dcarch

Most vintage hair driers use induction motors for the blower, and those run on 120vac and the hair dryer can have a cold setting. I think it is an interesting idea to build a quick deep freeze box. I make a lot of cold smoked salmon and sushi. I think a deep freeze box can increase food safety. I would not use a computer "muffin" fan for the cold box. Those are very good fans, but they are the brushless type, which has built-in electronics (Hall effect device). The electronics can be damage by the extreme cold produced by dry ice. dcarch

Carbon monoxide does react with meat. I don't know about CO2. dcarch

Actually, most hair drier blow warm air on "cold" setting. That is because the blower motor is a small low voltage DC motor. They generally wire the motor thru one of the hot resistance elements to reduce the voltage then thru a bridge rectifier to turn the voltage to DC to run the motor. In other words one of the heating elements will always be burning to run the blower motor. dcarch

To get window glass totally spotless clear, window cleaners use a rubber squeegee to do the final wipe off of all cleaning solutions. That's what you need to get the surface squeaky clean. dcarch

Canned tuna = Chicken of the sea Canned chicken = Tuna of the land? dcarch

I am agreeing with you, Ader. I have tried everything, high gluten, low gluten, cake flour, soda, lye water, knead for hours, knead with machine, -------------. Nothing worked so far. dcarch

Sometimes you can go to an Asian store and get great deal, 1/2 price, on crippled crabs and lobsters. They are just as fresh, but with one claw or a couple of legs missing. dcarch

I feel the same. dcarch

Not a bad solution. However, as I said, if you need 2,000 watts to maintain temperature, you are really having a different kind of problem. Also, for extra circulation, an extra sous vide circulator is $XXX,00, whereas an extra circulating pump is $20.00. dcarch

Yes and no. I don't know how many kitchens have two circuits both protected by GFP outlets. I would not really want to plug in any water related appliance in regular outlets, especially something like a sous vide circulator. The reason why you might need two heaters is to get the water up to temperature as quickly as possible. If you need two heaters to maintain cooking temperature, you have a very serious insulation issue to consider. dcarch

Depends on the chicken also. Chickens have different color skin. dcarch

No, You cannot do that using the same electric outlet on the same breaker. If one is 1,000 Watts and the other is also 1000 watts, when they are both heating, you will exceed the circuit breaker capacity. dcarch

They didn't say 1500W heater. 1500W for the whole uit, heater, pump and electronics. Not sure what is an AD 12V motor. AC DC? Why 12V? you need a built-in transformer to reduce to 12V. dcarch

Very few jobs are 8-5. Work for the government may be. Any good job means long hours, then you still bring work home and work on your own computer, e. mails, reports, etc. Go to a train station's parking lot, and check out how many cars are park there 9, 10, 11 o'clock in the evenings. dcarch

I fully agree with that. In addition, for the same quantity of food, the square shape takes less counter space. Also, you can put things on top of the Excalibur.* Don't put the dehydrator in the garage or basement, bugs! Also, you save heating your house by running the dehydrator inside the house. dcarch *Disclaimer -I am not the owner of Excalibur. :-)

Please do a little research on your own if you use his method. If you use the Jacquard tenderizer tool, you will be pushing all surface microbes deep inside the meat. You will have to make sure that the interior temperature is hot enough for long enough to sanitize the meat. dcarch

"----crisp skin and not flipping it didn't make a single difference in the final product.----" ​A lot has to do with the characteristics of the oven. Different ovens give you different results. Wood fire, electric, gas, convection, etc. Judy's Zuni roasted chicken cannot be exactly duplicated even if you go with her exact recipe, unless you also have the same wood fired brick oven. dcarch

I find the Excalibur square shape trays a lot more useful. Frequently I dehydrate the entire slice of watermelon easily. You can't do that in a Nesco because of the center ventilating shaft. dcarch

