pedrissimo

Richard- this is tangential, but are you in Austin going to central market? I am trying to find pork bellies in Austin, and have had no luck yet- CM wants $3.99/lb for 7-8 lb pork bellies in 2-3 weeks. Have you found pork anywhere else? They didn't call them sides- just bellies. Peter

So here is what i was thinking on the wick- I sure don't want to put the fungicide that they sell for the thing in my fridge, but what about vinegar? Or Salt? I know that salt, when an aerosol, would kill the wiring... but across that wick, I can't see much salt moving (could be wishful thinking). So vinegar- ought to lower the pH enough to kill most bad bugs, maybe even fungus? Well, I will try it with some very fatty pork skin I have done the pancetta cure to. It was cheap. And easy.

I was wondering if those of you who have gained many months of experience with dry curing could give me some feedback on my aging chamber. I live in Texas, so a cellar is an unheard of thing, and there is obviously no place in my house that is anything like 60 degrees! I have a fridge in the garage that is unused. I have cleaned it with bleach... I set it to its warmest setting, and it keeps between 51-54 degrees F. I have a humidifier that is a basin of water, a pad that soaks up the water, and a fan that pulls air across the filter. I can set it for humidity as high as 65%, and it varies in the fridge now between 60-70% humidity. So, I think I have decent temperature (if on the low side), decent humidity (again, lowish), and intermittent air movement from the humidifier. Do these conditions sound workable, given your experiences? Has anyone had major trouble using a fridge? Thanks, Peter

Soo, I got the crock pot. I took it apart, and then put it back together- the switch in this old one is not a cycling one- it just incorporates more or less of the wires wrapped around the crock. But what is very cool is that the heat comes from a very long thin wire wrapped around the crock's sides- most of the way from the bottom to the top- so the heating should be even. Now, I have noticed that when I stir the water, the temperature fluctuates- about 2-3 degrees. However, the temperature is nice and stable overall. http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11491352..._3006_85429.jpg So the crock pot is unaltered. (they may not all have such a simple switch, but most probably do...) The dimmer is from home depot- $4.99 The blue box is also from home depot- $1 The wiring is not complex, and the dimmer can certainly handle the wattage. As I said, the temperature is amazingly stable (once it is set, it stays within a degree for minutes at a time)- the only issue is that it changes so slowly that it is hard to dial it in very quickly- Scott, your suggestion of marking the dial would make good sense. I added hot water and then some cold later to try moving the temperature. I saw on another thread about sous vide a suggestion for a heater/stirrer, which would be useful for keeping water moving past the food on the way up to temp- I guess I will stir in my early experiments! Overall, this home made sous vide water bath, while not perfect, will be much better than a pot on the stove. I would definitely get the biggest size possible- I have seen up to six qts. My little one is kind of small (looks like 4 qts)- but at least it has one heck of a thermal mass! To make life easier later, a PID and stirrer would be cool- if i could get a PID and temperature probe that I could just plug this into, then I could use it on my electric smoker and my fridge that has become a sausage curing cellar when I am not doing this. BTW Scott- I would skip the drilling, and just try to figure out how to keep the water moving. Peter

