paulraphael

Teo, 5 years later I've finally had a chance to experiment with this method. It's excellent—the best of the many methods I've tried. It succeeds at getting that fresh herbal flavor, without any of the grassy, woody, or vegetal overtones that come with the more common methods. A friend dropped off bushels of herbs from her garden, so I've been experimenting. The spearmint flavor is perfect, with 18g leaves / 1000g base. I skipped the peppermint because it lacked flavor. Anyway, thanks for the excellent tip. I haven't encountered this method elsewhere.

Most of these kettles sold in the US are 1500 watts, so they'll mostly boil water in the same amount of time. We had one that a couple of hundred watts more powerful, and you noticed the difference. It broke for unrelated reasons. Manufacturers avoid doing this, because if you plug them into a 15 amp circuit, and use just about anything else on the same circuit, the breaker trips. In other parts of the world the wiring standards give a higher ceiling for powerful gadgets.

Once in a blue moon Facebook shows me something good.

It would be cool if you vacuum seal in bags that have a release valve for CO2. This is what my roaster uses. I don't actually know how big a difference it makes ... but seems like a good idea.

I've never noticed any degradation from freezing. The important point is that freezing is for bulk storage, not for the beans you're using every day. The beans you freeze should be sealed, frozen, and then allowed to come up to room temp before unsealing. And then they stay at room temp for however many days it takes you to use them. This eliminates the one problem with frozen beans—that they take on moisture from condensation every time you open the cold bag. This is pretty standard practice in the 3rd wave coffee world. The only pushback I ever got was from someone who was trained at Starbucks and thought he was an expert. I do think people need to reconsider what fresh means in coffee beans, especially now that we have higher quality beans and roasts available. I used to assume that fresher is better. Now that I'm mostly buying lightly roasted single-origin beans, I can say with certainty that this isn't the case. Beans like this that are too fresh off the roast give poor results. You get huge blooms of CO2, which lends a carbonic acid acridity to the coffee, and interferes with the aromatic flavors. For brewed coffee, results seem ideal between 5 days maybe 14 days after roasting (I'm not talking about freezing here ... just room temperature storage in a sealed back, preferably one with a relief valve). For espresso, it's more like 7 to 20 days. Espresso is more sensitive to CO2. The darker the roast, the sooner the coffee will be ready to brew and the sooner it will lose quality. Degree of roast corresponds with increased porosity of the beans ... darker ones lose CO2 faster, and take on oxygen faster.

Exactly. And the food service industry needs to be paranoid about immune-compromised diners. And in the industry, the math is very different. If you read that in the US, 1 egg in 20,000 is tainted with salmonella, that might be close enough to zero for your purposes. If you're running a chain of restaurants that serve brunch to 2000 people every weekend, that number starts to sound like a problem. I think it's a good reminder for anyone who's got an immune-compromised person at home. I personally drink tea that's been sitting out all night pretty regularly. I've seen it get moldy over the course of a weekend (trying not to make a habit of that). The good news from the article is point #1: there's no record yet of tea being a problem.

Is this true? I just jumped through so many hoops to find a lid to fit my 2.5L Mauviel saucepan. Do you have a good source for metric commercial pan lids?

I asked Cargill, the overlords that make DC salt, how to be sure I'm getting the actual kosher salt and not the new imposter version. They write: We have updated our packaging but the product inside the box has not changed. We are really excited about our new brand Diamond Crystal Salt Co. and the new look for our favorite Diamond Crystal Kosher salt packaging. So, we are all imagining that there's anything wrong with our salt, and furthermore, we should all be really excited about the new packaging. Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.

Mine have that little raised line also. I'll take a closer look at my pan. Surprising that teflon could ever scratch steel.

I was worried about this, but the stirrers I'm using don't leave any marks. They're standard lab things, shape like pills and covered with teflon. What were you using?

After a couple of years of shopping and foot-dragging, I got a lab hotplate with magnetic stirrer. The main use will be pasteurizing ice cream, which for various reasons I like to do at a moderate temperature for a long time (usually 30 minutes). I've been doing this sous-vide for many years now, which is imperfect; there's no simple way to know the actual temperature of a blob of thick liquid in a bag. It's also a little cumbersome, and you waste a lot of plastic. I do like that a sous-vide bag is sealed, to keep in any aromatics. The most challenging part of moving to a hot plate was finding a lid. My old stainless-lined copper saucepan is a perfect vessel—non magnetic, so it will let the stirring rod spin. But my only lid for it is an ancient Calphalon one, which I don't want to drill for the temperature probe, and which i can't find any more of online. These French copper pans are non-standard sizes. And I'm not getting a 2nd mortgage to buy a Mauviel copper lid, just to drill a hole in it. Restaurant supply store to the rescue. I brought my measurements and a tape, and just dug through everything. This Chinese glass lid was so close I was afraid it would be too tight. It actually fits like it was made for the pan. It has a little metal-rimmed vent hole that's exactly the right size for the probe. Score! Only $10. The lab hotplate works well. It's a cheap Chinese model that cost $180 on Amazon (the serious ones that they use in serious labs cost many times this). It feels solidly built and all the controls are intuitive (except for the programming features, which I'll pretend don't exist). The only shortcoming is the power. It's not listed anywhere but I'm guessing it's just a few hundred watts. Great for holding a big pot of stuff at temperature, but too weak to get it there in a reasonable time. So I start out on the stove on high heat and move to the hotplate when it gets within a degree or so. The stirring motor / magnet is also not very powerful. It struggles to get a strong vortex in 1kg of ice cream mix. This may be because I've been using supermarket cream that has added gums—my mixes have been more viscous than usual. When I get a better source this may stop being a problem. Nevertheless, the company says this hotplate has a 5 liter capacity, which seems hugely optimistic. It's adequate for my purposes. I'm also looking forward to keeping things warm with it at dinner parties. [Edited to add:] This thing is forcing me to be disciplined about adding a straining step. I really don't want to serve—or blend—a magnetic stirring rod.

It looks like a cool idea. How powerful is it? What's the stirring mechanism you're proposing? I just bought one of these, at the upper end of the price range you mention. On the plus side, it has a magnetic stirrer, which is important for my purposes (pasteurizing ice cream). It lets it cook with no chance of scorching or unevenness, and minimal evaporation. And it's very precise. On the minus side, it's probably not repairable, and it's underpowered. Wattage isn't listed anywhere, but I'm guessing it's around 200W or so. I bring a pot up to temperature on the stove and use the hot plate to hold it for 30 minutes or so.

That looks great. Would you consider it a sherbet, since it's got milk? Is cultured skim milk a common product in your corner of the world? I haven't encountered it. And what does "hot" signify in the inulin?

I wrote to Diamond Crystal, and while they refused to acknowledge that they've lost their marbles, they did send me a coupon for a free box of salt. Just have to remember which one to look for.

6:11 is right, if you can be sure the mix is that hot all the way through. If you're doing anything commercial, you still need to check with the local health whoevers. The rules aren't always based on the best science. There are benefits besides safety to holding at temperature longer, or also using a higher temperature. To get the milk proteins working for you.