Pielle

Thanks for you incouragments Nathanm! You certainly were my main inspiration for all this. Giving me the link to the coffee machine PIDers and providing increadibly usefull insingt on sous vide cooking made this possible. I guess the lawyers object anything that could bring some people the get sick and sue them. At the momment, the main temp reference people have it boiling water, which kills just about anything but some anaerobic spores. They dont want this wonderfull tool to get in hands that woudnt understand it. Same things goes with thermometers. They sell them, but give ridiculous instruction for use, which, in fact, straight lies! Having an organic chemistry background, I have delt with those stirers in the past. I also tought a lot about the pros and cons of adding a stirring mecanism to my contraption. But in the end, I am having a hard time finding justification for adding this. My current system is very stable, and meat cooking is totaly uniform. I have difficulty thinking about a batch cooking that will require a volume of meat too great to handle without stiring. The only thing I do in big bathes is confit, and confit does not need great temp control. Seems just too much trouble for what I could get from it. I really like the space efficiency and the high power (for rapid heating and deep frying) of my stovetop installation. Things that I would lose if I installed it on a magnetic stiring plate (and also a couple of questions rises when you think about metal cookware and magnetic stiring... maybe with non-magnetic metals it would work). Thanks a lot for the thermocouple link!

From the sous-vide thread: No, the evaporation is not a problem with the lid on, keeps it water lever for days. The other two questions will be answered together! The system is actualy very flexible and will acomodate about anything if you are willing to sacrifice a little more heating time. I actualy never did the autotuning. I tried a few settings, just heating up, emptiing the pot, changing the settings and trying all again. I found some settings that pleased me and never changed them since. The most difficult part is not getting overshoot, because getting back down in temperature is very long. But once the system is stable at one temperature is stays there, even if you perturbate the system. Dont wory about the water level! I usualy use a 5 quart pot but once used a 20 quart pot with the same settings. I got a little oveshoot, but nothing major. I put a few ice cubes and everything was back on track. And even once the system is stable at one temp, if you turn the knob, the system will react automaticly and ajust itself to the new setting, decreassing its temp by no more then 1C, many thanks to the "I" part in the PID system. Really, this system is very low maintenance and trouble. You dont have to look after it. It keeps its temp, all the time, never going up or down by more then 1C.

I have answered to this post on the thread concerning the PIDed stovetop. Link

Funny how things changed... Fat Guy brought a chef knife with him in the cabin pre 9/11. Now a bottle of shampoo or toothpaste is considered potentialy dangerous...

I guess you wanted to link to my previous thread but you added an http: too much! So here is the actual link I am actualy VERY happy with this stove mod and use it frequently. My only regret was not the get the 0.1 degrees precision thermistor for very little more money. Its cost is low, it takes no space at all and is polyvalent (sous vide, slow cooking, deep frying) and precice. I have tried a lot of sous-vide recipies, taking a long time, or short time, precision or not and all came out wonderfly. One very nice "security feature" is that the PID will automaticly adapt itself to the setting of the knob. So you can heat up your pot at full blast (240V so 2200 Watt) and then once the temps is reached, you can bring and down to 2 or 3. So for long time cooking (few days or overnight) even if the PID breaks on the ON position (unprobable) it will only bring the pot of water to a gentle boil that will last forever (I alaways leave the lid of my pot on it).

If you can garantee that the WRAPPED surface of the meat never goes above frigde temp (whith a IR gun thermometer perhaps?) your thawing process should be safe.

That's probably why us canadians are less tolerant to whining waiters

Seems like every one has a diffrent, and very personal opinion on tipping. I still think waiters should be paid like anyone else, with a wage. Good waiters in good restaurants obviously being paid more then others. Tips should only be a bonus like you give the guy a the gas station or the girl at tim horton. I really fail to understand why someone's salary should be 80% dertermined by the amount of the client's bill. Expensive items do not require more work then a similar item more modestly price (i.e. chicken leg vs ribs or 40$ wine bottle vs 200$ wine bottle). It seems all too much random to me. Its a job like others, it should be paid by a descent wage tips should be a small "bonus on performance".

I fail to completely understand your point. You say that you tip a lot, but then you add that a waiter 's earings seem disproportionate in comparaison with just about anything else. It seems to be most people's position anyways...