Scott, I had thought of having two probes. My probe is about 6" long, and being metal, conducts heat well. I am ok in the oven with this, because when you stick it in a hunk of meat with some left in the air, the average temp will come mostly from the meat, as air is not good at conducting heat. Surely, the tip isn't the only part that measures temperatures in water? Perhaps those tiny grill thermometers for steak, chicken etc..., sealed in plastic, and ... The aquarium pump sounds like something I might use if I was looking into long cooking times. They also make electric pot stirrers for the lazy cook. On the switch- here is what I know about such things: the heater in a crock pot online is rated at 300W, while the dimmer switch is rated for 600W. The heater is just a big resistor, and shouldn't be damaged by the dimmer- it is a piece of ceramic/metal that conducts some electricity but also resists the flow of current- this is why it heats up. The modern dimmer switches are not variable resistors like I said in an earlier post- they actually cut off the flow of electric current intermittently, many times a second, and the dimmer you want it, the longer they turn off the current. I tried mine yesterday with my hot platee plugged in, (probably not wise, as the hot plate would like 100W), and I was finally able to get good control on my electric home meade smoker. I will buy a crockpot at Goodwill and try it, though with one probe for now, and let you know how steady I can get the temperature. The dimmer switch itself ought to be almost infinitely variable, not big graduations like a crock pot switch. You can certainly set it to 11, but why not get just that little bit more, and set it to 12? But don't look at it, Don't even think about it! Cheers, Peter You can position the tips of two digital probe thermometers at different locations in the liquid. They're 20 bucks a piece, but you'll still be well below the couple of hundred dollar outlay mentioned previously. You can set them to trigger alarms- one a degree above your target setting, one a degree below. If you can get a crockpot to do even close to relatively precise sous vide, I would be very very impressed. I've been considering sous vide confit as well as sous vide hollandaise and maybe pudding, but I definitely don't have a couple hundred bucks to spare. If you can pull off an affordable alternative, I am so there! Oh, how about an aquarium water pump for circulating the water? I think those are in the 15 dollar range. Is a dimmer safe with a heating element? If you are eventually able to get this to work, are there dimmers that can be bought or made that could be broken down/marked with very tiny increments? For some reason I'm picturing one of the nobs from a sound board, except maybe even a longer distance for greater precision. My water bath goes up to 11. ←

I am looking for a butcher, not a meat cutter, in Austin. In particular, I am looking for a guy who cuts up pigs. I am looking for pork bellies right now, and I would love to explore sweetbreads, livers, etc. Fiesta has ears, livers, sweetbreads, but no bellies. Plus, I am a bit leery of buying offal from them- I have NO idea how old it is, and none of the people who work in meat speak English in all my trips. Fresh Plus does not seem to do this, though the Clarksville one seems like you could talk to the guy... Central Market mostly seems to cut up berkshire pork at $4 a pound and up (though they will sell the fat for less, thank goodness, and they will sell hog casings), and bellies et al have to be special ordered (that is a LOT of money for a slab of uncured bacon, in fact just as much as the cured they sell!) Coopers Meat Market, which has changed its name, gets its pigs from a guy farming pigs in what they say is a little farm yard, but while I could buy the whole pig, I cannot buy specialty parts. Whole foods..... don't get me started. Plus, their odd sense of morality might get in the way. Henry's butcher block down south gets sides of beef, but only 'boxed' pig parts, and not bellies. Sigh. Has anyone been to a small place, perhaps catering to an ethnic community, or know of any other options? Thanks, Peter

Nathan, I am no electronics expert, just a science teacher. I am familiar with the temperature controller in the crock pot- it is a crude switch including one piece of metal that bends with heat, breaking the circuit. I would just cut that out, and wire the circuit back together with a wire nut. The dimmer switch (yes, I think potentiometer) is my answer to a PID (I have the Rancilio Silvia, beloved object of the espresso electronics hackers, and it makes great espresso without mods- just use actually fresh roasted coffee!) The dimmer, as far as I understand it, is a coiled resistor. You move the knob, and you change the amount of resistance in a circuit. The more resistance to current, the less current gets through to the appliance. I have actually put the dimmer in an extension cord, so I can try it on my other crazy project, electric smoking in a flowerpot (a la Alton Brown, who really is a science teacher!). It works great on that. Tell you what- I will fix up the crock pot, and post how it works for the home cook. My only issue still is, supposing my crazy wiring experiments work, what will happen to the temps in the water! How on Earth can I measure temperatures at different heights? I sure don't want the top of the salmon cooking faster than the bottom- or vice versa. Cheers, Peter

