Sous Vide Water Balls by Sous Vide Bros (250 Water Balls and Drying Bag) ...

I have been doing sous vide for awhile now. I actually own two sous vide machines; the Anova and Joule from Chefsteps.com. I read some of the other reviews; condensate inside the balls. I have not had a single issue with that. there being complaints about not enough balls. I haven't had that issue, and maybe because my order was more 250 balls. Whatever my number is, and it is 250, it covered the top of my small Coleman without issue and after a 24 hour cook my water evaporation was so negligible that I did not even need to add more water. If you do sous vide, I would highly recommend these! The "drying" bag is cute, but absolutely unnecessary. I just dump mine in the colander, give them a quick rinse allow them to dry out overnight.

So I am usually very careful with purchases but this sales item was misleading. I saw it was $19.99 and full ballsnand bag kits for $21.99 This looked like a steal. Apparently it was only the bag for 19.99. The images showed a bag full of balls and comments mentioned balls as well. It would cost me more than half its worth to return the item. Total loss either way for me.

Very disappointed. For the price, I expected a lot more then a small envelope of tiny marble size balls. Didn't even cover half of the bin that I use for Sous Vide. Using plastic wrap will probably do as good of a job. If these were $5 to $10 I'd say they were worth it. At $39 they are way overpriced.

Sous vide water balls can reduce water evaporation and electricity use: I've used them many times over the past three months -- these balls do a good job of both. My three stars mean to say the product is just OK, it could do better. I held back two stars because (a) at forty bucks for so few balls these are pretty expensive and (b) above 70'C water vapor penetrates the balls. I worry that each might eventually become a little petri dish of undesirable bacteria colonies. Something we, who sous vide, are careful to avoid.Update Sun May 22nd, 2016: A comment to this review invited an update. I'm adding a second photo of the balls in my hand, taken more than two weeks after they were last used. The effect is NOT temporary, unfortunately. Water is accumulating in the balls over time. Most of the balls now have droplets of water in them.Update Mon Aug 1st, 2016: The product description was changed after my review to include the language "NOTE: By design Sous Vide Water Balls contain a small amount of air in order to float. That air contains some moisture which, when heated, can condense inside the ball. This is perfectly normal and water can NEVER enter or leave the ball." Cached copies of this product page at the wayback machine* prove that this new language was added after 13th January 2016. It appears to have been added recently to explain away the problem I complained of. Dry the air before you capture them in these balls if that's all it takes to fix this unsightly problem.[...]

The balls work well, but they're smaller than they look, so it took two (very expensive) sets of water balls to cover the surface of my Sous Vide (fairly large) container with one level of balls. So while I'm very pleased with the functionality - it does cover an irregular surface of a container with bags and a sous vide sticking out, when a traditional cover won't do, improving heat retention and reducing evaporation.

I had a difficult time justifying paying forty dollars for some tiny plastic balls, but I bought them after seeing so many suggestions in coking forums. I'm as surprised as anyone could be that I don't regret the purchase at all.I have an Anova sous vide immersion cooker and it is pretty great. It is weak at higher temperatures though. Realistically, it cannot get the water over 150 Fahrenheit and keep it there. I tried saran wrap over the cooler I was cooking in (a small coleman travel size cooler), but the steam went into the vents on the cooker and it freaked out on me. I was going to try the method of cutting a hole in the cooler that I saw some do, but that would have the same result, I imagine; all of the steam ends up funneling into the vents on the Anova.I purchased these and gave them a shot and I am genuinely shocked at how big a difference they make. There aren't that many, just enough to cover the top of a small cooler. I expected them to help, but it really is night and day. They hold most of the steam and heat in. If you touch the balls while they are in the water, even at 170 degrees the top side is totally cool to the touch, while the underside will easily burn you.

I have to admit, I was more than a little sceptical when I first purchased these. Needless to say, I was dead wrong. They are fantastic. They really do cut down on evaporation and do help with getting the water up to temp. Highly recommend this product. In fact I am goint to buy another.

I bought this and when I got it all the balls were empty. This really sucks. I would not recommend this to other people.