Wholemeal Crank

I have never been able to enjoy Earl Grey, but fortunately that leaves more for these who do enjoy it. It smells lovely, but like coffee, for me the flavor is too bitter to enjoy. But tonight I'm enjoying a young sheng puerh--a sample of 2010 Lao Ban Pen from Norbu, a tea that can be quite horribly bitter if brewed to be, or mellow and herbaceous and sweet as I'm enjoying it tonight. Recently I was enjoying a very similar puerh when I discover that a nearby colleague also liked tea. I offered her some, and she at first declined, saying, "puerh....that's that horribly strong bitter stuff right?" And I soon set her straight and had hr enjoying a cup of my usual rather dilute and mellow brew. Maybe someday a true Earl Grey aficionado will be able to open my eyes to a tea I've given up on....

When it's colder and greater I drink more earthy puerhs or deeply roasted oblongs. But the temperature that matters is my own chill, so I drink plenty of puerhs in overly air-conditioned offices in the summertime, and light greens in the winter when things are cozily warm. And sencha in the morning is good year-round.

Glad to hear some praise for quarter-inch steel, because that's about as thick as I think I can handle, for a 12 x 21 inch piece to line my oven racks. I can always double it up if I want to get really fancy and am feeling strong. Going to ask my mechanic buddy to ask his machinist friend for an estimate for three of them, one per rack, but making sure I know what's in the steel. Thanks for all the replies.

Just not seeing a lot of danger in non-food-grade steel here--it would have to be something toxic, not removed by washing, not destroyed by oven temperatures, and likely to leach out into bread & other foods in contact with it for short periods of time.

I'm thinking about weight, and the safety of handling it when fully heated--which I've done more often with the bricks than is probably wise--I've never been really good with any version of a peel I've tried. So....pondering another option--how much do I lose if I break it up by getting two sheets at 1/4 inch apiece and stacking them vs a single 1/2 inch sheet, so that I could remove, unload/load a single 1/4 inch sheet, and returning that to the oven?

My new oven's convection fan takes up enough space that my old sets of baking bricks won't fit on the shallower oven racks. Investigating metal plate options as discussed here, I see that stainless steel sheets are 3 times the cost of non-stainless. For those of you who use non-stainless steel sheets for lining baking racks, how do you keep them clean? Self-cleaning cycle in the oven? Season like cast iron?

I've never had red clover tea. What's it like, and how do you prepare it 'fresh'?

That implies that there is a not-tea season--a shocking idea indeed. Does that mean you need some suggestions for tea sites that discuss ways to enjoy tea in hot weather as well as cold?

Finally getting back to answer this--I think about the only other Houjicha I've had was from Den's, and it was quite lovely. Can't remember if it would count as particularly toasty/woodsie compared to the Norbu, but I loved it.

Today started with morning sencha from Yuuki-cha--the Honyama sencha is a favorite. I almost ran out of sencha, and was very pleased to find one packet in reserve.

Never tried the spicy dried squid, but regular dried squid was delicious and one of my most surprising food discoveries on my trip to Japan--surprising especially because I don't usually care for most cooked squid--the texture always puts me off. But dried is yummy, and I bet spicy drew is even better.

Another fine tasting today: An Ji Bai Cha 2012 from Norbu I wanted to try one of my favorite teas from a new source, wondering how much better it could be, and just the scent as I open the bag is intoxicating: vegetal, fruity, rich. Oh my. The leaves are light green and lovely paired buds. I used 3 grams for my 3 ounce/100mL unglazed Petr Novak Shiboridashi. 1st infusion is a 180 degree flash rinse to 'wake up' the leaves: very dilute, hints of floral sweetness. 2nd infusion at 150 degrees, 30 seconds, light floral vegetal, still not strong enough, should have made it 60 or 90 seconds. Will do the next one longer. 3rd infusion at 160 degrees, 120 seconds, a little bit overdone, should have been 90 seconds. Still working this one out. 4th infusion at 70 seconds, delicious, but I stopped taking notes. I went out to about 8 infusions and water just off the boil pus several minutes' infusions, but that last one was just sweetwater. I think I need to give this one more time up front, and it will be brilliant--although I must doubt that it can truly match the astonishingly fine smell of the dry leaves.

Curious: was it deliberately fermented, or just happened to ferment because that's what happens under your brewing conditions? And how does that affect the taste?