I'm sorry, I thought this thread was about good places to eat in Austin. Oh no, I'M sorry. I thought that most people agree with me that dining in this particular restaurant or that is about more than just the food -- things that one should keep in mind when one has been asked for recommendations for something so subjective as "good places to eat." There's also service, ambiance, mood, menu, a sense of place, time, history, etc. Especially with people "on this board, obviously" since they dissect and discuss and argue about such intangible and peripheral and (apparently) superfluous and unimportant things endlessly. And that traveling and visiting places is about more than just the restaurants. And making an effort to learn about and understand and appreciate a destination, and the people that lived there, and the history and traditions and culture that shaped it, helps one to more fully understand and appreciate the restaurants and foods and individual dishes and preparations that that particular destination offers. I should not have made those assumptions. I guess it's not easy for me to so casually separate the great "town IN GENERAL" from the people that live there (and in fact even to be dismissive of them; i.e., "Personally, I am not fond of the 'Austin Institution' restaurants... I know it's so Very Austin to go to these places... I find the city sort of pretentious when it comes to evaluating its own merits...."), the reasons why they find it special, the places they're proud of, the things they do, the common history they share, the restaurants they frequent, and what they order and enjoy when they get there. And why on earth they'd go to someplace so awful again and again and again. ← Yo, that's a lot of words to defend someplace as dreadful as Threadgill's or Chuy's. ← Well, I was trying hard to help you understand. Maybe it's just an age thing. ← By 'Very Austin' do you guys mean funky, old, dirty (FILTHY), bad service by hipper than thou ex-grad students? TaKe Magnolia, Kerbey lane (like the new one on the drag that OPENED with a mildew smell), Starseeds (I would need serious sedatives to survive another trip), The old Gaud (sp?) Complex, etc. I am NOT a well dressed yuppie- rather a 33 year old science teacher who loves to cook and get my clothes dirty- but keep my kitchen clean. I have no problem with BBQ joints, diners, and the like- they are the places I like to eat. But why put up with rudeness and dirt when you could go to a place like Hoovers and get cleanliness, laid back, polite (polite! that's not what you find at Magnolia cafe etal..) service and good food carefully made? Sorry for the rant, but much of this old Austin I keep hearing of is mannerless, ramshackle, half-assed laziness masquerading as some kind of worthy culture. Sorry, ranted in my apology!

Can someone offer an objective comparison of Hoover's vs. Threadgill's chicken fried steaks? 'Cause mine is not nice: Hoovers makes the best chicken fried steaks I have had. 1) they are always hot when you get them. They are flaky, but the batter has some substance. The steak is HUGE, yet flavorful and the texture is tender. The gravy is solid (though I am no gravy aficionado- just fried food) Threadgills: Both times, one on North Lamar, and once south of the river, they were very proud of their reputation, too proud to bother serving us anything like attentively. Cold, smallish, puck like steaks. Granted, I tend to react overly strongly when people sell themselves highly and then treat me execrably. Anyone been to Threadgills on a good day and gone back?

Nathan, I was thinking to get around the temp control issue by either setting the pot on high- if it doesn't cycle, or cutting the temp control out of the circuit in the pot. Then I plug it into my modified extension cord: one power strip + one plastic light switch box from the hardware store + one dimmer switch from the same store. Ten minutes of cutting wires and screwing them together = infinite adjustment of the temperature. Total cost, including crock pot from Goodwill- $11. (I have many old powerstrips, which I use because they are free and have high gauge wire) My only question is what the temp would be like at different heights in the bath- I am hoping that the combination of the crock pot itself distributing heat, + natural convection of heating water ought to make things close enough to equal. Thoughts?

So, I am a home cook getting ready to explore sous vide, and I am grateful for all the information in this thread! I have a question going back to the first post- why not a crock pot- at least as I am learning? I have been mulling for weeks what I could use instead of a recirculating bath until I know I want to invest. Crock pots did not seem so good because of the temperature controls- until I thought of my solution to another slow-cooking project. I have made a small electric smoker using a hot plate, but I pulled the thermostat from it (big temperature fluctuations). I installed a dimmer switch in an extension cord (so the wattage isn't right...), and I can precisely control the current getting to the hot plate. Why not use this to control the crock pot? At my lab, we have the cheap kind of water baths, always with a thermometer attached, and an analog dial- we control temperature by trial and error, but then it holds nicely. Now the other issue about a crock pot is that it is not recirculating. How big of an issue is this, really? If it is full of water, and has the additional thermal mass of the crockery, it ought to hold temperature nicely. Granted, the temperature could be different at the top and the bottom, but shouldn't convection take care of this? At least for relatively short cooking times? (I wouldn't do ribs for 36 hours...)