Greater Goods Precision Cooker Review

The Greater Goods Precision Cooker is the perfect device for slow-cooking proteins and veggies to perfection. At 1100 watts, this kitchen tool has no problem heating water up quickly and efficiently. It cooks your food to perfection and in near silence thanks to its brushless motor.

Performance Comparison

Temperature

Measured heat time and temperature accuracy are the sub-categories that make up this metric. We also tested temp stability and recovery time. Compared to the top-performing options in our test suite, the Greater Goods does not produce the most accurate temperature, but its heat time, stability, and recovery time all offer something to write home about.

For our heat time test, we fill a 9.5-quart container with 48-degree tap water, cover the container, and see how long it takes to reach 147 degrees. Anything under 45 minutes is pretty good, and the Greater Goods crushes a majority of its competitors with a heat time of 39 minutes. Not only does this sous vide heat up quickly, but the fast circulation keeps it hot, offering a stable temperature over longer periods of time. Some sous vides struggle to raise the temperatures once a cold or frozen chunk — or meat — is added to the tank, but the Greater Goods is quick to recover.

The accuracy section of this metric is the only place where the Greater Goods falls a little short. We emphasize little because, throughout our testing, the average temperature discrepancy was smaller than one degree. The highest performing options fall within a one-tenth of a degree margin or error, while the Greater Goods averages 0.82 degrees cooler than the claimed temperature. At the end of the day, this minimal margin most likely will not negatively affect your cooking experience.

Circulation

If a sous vide offers a quick heating time and stable temperatures, it probably has two things: a powerful heating element and great circulation. It is safe to say that the Greater Goods has amazing circulation.

We test this by injecting 10mL of diluted high-contrast food coloring into one corner of the container. We then time how long it takes for the color to spread throughout the container until it is completely homogenized. Our testing yields a variety of circulation times, from sub-10 seconds to over two minutes. The Greater Goods completes our circulation test in an impressive 10 seconds, rendering it one of the highest-performing options in our test suite.

Ease of Use

Kitchen appliances like a sous vide are meant to streamline your cooking workflow, so purchasing a complicated or difficult-to-operate device will probably leave you wanting more. This metric is subdivided into two sections — the interface and attachment style.

The button-dial combination makes for a simple and intuitive interface. In this case, the button is the dial; simply turn the dial to select a temperature, then press it, turn it again to select the time, and finally press it one more time to activate the sous vide. This simple one-button-dial combo also gives the entire device a more sleek look and leaves more room on the face for the large, easy-to-read LCD screen. The dial is very accurate and spins with ease. It is also quite large, which makes spinning through temperature and time a quick process, although you do need to spin through every minute to get to an hour, which some people may find cumbersome.

The Greater Goods attaches via a screw clamp. It glides nicely into position and fits on a wide variety of containers or pots. We highly recommend screw clamp attachment styles over clips, as they are more customizable and infinitely more sturdy. The sous vide is built with a brushless motor, so it won't distract you from going about your evening with loud whirring. It has a temperature calibration feature and offers settings for both Fahrenheit and Celsius, adding to its versatility.

Cooking

To make sure the results of our other tests reflected the real-life performance of the device, we conducted a test to see how well the Greater Goods Precision Cooker cooks an egg. We outlined the exact specifications for our finished egg: we want a white that is soft but cooked through and a yolk that is creamy and jammy.

For this test, we placed an egg in a container with the sous vide for 60 minutes, set at 144.5 degrees. Once an hour had passed, we immediately removed the egg from the hot water and placed it in an ice bath to cool. Then, we cracked the egg onto a plate and evaluated its consistency and texture.

When measured against our expectations, the egg the Greater Goods cooked was spot on. Compared to the other sous vide machines we tested, the Greater Goods' egg was among the best. It had a set white with a runny but slightly thickened yolk that was almost jammy in texture — this is exactly what we aim for with our egg cooking test. This shows that the Greater Goods Precision Cooker is a reliable cooking tool that can achieve exactly what you are expecting when you follow a recipe or cooking guide.

Should You Buy the Greater Goods Sous Vide?

This sleek modern sous vide rocks a large bright LCD screen controlled by a dial that is also a button. This simple interface is easy to use, and the smooth dial makes adjusting cook time and temperature effortless. The silent brushless motor creates the perfect circulation to ensure fast heat time, stable temperature, and a satisfactory recovery time. The sturdy clamp makes it easy to attach to any container making this a truly versatile piece of kitchen equipment. All this for a mid-priced sous vide made the Greater Goods a choice that won't leave you with buyer remorse.

What Other Sous Vides Should You Consider?

The value of an item is calculated by comparing its performance to its price. While a high price tag can sometimes be a good indication of a quality product, that is not always the case. During our testing, we found that most of the mid-priced sous vides performed nearly as well, if not better than the high-priced options, and the Greater Goods is a shining example. It has exceptional circulation and proved itself worthy of standing among the top performers in our cooking test, scoring as well as the Anova Culinary Precision Cooker 3.0 and Anova Culinary Precision Cooker Nano 3.0, which we also recommend you consider.