Deephaven

The ikawa is nearly smokeless and a simple kitchen vent will easily make it ok. Even the behmoor is fine under a hood but the ikawa excels there.

Just added a Starbucks right near my house. Averages having more than 10 cars in line ALL the time. Had it been a real nice 3rd wave shop I bet it wouldn't. That is really sad. Not sure why people want to drink over roasted, poorly cared for beans, that are espressed out of a mal-adjusted superauto machine that really doesn't do anything well. When Starbucks sold off their manual machines for autos to make barista-ing more consistent was when they should have failed. I don't get it. There are some great new exceptions to that...but they are really expensive and not near my house. Can think of about 10 shops in the Minneapolis metro that are worth visiting. Dead giveaway is if they weigh their beans/shots per dose and offer pour overs. If they don't around here that means you will get mediocre. Even the cheap behmour out in the garage does a better job than 99.999% of coffee that is roasted. We started initially to save money, but now solely for flavor...although it's great to save at the same time. If you are willing to make it part of your daily routine the Ikawa roaster does make it that easy.

Would help to know what you want to cook on it. I use a Kamado Joe Jr for pretty much everything. It heats up faster than my 54" Lynx, tastes better and can easily do reverse sears. Have a larger Kamado as well but it mostly gets used for larger cuts or for feeding more than the 4 of us. Can smoke on it as well, but trickier than a pellet grill for sure. If it was primarily for long overnight smoking it may not be logical but if it is a multi-purpose grill it could be. What do you want to cook on it and how often?

I figure if I made the island the height for kneading it may be good for both my wife and I. Then I will build a really large end grain cutting board that raises it up 3-6" or whatever I need. Going to mock that up. Currently I knead on a normal height counter and feel it could be higher even for that. My wife does very little in the kitchen but want her to be comfortable when she does. My kids as well.

Generally pastry and chopping high and kneading lower? I am completely self taught and assume that to be the case, but my back is always sore from bending over as I have the opposite problem being 6'7". I cannot make my counters the height I need, but need to build a cutting surface via block that raises everything. Figured I'd bring the counter up to 37 or 38" to make kneading easier and lift for the rest. Pastry is something I am about to start, but have no experience yet. My wife is 5'8" so I don't want the counters way too high for her.

Fry yes, char no. Just enough to where the insides slightly change color. I find going too far and it becomes bitter. Love the fresh fruity ones for this. Yes, just some cheese added to a riced and then mashed potato.

Wondering what heights for counters you find ideal for what tasks. Mulling over designs myself at the moment and had never seen recommendations that were different for kneading, cutting etc. After reading that in this thread I searched the forum to no avail.

Just used my foodsaver a bunch this week....which makes me want this. Not a ton of positive or negative responses here. I know it's small, but for daily tasks it seems rather interesting.

First post out of the "welcome" forum, but made one of my favorite meals. Tenderloin, guajillo sauce, anejo mashed, bok choy, homemade corn tortillas. Saturday is always a fun cook with the family day. My 13 year old made the tortillas, 11 yr old made the sauce....although it took 5 times as long to help them as it would to make it....still nothing I'd rather do. Definitely no originality in plate but have to say it tasted great. Thanks Rick, had it at Frontera and it made it into our family rotation.

The four of us drink probably 10L+ of carbonated water a day. For fun I either buy fruit syrups from TJ Maxx or make my own. It's the only "soda" my kids ever get. Of course they think squeezing a lemon in some is better than a sprite or the like. House beverages are coffee, beer, wine, and carbonated water pretty much. Have a tincture bottle for making flavored vodkas/rums etc as well. Probably not the right word for it, but you can open the bottom or top so you can fill it with fruit and then liquor. Way better than the preflavored stuff at the liquor store.

Awesome. Going to go research coco / drip systems. Great to know on the Yu Choy as well. Something we regularly eat, but requires that I run to one of the non-local Asian stores to grab them. Are the curry leaf and kaffir indoors as well?

Ha, have had the same problems. 5x5" fencepost NFT setup as well here too. Currently it is dry as we are moving out for a remodel, but will rekindle it the instant I move in. Lettuce at the farmers market was $7 a head this am. After 6 months they are a bear to get out of the hole. I need to create some calendar to cull them more often. I'd like to add tomatoes to a secondary source. Probably peppers and cucumbers as well as I think those three can "share" nutrients.

What level of carbonation does that give you? ie, I like it to HURT, lol.

Currently mine is literally a C02 tank in my basement with copper piping up to under my sink. I have 2L soda bottles in the fridge that I then use a bike pump attachment to fill with C02. (removing 1/3 of the fluid and air first) A big shake and boom soda. Plan is an ice maker with a cold plate, carbonator in the basement and a tap when we remodel. Every "system" I find is horribly expensive so sourcing each component separately and building my own. Will mate with my 20gal turbo charged reverse osmosis. Can thank Covid for that. Built a hydroponic garden to grow herbs and lettuce when the grocery stores were out of stock/hard to shop. Needed a lot of water I could control the minerals and pH without chlorine so the easiest with my minerally well was RO.

Seltzer for me came out of an addiction to soda pop years ago. Quite that for sparkling water as I love bubbles of all types. The one thing I don't like though is sweet, so at least that bug I bit off a long time ago. Thanks for the welcome.

Constantly searching for new dishes, different cuisine's or different tools to make what I do better. Current kitchen is filled with fun to make things from around the world. 2.5mm copper pans from Deherellin, BlueStar Range, real broken Electrolux double oven - POS omg, Viking C4 Komodo, Joe Jr Mini, Ooni Pro and a redneck soda stream. Addicted to bubbles, trying to figure out custom seltzers atm and design and on tap soda stream, and switching to induction after some fun testing at the Wolf Distributor. ....which leads me to needing some new pans. Definitely one of the topics I am eager to explore here. Contemplating Falk Copper Coeur, Demeyere Atlantis, deBuyer Prima Mater, and Fissler for different pieces. Wish there was a local store with the Falk/deBuyer, but totally willing to travel to Belgium, France, Italy to get a good deal and make a memory shopping. Have to go to Germany for work come November so might shop then. Surely don't need to have that conversation here as a thread is more logical, but glad to have any input any time.