Sometimes, a new kitchen toy isn't cheap, so it had better be worth it. That Polyscience 7306c immersion circulator? 100% worth it. For example, the otherwise-impossible medium short rib:
Forty-eight hours - two days - at 60°C, with pre- and post-searing, for flavor, color, and bacteria-killing before the circulator bath. The end result is tender, juicy, and nothing like the (admittedly still pretty lovely) results of braising. Makes for a damn fine sandwich.
The same technique has been a real boon for other cuts, too. Juiciest pork chops and veal chops imaginable. Tender, moist chicken that makes the finest chicken salad I've ever had. (Yup, I'm not above using high-tech lab equipment for a better chicken salad.) Sausages, especially in large quantities, are juicy because they're properly poached, not just because of the pork fat.
Making twenty pounds of sausage for my brother's Oktoberfest suddenly required far less focus and split-second timing.
Also: amazingly precise eggs; confit without the need for pounds of lard and/or duck fat; fun tricks for gelatinizing and retrograding starch in rice, potatoes, etc. One of these days I'll see what kind if fun I can get into with malted barley and alpha- and beta-amylase at different temperatures. Probably carefully curdling milk into cheese, since I've really got to start making my own fresh mozzarella. There are more options than time, for now.
And, unrelated to circulator fun: bacon. It's been a while since I put up photos of the smoker, but since I forgot a finished bacon picture, here it is:
Four hours of hickory smoke, plus a gentle oven heating to give the proper hot-smoke effect. Lovely. Weeks upon weeks of flood-inducing rains have really limited smoking opportunities, so it's been nothing more than a garage obstacle since bacon time. Oh, well.
