mtigges

This was recently discussed on /r/vancouver https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/3udr4w/what_is_the_best_mexican_restaurant_in_vancouver/

Just wanted to come back and say -- yep, bad. I watched the youtube video of this episode while brewing. "Ok, he's doing a mini mash. (Off to do stuff in the brewery.) Ok, he's pouring it all through a colander. (Off to do more stuff.)" I should have paid more attention. Boiling grain is a great way to make crap beer. Agreed. That's an egregious error. Deal-breaking, even. The only upshot is he's using so little grain in his mini-mash, that there won't be a whole lot of tannins. Even so, "Duuuuude, sparge first, then boil." My, do I feel sheepish. To paraphrase Alton -- "Kids, don't boil your grain. It's really, really bad." IIRC it wasn't a minimash. He had no fermentable grains in there did he? Just steeped some crystal and whatnot. So, everything he did was fine - except for the boiling.

This is what I do for a living. Using ice to cool wort is sloppy and lazy. But it works. It'll contaminate one out of five batches this way instead of the 10% average. Repeat -- even at the commercial level, brewers botch about one out of every 10. The bigger breweries get around this by blending. The smaller breweries are nuts about sanitation. I doubt the truthfulness of the claim that you're a pro brewer. If a pro brewer screws up 10% of their batches, they're not making money. It's ridiculous. I've been brewing for 10 years, and I'm ridiculously lax about sanitation (though not as lax as throwing ice in my wort), and I've only had a couple batches go bad. I'm friends with several of the brewers / owners at local micros and brewpubs, and if I was to be married again, I'd probably ask the lhbs owner to carry the rings. I would be seriously willing to bet a mortgage payment that each of these people would say you're off by a factor of ten. I'd be surprised if a brewpub has a 1% failure rate. With the caustics they use, and the steam flushes the only reasonable way to expect bad beer is through dirty lines, but that won't contaminate a batch.

I have the Cuisinart that CI reviewed as 'highly recommended'. I can't complain with it at all. The other one that they highly recommend which boasts the 60 min timer that Paul wonders about is a machine that does not need it's canister frozen. I would bet that it merely keeps things chilled before churning for the last 15 minutes. Why people would need to set for 60 minutes seems odd to me as well, but I can't see it churning for the whole time, that doesn't make much sense.

I'm no pizza expert - so there's that disclaimer; Nicli Antica was a whole new world to me. I presume that it is putting a serious dent in the "vancouver pizza sucks" theory. No?

Thanks guys. It's an image an mls listing that we'll be seeing on Sunday. I will report back.

I am curious to learn as much as I can about the range / stove equipment seen in this little kitchen. picture It's a crappy picture (best I have sorry), but I presume someone here will know exactly what it is. Edited to add, I'm not asking about the countertop insert coil electric range on the right of the image, rather the antique thing on the left.

I'm an svs owner, so, hopefully this statement will have some foundation; I wouldn't ever use sous vide to "hard boil" an egg. I'm sorry to say this but the picture you posted is one sorry looking egg. That amount of grey around the yolk is .... less than ideal. IMO any grey around the yolk is unacceptable. (I realize this might have sounded insulting,I really don't mean any insult.) Fortunately, there is an extremely simple way to perfectly hard boil eggs. Alton Brown on his show employed an electric kettle to boil eggs, and quite frankly I'll never do them another way. There's no reason why you can't use exactly the same cooking schedule in a pot, but the kettle allows you to walk away. Put the eggs and water in your electric kettle. Set it to fire. Returns at least 10 minutes after it has automatically turned off (I've returned about 30 minutes later with excellent results) Cool the eggs ABSOLUTELY NO GREY ON THE YOLKS AT ALL You could put the eggs in a pot in cold water, fire the pot, and turn it off when it reaches a boil, but the kettle does that part for you. To reiterate the time after it shuts off (in my experience) is not critical. Side note: I love my svs for eggs at 63 C for an hour. I think the whites are beautiful.

Really? "Rob Feaney (sic) is famous not for being a great chef, but for competing on a reality TV series on a minority, dumbed down cable channel. Tough, but true." Feeny was famous long before his appearance on Iron Chef. You've sold him about as short as one could.

I don't know of many of the contestants, but I'm surprised to see someone of the stature of Dave Mackay on the show. For those not in the know he's been running Boulouds Vancouver restaurant for the last couple years. He's recently out of a job though, so a TC win might set him up as an owner.

There's a new entry. The folks at SVS are marketing a branded chamber sealer aimed at home use: http://m7.tm00.com/tmsubscribe.net/viewonline.aspx?u=Thxd5JDvJfuh&e=&t=&l=%20&i=&m=

smoked herring packed in oil.

There is nothing wrong with your machine it does not need to be calibrated. Others have said what the problem is. An quite frankly simple logic will tell you. If the bags are swelling it means that nothing is getting out. If nothing is getting out there is no hole in the bag. If there is no hole in the bag, it is sealed. Sealing meat in a bag without (much) air in it does not mean it will last forever. In fact I don't think that it would last much longer than just wrappin it in saran wrap. Neither magically removes the bacteria that are present.

Yes. There's something different about carrots. A fresh pulled carrot is vastly better, and even different, than one that's been shipped and sat in a grocery store for awhile. I'd be shocked if everybody couldn't tell the difference. Every neighbour that I let try a fresh carrot exclaims surprise.

grind the pine nuts and cheese in the UP and then into the foodpro with oil and basil?