Precision Stovetop Cooking
Disclosure: Product links, including Amazon links, will take you to our affiliate partner websites. We may earn a commission on purchases.
Breville Polyscience Control Freak Owner?
Be sure to join our Facebook group to share recipes, techniques, and photos!
Interested in getting started with precision cooking? Read my Breville PolyScience Control Freak review.
Other forms of precision cooking include sous vide and combi (steam + convection) oven cooking. Check out my review for the Anova Precision Oven and my recommended accessories for the Anova Precision Oven. For sous vide, the brand new Breville Polyscience HydroPro Plus looks promising; however I have yet to try it.
If you spot an error in the database or would like to contribute a temperature/time, be sure to use the comment form at the bottom of the page.
Precision Stovetop Cooking Temperatures (Non-Sous Vide)
| Food | Temp | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Beef, Post Sous Vide (Sear) | 450°F | After reaching desired temperature via sous vide, sear for 1–2 minutes at 450°F per side |
| Butter (Browned) | 266°F | |
| Butter (Clarified) | 240°F | 20 minutes |
| Carrots (Caramelize) | 300°F | |
| Carrots (Sautéd) | 266°F | |
| Chicken, Cubed/Small Pieces (Stir Fry) | 425°F | |
| Chocolate: Dark (Melt) | 131°F | |
| Chocolate: Dark (Temper) | 90°F | |
| Chocolate: Milk (Melt) | 122°F | |
| Chocolate: Milk (Temper) | 88°F | |
| Chocolate: White (Melt) | 113°F | |
| Chocolate: White (Temper) | 86°F | |
| Cranberry Sauce | 220°F | 220°F is the temperature that sugar forms a gel that can bond with pectin. |
| Crème Anglaise | 175°F to 180°F | |
| Crêpes | 285°F | |
| Curry Paste (Fry) | 350°F | |
| Donuts (Deep fried) | 350°F | |
| Egg (Poached) | 183°F | 5 minutes |
| Eggs (Fried) | 248°F | |
| Eggs (Pasteurized) | 131°F | Place whole eggs in a pot of water that has reached 131°F. Maintain this temperature for 2 hours before using. |
| Eggs (slow scrambled à la Heston Blumenthal) | 175° | |
| French Fries | 350°F | |
| Garlic (Browned) | 248°F | |
| Garlic (Sautéd) | 266°F | |
| Garlic (Sweated) | 230°F | |
| Grilled Cheese Sandwich | 375°F | |
| Ice Cream | 180°F to 185°F | Will curdle beyond 185°F. The higher the temperature below this point, the thicker the ice cream. |
| Nuts (Toasted) | 248°F | |
| Onions (Caramelized) | 275°F | |
| Pancakes | 332°F | 2 minutes per side |
| Potatoes (Deep Fried) | 338–374°F | |
| Scallops | 450°F & 350°F | Dry scallops with paper towel and season with salt and pepper. First side: 3 minutes 450°F in cooking oil to develop dark crust. Second side: reduce temperature to 350°F and cook for 40 seconds until opaque in color. Add aromatics and butter to pan while second side is cooking; spoon aromatic oil over scallops at end of cooking. |
| Shrimp (Stir Fry) | 425°F | |
| Spices (Toasted) | 284°F | |
| Tea: Black | 212°F/100°C | Steep for: Mild: 1 minute Medium: 2 minutes Strong: 3 minutes |
| Tea: Green | 176°F/80°C | Steep for: Mild: 2 minutes Medium: 3 minutes Strong: 4 minutes |
| Tea: Herbal | 203°F/95°C | Steep for: Mild: 3 minutes Medium: 4 minutes Strong: 5 minutes |
| Tea: Oolong | 194°F/90°C | Steep for: Mild: 2 minutes Medium: 3 minutes Strong: 4 minutes |
| Tea: White | 185°F/85°C | Steep for: Mild: 2 minutes Medium: 3 minutes Strong: 4 minutes |
Cooking Oil Smoke Points
Different quality of oils may perform differently. These smoke points are only given as a general guideline. Do not heat cooking oil unattended
| Fat Type | Smoke Point |
|---|---|
| Butter | 350°F |
| Butter (Clarified)/Ghee | 485°F |
| Canola Oil | 400°F |
| Coconut Oil (Refined) | 449°F |
| Coconut Oil (Unrefined) | 350°F |
| Corn Oil | 445°F |
| Duck Fat | 375°F |
| Extra Virgin Olive Oil | 375°F |
| Grapeseed Oil | 390°F |
| Peanut Oil | 445°F |
| Rice Bran Oil | 489°F |
| Safflower Oil | 465°F |
| Vegetable Oil | 425°F |
48 Responses
What’s a good temp to make a roux?
