Precision Cooker Pro is essentially the big brother to the regular Anova model. It comes with much more power, packing 1800 watts of power and definitely targeted toward the pro chef or the pro-consumer who wants the best of the best in their own personal kitchen. This also comes with a cost, and the Pro model is without a doubt the machine in our list of best sous vide immersion circulator which comes with the highest price tag.

With the Precision Cooker Pro Anova definitely takes the word precision to the extreme as it is built to allow you to precisely set the temperature of your water down to +/- 0.05˚ C (0.09˚ F), the lowest of any of the immersion circulators compared in this guide.

Besides all of the features available in the regular model the pro model also comes with a capacitive touch screen and high fidelity speaker tones.

The Anova Precision Cooker Pro is most likely overkill for most regular joes, however for the person who is not satisfied with next-best this is definitely one of the best sous vide immersion circulators available.

Anova Precision Cooker Nano

Where the pro model is the big brother, the Anova Precision Cooker Nano is essentially the smallest and youngest of all the brothers. This however does not mean that it can not do the job it is intended for. It is not as powerful as the previously mentioned best sous vide immersion circulators, however it definitely does its job. It is probably more comparable to the Instant Accu Slim, which is covered in the next section.

Being the youngest brother does not mean it is not packed with features. It comes with most of the same features as the regular Anovo Precision Cooker, it does however differ with its design.

The Anova Precision Cooker Nano‘s outer shell is built in plastic and comes with a fixed clamp. Also it does not allow of the skirt to be removed, which makes it a bit more tricky to clean – so make sure you do not have any spillage in your container. This should not be a problem as long as you ensure your bags a tightly closed.

The Anova Precision Cooker Nano is a great way to get introduced to the world of sous vide and we think it is one of the best sous vide immersion circulators available currently.

Instant Accu Slim

The last machine to be included in our list of the best sous vide immersion circulators is the Instant Accu Slim. It is a product created by the same team that has created the famous Instant Pot, which speaks to the quality of the product.

The Instant Accu Slim comes packed with plenty of features and a great design. It is built in plastic and stainless steel, has a touch-screen digital control panel and a removable element cover. This makes it super easy to use and maintenance is a charm.

It can be used in almost any container as it comes with an adjustable stainless steel clamp making it easy to fit to most containers.

Whereas both the Anovas and the Joule allow you to the control the immersion circulator with their apps, the Instant Accu Slim have decided not to pursue this route. Instead you have to manually control the time and temperature using the display on top of the stick. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as this means you do not have to rely on WiFi signals or having your smartphone near you, you simply set the dials on the immersion circulator and leave it until you have to take out the meat from your container.

The Instant Accu Slim is, like the Anova Nano, a great introduction to the world of sous vide. It is also one of the lowest priced options in our list of the best sous vide immersion circulators. Making it a great buy for anybody who would want to experiment with sous vide and see what all the fuzz is about.

Round up

Whatever you decide to go with I am sure you will have a great experience diving in to the world of sous vide. With the different sous vide immersion circulators there are pros and cons. Ultimately you will have to decide which features are important to you, how quickly you want to heat up the water, precision of the immersion circulator, whether WiFi/Bluetooth is an important feature to you and so fourth.

No matter which of our recommended best sous vide immersion circulators you end up selecting, you will be good to embarking on your sous vide journey.

Remember that it does not stop with the selection of a sous vide immersion circulator, you should also consider what container to use and whether you will vacuum it using a vacuum machine or use a Ziploc bag for wrapping your meat.

For inspiration on what to cook you could take a look at our recipes or easily find the perfect time and temperature for you using our guide here.