I've tried to avoid Earl Grey for years, and occasionally couldn't dodge a cup of it--when there was nothing else available--and always regretted it. It just doesn't agree with me, but that means there's more to share among those who do love it. Enjoying several different teas today: started with some Jin Guan Yin, a nice lightly oxidized green oolong from Norbu, then moved on to the end of a package of a Taiwanese 'White Oolong' from Norbu, a splendid tea that seemed aptly named as one that has the delicacy of a white tea but a delicate oolong richness as well; and am finishing an all-norbu day with some of last year's Gu Zhu Zi Sun, a green tea from Zhejiang that was hoarded in my cupboard a little past it's prime, but that is still quite tasty and vegetal.

Thanks for the suggestion. Actually, the lids I have are quite adequate--they look ok, aesthetically, with the white buckers. They're not airtight, but they're critter tight, and that 's all I need. I've had infestations come in with one bag of grain, and never had it spread to another bucket. My wish here would be for a way to turn wall o'buckets into a really pretty wooden or wooden and glass cabinet/box/bin/something, and I'm content with the buckets until I can (1) afford to do something special and (2) figure out what that will be. I've gotten lots of great ideas here for possible whats, but it's going to be a while before the budgeting is clear. I just spoke to the contractor today about several additional items that may add quite a bit to the final budget....

I've had to wait a week between times when I could work on stock, with no worried as long as it smelled ok, because I process it at the end in a pressure canner--20 minutes at 10 lbs kills even the nasty spores. I've also reboiled and used it after that length of time without the pressure canning step, but wouldn't feed the result to a frail or immunocompromised acquaintance.

I think I have a sample of that tea from a recent order, that I haven't drunk yet. I've enjoyed the tea buds, compressed 'tea log' from the Ye Sheng varietals before but have been a little anxious about this version being a black tea, and my general distrust of black teas has kept it sitting in the back of the cupboard. I do need to give it a chance. Today, enjoying some Imperial Pearl from MountainTea.com, a very oxidized almost black tea that is quite unusual and delicious. My palate may be readier than I think for some fully oxidized black teas....

Today, a lovely Tie Guan Yin from Yunnan Sourcing (their 2012 'Imperial' spring TGY), and some Mansai 2010 sheng puerh from Essence of Tea. No help in the tea enjoyment from the surroundings--a rather bare, shared office that is brightened up mostly by my small tea set (Oribe Hagi cup by Yamane Seigan, celadon porcelain teapot and tea pitcher from Yi Yong Cheol.

Two binders with copied/typed/handwritten recipes, pretty well organized by subjects; in my cookbooks--usually not a problem remembering which one; and I used to keep my own invented recipes in a nice handmade notebook, but when they're newly created, or when someone asks me for a recipe, they go up on my web site.

I will refuse if I can see at the outset that the recipe 'looks' unlikely to deliver. And if I went ahead and the results stank as badly as this seems to be destined too, I'll go ahead and make something as similar as I can with trusted recipes, that will at least taste excellent.

The buckets hold up to 25 lbs of grain apiece, and sometimes I measure from them where they are, and sometimes I pick them up and bring them to the rest of the work area. I am thinking about the long run here, because I'd like to be in this house for 20 or 30 years, and I may not be lucky enough to keep slinging those full buckets with ease forever. That's actually one of the reasons I am not excited about a drawer setup, because a just managing a drawer with 75 to 100lbs of weight, no matter how solid the hardware, is not always going to be trivial. Something where individual bins can be managed and wheeled separately might be a better bet.

As it turns out, the budget won't stretch for the new cabinets yet, so I have lots of time to ponder (probably another year or two before I can afford the quality and quantity I think I will need--the intermetro will have to keep me going a while longer. Meantime, I saw one really clever thing at the kitchen showroom today--cabinet where the bottom piece rolls out from below the others. Maybe a cabinet where the doors open to an open space for a drawer on wheels, with those nice rectangular bins inside.....

Gotcha, no clamping super heavy stuff right onto the Formica right away! I'm not hearing of any super clever new options that would require me to revise the basic plans at this point, so I'll go ahead with making sure I get a nice sturdy pull-out breadboard built in now. If I Fung something super clever later, I am going to have to do this in two phases anyway (can't afford the cabinetry I'd really like to have everywhere just yet).

(Asking because I see many different types of containers from Cambro, some like what I've already got.)

Referring to the containers I already have?