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. It cooks your food to perfection, in almost complete silence thanks to its brushless motor.

Performance Comparison

Temperature

Heat time, accuracy, stability, and recovery time are the four sub-categories that make up our temperature metric. When 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 heat 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 help 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.

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 as well if not better than the high-priced options, and the Greater Goods is a shining example. It's the second highest scoring in our fleet, with only the Kitchen Boss G320 scoring higher.