This may explain the mentality clash. Here, in Montreal, the minimum wage is 7.75$ per hour and minimum wage for tipped employees is 7.00$ per hour. Both are significantly higher then yours. Aspecialy since the cost of life here is significantly lower then in big US cities and the CAD is quite close to the USD these days. At 2.13$ an hour + tip, you are no longer an employee of the restaurant owner, you are a self-employed worker in the restaurant environment. The restaurant owner choses who gets buisness and fixes the rules, but your buisness is the client, he actualy pays your salary. I do understand, why, in these conditions, waiters asks for higher tips from the clients, it is somewhat anologue to union workers asking for rises. I prefer to see the whole restaurant as one buisness. The boss is reponsible for paying evrybody. The tip should meerly be a bonus for the appreciation of the service. Not the main source of income, aspecialy since, in many places, it is tax free income. I fail to understand why tip based jobs should not pay thier part in society like every one else.

1.25 tip for a 7.53 bill is certainly nothing to whine about. I usualy cont my tip before the taxes. So for a 7% sales tax, the initial bill would have been 7.04$. In that case the tip would have been 17.7% of the total bill and seem totaly in the norms of just about anywhere! I think tipping is a bit exagerated in north america, you dont have those extreme levels anywhere else in the world. It is a hard job, but waitresses can easily make more then a starting university graduate. I am not one who leaves less tip beaucause of that, I do respect the social convention around tipping, I just think the waiters and waitresses should stop whining about it. They should see their tip as an average over the week, month or year and stop worrying about occasional lousy tippers. A bad tip can be the resulting of a bad service... I know this has all been said many times, but the tip on expensive items is disproportionate. Brigning you a Bud light or brigning you a 40$ bottle of wine is a similar job. The 5$ Bud will get you 1$ tip while the 40$ wine bottle will get you 8$ tip. 8$ is a lot more then 1h work ar minimum wage. It is also more then half my hourly salary. Adding to this the fact that the owner already doubled the price of the bottle. When I am paying around 50$ for a bottle worth less then 20$, I cant help but feel robed by the buisness. Is it because of our judeo-christian heritage that is seems of to steal from people who drink alcohol?

I was with the impression that, in most parts of the world, Tuna came in frozen in fish stores. Is this impression wrong?

The first thing I would try for common plastics is acetone. It should be available in a hardware store. I dont know what you handle is made of, some plastics such as polystyrene are readily soluble in acetone, some take more time. In most cases, if you wait long enough the plastic should swell in the solvent and become easily removable. Acetone is volatile and the fumes are not good for you (not highly toxic but still basic caution is advised. Acetone fumes are dangerous for contact lenses (and for the eyes) so in all cases wear glasses. I would advise putting a small amount in the bottom of the pan, put the lid on, put the pan under the kitchen hood and wait a bit. After a while, pour the remaining liquid in some recuparation container, wait for the remainer to evaporate and scrape the bottom of the pan. Acetone is flamable, so stay away from sparks and heat sources. Also try not to get too much of it on ontact with your skin. I gave you a lot of warning here, but this is just general safety precautions. Acetone is comonly used by college students and was previously used as nail polish remover (now replaced by ethyl acetate). If that dosnt work, you can try lighter fluid, toluen or even chloroform if you can get some. Since the plastic was heated, it may have denatured and may not be soluble anymore, but it is still worth a try. Slow heating and scraping may also be a good solution. In any cases, I woudnt advice attemting pyrolisis in the first steps. It could ruin your pan. Maybe only as a last resort attempt.

Poutine sauce is generaly a BBQ spiced gravy. But there are as meny variations as there are poutine joints. APDC uses a fancier version of the sauce made from veal stock. The link says is is sauce allemande. I have seen elsewhere that there is actualy foie gras in the sauce. I should buy Picard's book, but it is a bit expensive at the momment.

Most fish stores offer good grade fish. Tuna is usualy qualified as sushi grade or grill grade if it is a bit older (less expensive). As of salmon, I have eaten raw salmon tons of times and never had any problems. I always tell the guy there what I intend to do with my fish when I want to eat it raw. Only one time did the clerk told me the fish was not fresh enough to eat raw (it was tuna). As for the stores, I have a few that I like. Poissonnerie Antoine on Du Park has good products. Shamrock at Jean-Talon Market is good too. Price wise, I think Norref on Molson just south of Saint-Joseph, cant be beaten. They have a parking. They have a very good selection of fish and have good volume so they have about everything, they often have Bar from Chile. They also have a wide selection of Oysters and will make you taste them. Lobsters and crab prices in the spring/summer are usualy the best umong specialised fish stores. It is not your typical friendly family buisness, but they have good fish and great prices.

There is a BIG problem with publicly available meat temperature recomendation. There are mostly what I would call hypocretical lies and disinformation. My guess is that meat temperature recomendations are made by Lawyers, not by cooks. Like they take the given recomendation and add 20 degrees in order to never get sued over food safety issues. General recomendation for BLOODY red meat that comes with thermometers is 140 F. This is pure BS. 140 gives you gray meat, maybe with a hint of redness, but nothing near rare or bloody. I have seen recomendations for cooking pork pink at 160 F, again a straight lie. Same with chicken. 180-190 is your a good recomendation if you want dry chicken, but is nothing near a minimal safety requerement. Lets kick the lawers out of the kitchen and reestablish the truth!

