Coolers - greatscottgadgets/sous-vide GitHub Wiki

We used 2, 52 quart coolers for the cooking the creme brulees. The cooking process only requires one cooler, but the creme brulees need to be cooled after they are cooked. The second cooler was for cooling and remained unmodified. Any cooler should work, but here we used a 52 quart cooler

Modifying the Cooler

We liked the bucket heaters we had found and wanted to continue using them for our heat source. The problem was that they are taller than the inside of the cooler. We would need to cut an opening for them to stick out of the cooler. Since they would be sticking out of the top of the cooler, we would also need to cut the lid into two pieces. This would allow us to access the inside of the cooler without disturbing the heaters.

We started by removing the lid. We then cut a hole between the two cup holders on one side of the lid. (I can't justify it, but the end opposite the cooler drain seemed like the better choice.)

The dimensions of the hole are 6 1/4 in. (16 cm) x 2 in. (5 cm)

And the edge of the hole is roughly 3 in. (7.5 cm) from the edge of the lid.

We then cut the lid into two pieces 8 in. (20 cm) from the edge. This cut should be reviewed depending on the cooler you are modifying. The cut on the cooler we used is just past the hinge.

After our initial cuts, we re-assembled the cooler and we noticed that ther would not be much clearance between the two parts of the lid once we resealed the foam inside the lid. We ended up using a palm sander to increase the gap between the two parts.

We then used foil tape to seal the foam where we had made our cuts, and (optional) then rubberized the foil tape to help keep moisture out of the foam.

The final step was to reattach the lid to the cooler. This required adding a couple of hinges. Since the smaller part of the lid would not be opened and closed as much we decided that the single existing hinge would suffice, but the larger side would definitely require re-enforcing. We added one 2 in. hinge, but it was not enough. When we added the second 2 in. hinge, we also decide to use small sheet metal screws instead of the ones that came with the hinge. Sheet metal screws tend to have a more aggressive thread and have proved to hold up better.

Now the cooking cooler is ready.