Sous Vide cooker

Being a self-declared foodie, I decided to build a sous vide (French for under vacuum - water oven/bath cooking... Google it). After quite a bit of research on the interwebs (what else is new?) I decided on a design. Not to get ahead of myself, but it works like a champ and makes some INCREDIBLE food. Cooking large brisket and ribs in the ice chest, and smaller stuff like steaks in a pot on a hotplate. I'm going to try and use it to temper some chocolate for truffles next.

Final product:

Parts were roughly as follows:

• Inlet Male Power Socket with Fuse Switch 10A 250V 3 Pin IEC320 C14
• Dual Digital Display PID Temperature Controller
• 25A SSR DC-AC Solid State Relay w/ Heatsink (you can find PIC, SSR, and heatsink combos as well)
• High temperature(100'C) 1.85L/Min (29GPH) mini DC12V. Food grade (you need to circulate the water to keep temperatures even... I wired this into an existing 12V adaptor I had)
• Leviton 125-Volt SmartLock Pro Slim Non-Tamper-Resistant Duplex GFCI Receptacle
• Another, normal (non-GFCI) receptacle from Home Depot
• AGPtek Stainless Steel PT100 RTD Thermistor Sensor Probe (Temperature Rang: -20~420°C) (you can get cheaper ones, but they're less accurate)
• A project box from Radio Shack
• Various wires
• A fuse (to go in the fused switch socket above)
• Later, after my first thermo probe went wonky, I replaced it and got some rubber tubing to sleeve it in
• A power cord (I had lying around) that fit into the fused switch socket above

I also wanted to be able to cook with some versatility (smaller pots as well as large/bulk items), so I picked up:

• Allied Precision Ind 742G Bucket Heater With Guard, 1000-Watts
• Aroma Hot Plate (not exactly this, but almost identical from Target)

Wiring is as follows:

1. Power goes into switch, 
2. through fuse, 
3. out into GFCI, 
4. a line out of GFCI into PID 
5. and another set out with positive going into the switched (regular) outlet 
6. and hot/negative into the switched side of the SSR
7. Thermo probe connected to PID,
8. and PID output/trigger for SSR runs into the SSR

Wiring on the fused switch

Top level shot of wiring

Close up of wiring

Power supplied to PID Controller

Wiring of thermo probe and SSR to PID Controller - your probe may be different!

Wiring looking from switch toward GFCI

Another top level shot of wiring, turned around

Fused switch outlet

Final - note this is a later pic with the tubing-sleeved thermo probe

The ice chest and immersion heater. Because I vacuum bag all the food, I'm not worried about BPA leaching.