Automated Immersion Apparatus and Method for Cooking Meals

An apparatus for automatically cooking food by immersion comprising:

• at least one impervious compartment in liquid communication with the container, each compartment being shaped to receive at least one bag for cooking food, the bag comprising at least two discrete sections adapted to receive food, the sections being impervious from one another, wherein each compartment comprises:
• i. a mechanism to automatically fill a water-based liquid in the compartment to at least two different predetermined levels, each predetermined level allowing immersion of one or more sections of the bag;
• and
• ii. a mechanism to automatically drain the water-based liquid from the compartment;
• a controller unit, the controller unit controlling the mechanism to independently fill and drain the water-based liquid in each of the compartments;
• at least one bag holder, the bag holder being adapted to suspend the bag to vertically superpose the at least two sections of the bag;
• a liquid circulation system;
• wherein the controller unit is further configured to:
• retrieve predetermined cooking instructions associated to the at least one bag, the predetermined cooking instructions comprising:
• i. data for determining a cooking duration relating to each of the discrete sections of the at least one bag of food;
• and
• ii. filling sequences of the compartment associated to the at least one bag;
• instruct the mechanism to fill and drain predetermined volumes of the water-based liquid in the compartment to cook each section for the cooking duration of the predetermined cooking instructions and according to the filling and draining sequences of the compartment associated to the at least one bag.

An automated immersion cooking method using at least one bag for cooking food, the bag comprising at least two individual discrete sections and being immersible in a water-based liquid, the sections being impervious from one another, wherein the method comprises the steps to:

• maintain the bag to vertically superpose the at least two sections in an independent compartment, wherein the at least two sections contain food;
• retrieve cooking instructions associated with the food contained in the at least two sections of the bag;
• insert a plurality of food components in the at least two discrete sections of the at least one bag in a sequence according to the cooking instructions;
• for each of the at least one bag, automatically fill the compartment comprising the bag of the water-based liquid at a first predetermined level to immerse the at least two sections of the bag, wherein the water-based liquid is maintained at a temperature to allow cooking of the food;
• leave the bag within the water-based liquid;
• automatically drain predetermined volumes of the water-based liquid of the compartment comprising the at least one bag such that each immersed section of the bag sequentially emerges from the water-based liquid the sequence at predetermined times, the drained volumes corresponding to a volume of the water-based liquid allowing one of the immersed sections to be out of the water-based liquid;
• wherein the cooking instructions comprises the predetermined times of draining associated with the at least two sections of the bag.