There are technical issues which will need to be dealt with. Those of you who have worked with a propane torch will know that many torches cannot operate very well upside down. You can see the so called insulator cone loses 1/2 the BTUs, requiring the wire heat shield cage around it. I think what it needs is an insulating ceramic reflector to keep all the BTUs downwards, then the heat shield cage can be very small, making the packaging much easier. I think this can be a very successful appliance, for more than sous vide cooking. Perfect item for TV infomercial. dcarch

"-------If you are skillful skin the duck, save the skin and finish the skin in the oven between two (non-stick) sheets and a second jelly roll pan on to to crispy. save that fat-----" No, you don't need skill, you need compressed air. Me, skinning a duck. dcarch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeD4O7EDGFk

Recently there have been a few new sous vide circulators on the market, they all share one thing in common. All of them are packaged in very sexy "industrial designed" bodies. They are all very appealing sitting on the kitchen counter. I am surprised that the Searzall, which is a useful concept, is such a lousy looking thing, totally lacking in visual appeal. It belongs in an automobile repair shop, not in any modern kitchen. With all the resources David Arnold has, this is a waste of so much of Kickstarter's marketing potential. I don't think it is a patentable idea, because there are many other propane infrared heaters around (camping). Mr. Arnold, if you are reading this, I wish you a lot of luck with this. dcarch

Come to think of it, I may not be correct on this, I don't think the Chinese ever truss their roasted chickens, Peking ducks, etc. dcarch

With all due respect to your skills and experience, dcarch, this has never proved true for me. Nor Julia Child or Marcella Hazan. I suspect that there's a bigger picture rather than a hard and fast rule here. If you look at my second picture, you can see that the "armpit" is totally crispy, which will not happen if the bird is trussed. There are four "armpits" in a chicken which I like to get them all crispy. Looks awesome. how do you sous vide a whole chicken? Do you fill a big zip bag with stock and put the chicken in and put the bag into the circ? I just put the chicken in a large enough bag. There is no need to fill the cavity with stock. The cooking heat is from the outside in thru conduction. Filling the inside would not serve much purpose. dcarch

I am not sure why, when it comes to roasting chicken, the definition of "crispy" gets very elastic. You see famous chefs, blogs, America's Test Kitchen, etc. can't seem to tell the difference between nicely browned and crispy skin. So many "The best", "Perfect" ways to make crispy chicken. High heat, low heat, dry brine, wet brine, salt, marinate, herb under the skin, spatchcock, plaster with butter, inject with secrete flavoring --------. I decided to roast one without add anything, just chicken, not even pepper, with not even a grain of salt. Just a pure experiment in cooking thermal dynamics. The chicken was not store pre-soaked. The only thing I did to it was to remove the bag of giblets and some extra fat. I never truss a chicken or turkey. Trussing produces soggy anemic skin and uncooked meat. The chicken went into the sous vide cooker at 155 F for 5 hours, then into the dehydrator set at 150 F for 5 hours. While I was pre-heating the oven, the chicken was put into the freezer for about 20 minutes. Once the oven got to be 550 F, I removed the kitchen's smoke alarm, turned on the exhaust fan, and put the chicken into the oven to roast. Turning the bird a couple of times, it took about 5, 10? minutes and the experiment was finished. There was no need to rest the chicken with sous vide cooking. Uniformly juicy and tender meat is a given with sous vide cooking. Like the golden fragile layer on a perfect creme brulee, the skin turned out to be so shatteringly crispy, even handling the chicken gently cracked the skin in a few places. A simple quick dipping sauce was all needed to enjoy this perfectly pure poultry pleasure. dcarch

Thanks Judiu. I think I invented the "Caret" cut of carrots a few years ago. May be not? I searched and searched Google Image, I had not come across anything similar. I would love to know if anyone had done it before me. The cut away carrot pieces are used for making smoothies, not wasted. For the asparagus, if you don't overcook them, they will still be purple. dcarch