Heston Cue recommends 250 degrees Fahrenheit. This is from their website (https://hestancue.com/blogs/blog-recipes/pan-sauces); should transpose well to the Control Freak.
It would be nice to have temperatures in C not just F.
I bought a Control Freak a while back but it didn’t function properly. The seller was a little reluctant to accept it back but I proved it was faulty and eventually they accepted it and refunded the purchase price.
Do you think the Hestan Cue will ever reach the UK? I see it a lot, mainly in the Sous Vide Everything Youtube channel and it looks quite interesting.
I’m trying to do crispy fried garlic and crispy fried shallots, what temperature is best to accomplish this?
Is it possible to set a temp that will fry and crisp and not burn if I got distracted?
Maybe try 330? It’s my go to temperature for frying proteins and walking away… might work for the shallots. A little concerned about the garlic going bitter if you walk away from it.
TY, I’ll give that a shot
This is a great overview of temperatures. Are the temperatures specified for the pan or for the probe? Thanks
Pan for the most part. Unless the ingredient is liquid then you could conceivable use a probe. For most things though, even liquids, I just use pan control with the exception of deep frying (it will get back up to temperature properly as the CF in probe mode will overheat the pan to reach temperature where with pan control, it’ll never surpass the set temperature notwithstanding overshoots)
Caramel. 355F, 10-12 mins
thanks for posting this resource. I have recently acquire a CF and am just getting started. The Facebook group seems like nobody is active in it anymore. Is there anyone who could accept my request to join so I could peruse old posts? Thanks.
This is an amazing chart thank you for all the hard work. LOVE my Control FreakI bought mine to replace a Cook Tec unit that stoped working after many years. Big differences between the units. The Cook Tec handled bigger pots no problem and I really liked the slanted front but in terms of accuracy and ease of use the Control Freak blew it away.
Nice to see a fellow control freak owner in Calgary 🙂 I thought I was the only one…
Where are you in the city? we are close to downtown north of the river. I can just imagine the programs you have set up in yours any chance of getting a copy? I could bring my USB stick over
Mckenzie Towne (far SE). I have some things programmed into my Control Freaks from the first couple months of ownership. But to be honest, I use them every night so I have a lot of the temperatures memorized 🙂
Joys of being young memory fails as you get older I also have a Rational Oven that I use all time and have extensive programs for that
We like our toys
I tried sending you a couple pictures couldn’t do it
so if i want to make clarified butter, i cook it at the 240 degree temp shown for 20 minutes. do i do anything while it cooks? like skim off the bubbles? And then.. how does one make ghee? doesn’t ghee have to be cooked longer?
I strain it through a cheese cloth. My understanding is ghee does need to be cooked longer but I have yet to make it.
I just made it. but when i had the butter at 240, i thought i was going to burn the house down. so i stayed at 220. the butter i used, was this butter i got at a homeless shelter. and this was on purpose. so that i didnt ruin expensive butter while i am learning. so the homeless shelter butter cows probably never ever saw grass, which means there was a lot of water in this butter. so thats why the butter boiled wildy. it took me an hour an a half to get all the water out! but the ghee turned out! everything i make with this control freak is fabulous! even that swill milk cow butter ghee turned out fabulous! now i am going to try the butter from the cows that have lived a luxurious grass fed life and see how that compares.
Great resource here! I just picked up my CF recently, and have been really having fun experimenting with nailing down the numbers on a lot of dishes I’ve always done by the seat of my pants on my gas cooktop. Love the idea of repeatability and the safety factor to keep me from ruining dishes should distractions arise.
What I haven’t been able to figure out is where to get software updates for the thing… I can’t actually register it on the Breville website, either- it doesn’t appear in the list of appliances when I try to do that- thinking they would perhaps send it out to registered users as they release updates. Anyone have a clue where to find the firmware?
I was able to get an update when I first got mine. I was informed that it only made changes to the function of sharing recipes via USB between two units. Since then, I’ve heard reports that they are no longer providing updates.
You can have a try by contacting Breville USA support. They were the ones that gave me the update. I’m not comfortable directly sharing the update as there are different model numbers and I don’t know what would happen if you got an update that was intended for another model number.
Does anyone know where I can download presets?
Individual presets can’t be shared, I believe. Just the entire set.
I tried to copy and paste this into one of my files by cohldn’t. I have typed tte whole thing out including the extensions. If anyone wants it, they can PM me through the eGullet site.
I was away when I saw this and only looked at it quickly as i meant to have a better look at it once i got home. I cannot access this now as it gives me an
error message – does anyone else have the same problem? IIRC, it dealt only with sous vide cooking times, is that correct?
