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HowardLi

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Posts posted by HowardLi

  1. It depends, I think, on whether or not the liquid is chilled prior to introduction to the ice.

    If you're talking about how much ice gets melted, yes. But that doesn't depend on the shape or surface area of the ice, only the temperature differential.

  2. Hi, Edward J: "Only a diamond can cut another diamond, and only something as hard as the knive's [sic] steel can damage the edge of the knife."

    False and false. Diamonds are cut with a rap on a steel wedge, and cutting enough tomatoes can damage the edge of a knife. You can cut diamonds with water, and you can erode hardened toolsteel with plastic beads. The manila rope used in bladesmith certifications is always softer than any of the tested blades, but it dulls blades fast. Heck, even cardboard is hell on knives--that's why it makes a good strop.

    Diamonds are cleaved, not cut, with steel implements.

    I would have to say that it's impossible to wear a diamond with pure water unless the force of the jet impingement is strong enough to subject the material to plastic, not elastic, deformation.

    If the plastic beads are glass-reinforced, sure. Otherwise, I don't see how the effect could be significant (though high impact energies may cause surface fatigue to set in).

  3. I use the similar "select a size" Smart & Final brand and appreciate the reduced waste. I recall Barbara Tropp talking about paper towels as great grease soppers and spreaders. The idea was that it was actually cheaper and more environmentally friendly than using towels that need detergents and lots of hot water to be cleaned.

    Perhaps, but you'd have to have really hot water and be quite wasteful with it in order to even come close, economically-speaking.

  4. You can get high heat welding gloves - the ones usually used for arc welding.

    I have an old pair like these that I needed for handling hot glass when fusing and shaping glass in a semi-open kiln. The glass wasn't handled directly but the crimpers and other tools would get hot enough and the glass itself radiate enough heat that this degree of protection was necessary.

    I have a pair of Zetex heat-resistant gloves, like these:

    https://www.conney.com/Product_-Zetex-Heat-Gloves_50001_10102_-1_55044_11309_11294_11294

    They work great, but they're not for everyone.

  5. A thermometer is the way to go. Get a remote thermometer with a probe cable. To see that others are doing, if you can find it look for a thread I started several years ago on cooking a roast low and slow. Good luck.

    I did this this year (as I have in the past) and had an odd occurance. I have a probe thermometer with the cable that plugs into a unit. This unit will display the temp, but also transmit the temp via radio to another unit I can put in front of me while I, say, watch a football game on TV. That last bit is unrelated, but I think it's kind of cool.

    Anyway, I inserted the probe and while the roast was sitting on the counter, the temp eventually read 38F. Totally expected as it was just out of the fridge. I put the roast into a 500 degree oven and immediately turned the temp down to 200. Within a few minutes, the temp read 56 degrees.

    No way. The tip of the probe was as close to the center of the (admittedly smallish) 4.5lb roast as I could get. I reasoned that the 500 degree temp was conducting heat down the probe and figured that it would eventually resolve itself with the lower roasting temp. I used a second manual probe thermometer periodically to do sanity checks. Initially, the temp was off by 17 degrees and by the end it had gone down to 10-12 degrees off.

    This was a thermometer I had used without issue before. And it seemed to start out reasonably this time, but quickly got out of whack.

    The lesson to learn here is that the probe should penetrate as much meat as possible before hitting center; if it's a steak it should go in the side rather than from the top or at an angle.

    You can't do this with a roast because you'll see the hole in multiple slices, but I suppose you just need to start buying thicker roasts...

  6. I'm not sure I understand this argument... isn't osmosis just diffusion across a membrane? So is he saying that there are no membranes in meat, or that that's not where the salt goes?

    All I saw was that meat doesn't accept dye molecules very well.

  7. Tensile strength isn't the same as hardness, or abrasiveness.

    Compressive strength is closely related to hardness.

    There are many kinds of bamboo.

    Young bamboo and mature bamboo are different.

    dcarch

    For steels, hardness is approximately proportional to tensile strength. This is the first time I've heard it compared to compressive.

  8. Tensile strength isn't the same as hardness, or abrasiveness.

    Tensile strength is pretty closely related to hardness, actually.

    The idea that bamboo is harder than steel (even mild steel) does seem quite odd to me, actually. Bamboo is not a homogenous material - perhaps there's long strands with high tensile strength surrounded by some other structure?

    Anyway I happen to have a bamboo cutting board in the kitchen and a portable Rockwell C hardness tester at work. I could do a test and post results if anyone cares.

    I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.

    http://www.gordonengland.co.uk/hardness/hardness_conversion_1c.htm

    This page shows only a limited range of UTS so I assume it is for ferrous alloys only?

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