Les Touilleurs is a VERY high end store. This is the place to go if you have the buget to pay 200-300$ for a pan. Otherwise, I like to go Norten Equipements de Cuisine Inc - 514-274-2687 6413 St Laurent. It is on the the corner of Beaubien. The guys there are friendly ans thier prices are quite low (lower the Monas I have heard). I have bought a lot of nice stuff there. Lattest aquisition is a 20L stainless stock pot with lid with a very thick bottom I paid around 80$. I love that piece of cookware. There is another retaurant supply store on the other side of the street, it is a bit bigger.

60 degrees for 36 hours is definatly enough to obtain pasterisation. When you get to that point, you can definatly, as BryanZ said, treat them as any other cooked meat. I do however, wonder about food that would be cooked below the pasterisation levels. I sometimes cook seefood, or fish in those zones. How much time could those be kept (outside the bag) without much danger, a few hours? a day? two days?

If it was covered before it got below 140C and was not reopened after, it was probably quite sterile this morning.[...] ← Quite sterile? I would strongly disagree with that. But total sterility is not necessary for safety. We take in all sorts of bacteria all the time, just by virtue of breathing. ← Obviously sterility is not necessary for safety. But If a soup is heated to a boil for a while, it will be sterile exept mayby for a few spored that will only proliferate in anaerobic conditions. It would be as sterile as somehting done by home canning at 100C. Then if you close the lid, and the lid is closed tight enough, you may be able to prevent contamination, hence conserving sterility. I woudnt consider the pot steril for any food safety application, but I say there is some probability that it still is.

Am I the only one who thinks this is completely crazy?

I have noticed something about the Thermocouple (TC) I ordered. I would habe liked to edit it in the first post and add a comment here about that fact that it should be cheked out, but it seems it is not possible, so here it is : While the TC will actualy be able to properly read the temperature while immersed in the water bath, it is not particularly well suited for this application. The stainless steel braid on the wire will actualy rust quite fast in lukewarm tap water (yes, some stainless steels are actualy not very corosion resistant). Given the very cheap price of these devices (3$ or 6$) an easy, but not super aestetic, workaround is to put the TC in a plastic bag before immersion, this works for me until I find better solution.) This is the only problem I have had with the system so far. I will try to look for a more suited TC and will post about this when I find one, but in the end the workaround solution, for a mere 3$ +plastic bag will alaways be the least expensive solution.

If it was covered before it got below 140C and was not reopened after, it was probably quite sterile this morning. Bacteria do not difuse the way air molecules do. Anyways, we get a bit crazy about food safety and refrigeration in occident. In many countries refrigeration is not widly available and it is perfectly ok to keep a pot of food at room temp for a full day, reheat it and eat it.

PID needs some twinking of the Proportional, integral and derivative coeficients in order to work properly. Without too much effort, I have found some parameters who seem to work nice. It heats up quite fast with no more then 1C overshoot. I have done food at 45 C and 60C with the same parameters and both work well. I havnt cheked yet at 180 C (temp for deep frying) but for this application, temp control is MUCH les crucial. I need also to check how the system reacts to diffrend pot sizes and water volumes. It seems pretty stable to me, I dont think the system is very difficult to control.

The modification can be made without cutting any wires so it could be 100% totaly reversible. I actualy only had to cut one wire becauase I was too lazy to extend it. All other connection are made with quick release crimp connectors. The whole system can be removed in a matter of minutes. I guess that for these kind of application one would like a thermocouple imbeaded in the surface of the pan, I guess it could be usefull. I would really like to get an infra-red thermometer in order to get a reading of the pan surface temp.

Yes, I tough you would have tried bypassing the electronics. Too bad, seems we cant have the best of both worlds yet! I hope the demand will be some day stong enough to get the hob makers to include those features on common products. I do fear, however that Lawyers will stop these inovations as they may be seen as potentialy hasardous for people who dont actualy know what they are doing. I am dreaming of some computered controled cooking system with thermocouple everywhere and wireless thermocouples (there is such a thing but dosnt seem very practical at the moment) you you could put anywere you wanted. This would greatly enhance cooking possibilities and simplicity (in some sence) Have you noticed the working mecanisms in the process, I would still be very much interested in that info. The lab stirer idea would be a very nice way to solve the agitation problem, it could do about anything my actual system can do and would still be quite space efficent. It may not be usable as a deep fryer thow as I doubt it would have sufficient power. It is just nice to have one machine that can do everything efficiently.