I noticed this too. I reported a few errors to Breville previously and have got a contact. I will let them know.
It’s back up. I took some screenshots in case it goes down again.
Paul, that is quite the find. Thank you! I have been wishing for something like this.
Hi everyone,
Great page, have you seen this?
https://thecontrolfreak.breville.com
Wow. Thanks Paul! This is exactly the kind of thing that we need 🙂 Only quickly looked at it, but it looks like it’ll help me a lot.
Please add Ztove to the list.
I hadn’t heard of it before, but I just Googled it. Looks promising with the full sized induction ranges. Would love to test it.
One other resource I wanted to share over here is this – a download from the Polyscience website with some suggested temperatures that presumably they’ve tried:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0561/0929/files/CMC850_Temperature_Chart_original-rev-1.pdf
Laura, that is a super helpful PDF. It’s a bit easier to read onscreen, but I would love to print it at full size and laminate it! Very handy to have in the kitchen.
In the PDF properties (File > Properties) it lists the actual page size as 17.32 x 17.32 inches!
Anyway, quite a find on your part. Thanks for sharing. I realize I’m posting this 4 years after you made your post, but hopefully you’ll see my reply. My Breville Control Freak just arrived two days before Thanksgiving (2023) but at that point I was already so deep into preparations, I didn’t have time to start experimenting with it. Doing that now over the days following Thanksgiving. Really loving this unit so far.
Thank you so much for this resource. I’ve been saving up for a Control Freak for a while, and I finally own the darn thing. It was worth waiting for, too! A lot of the things I regularly do wrong as a clumsy home cook this is already fixing for me – I have never before been able to do eggs so consistently well as I can now. I’m super-psyched about using it to temper chocolate, since that was something I never mastered the temperature control aspect of before.
One thing, though, I’m a little bothered by is the awkward UI for putting in the recipes and editing them. I realize that this may be partially intentional to keep restaurant data from being easily swiped, but, I’d really prefer to be able to tweak and edit complex programs on my PC where I can type properly. The USB file that the Control Freak outputs (CMC850.FA1) appears to be in some form of encoding – not necessarily encryption, because a few of my editors were able cherry-pick English words out of it.
Does anyone have any insight into how you might be able to edit the file outside of the Control Freak’s dial? I’ll be reaching out to Breville/Polyscience with this question, but I suspect it falls into the category of proprietary so they may choose not to share the information. I suspect that it’s probably some bog standard heat controller datafile format under the hood, but I have no experience with those kinds of electronics. (And I have no intention of tearing my beautiful Control Freak into pieces to find out what the interior components are!)
I may just experiment with seeing if I can plug in a real USB keyboard to the Control Freak, as well, because I cannot imagine that their in-house testers are using that dial 100% of the time.
It would be nice if we could edit recipes on the computer, I agree. I tried plugging a USB keyboard into my control freaks, but no dice. Let me know if you have any luck.
hey – does anyone have the temperature for sweating onions without browning them? And in your experience, what was the length of time required to sweat? e.g., 5 min or 30 min etc.?
I always sweat onions at the temp I have programmed in for sweating garlic – 230f. Usually just for 5-10 minutes. I haven’t had it brown on my yet.
Thank you both for making this list and updating it! It’s making me really want a control freak asap, just trying to see if I can find a good deal first!
Sear time should read 1 to one and a half minutes. Don’t know how that strange fraction happened.
The table has been updated. Thank you for your contributions.
I will add a Sous Vide table for easy reference soon. I’ve actually found myself doing less Sous Vide since getting the Control Freak, but it’s a great tool to both SV and to sear on 🙂
Thank you Elsie for your contribution. I will be sure to add it to the table during the next update.
These may or may not be of interest:
Clarified butter @240F for 20 minutes
Caramelized onions @275
Poached eggs @183F for 5 minutes
Grilled cheese sandwiches @375 F
Strip loin steak: SV @133F ( or desired temp) for 1 1/2 hours, set cast iron pan on CF temperature 450F. When hot add oil, sear well dried steak for 1 to 11/2 minutes total
I have used the CF a few times now for SV applications but only for short cooks as there is no water circulation. For longer cooks I use either my Anova or my Polyscience Professional.
Thanks you Elsie. Really helpful. I have just purchased a Control Freak after lusting after one for 3 years.
Awesome! I hope you are enjoying it! Have you cooked anything on it yet?
I cooked caramelised onions last night and I will be using them for a quiche today. Thanks for the assistance with the temp. I am excited but a bit intimidated.
Trust me. After a few weeks of cooking exclusively on the Control Freak, you won’t be intimidated by it… but you may become intimidated by cooking traditionally without temperature control ?