dcarch

I think you are mixing up two entirely unrelated areas of food photography. There is food art, and there is food photography. Most great food artists, they are sculptors, they are chefs who can plate incredible dishes, but they are lousy photographers. Many who can't cook, or plate, but who can understand lighting, depth of field, cropping, etc, and who has an expensive camera to take sexy pictures of lousy food for magazine covers. dcarch

They do make a soldering iron with a screw on plastic cutting tip. dcarch

Put the eggs in a small open basket. dcarch can you just put the eggsi in a bag using water displacement? or put a basket over them, like a cage? I don't think so. Cooking eggs is very temperature and timing critical. Water should be making very good contact with all surfaces of the eggs for evenness. dcarch

Put the eggs in a small open basket. dcarch

You made?? I'm fascinated ... would you be able to start another thread on making knives?That would be a very boring thread. You see, I am not an aesthetic knife maker, I am a functional knife maker. Get it done quick, get it done cheap and get it done very sharp. I am not making show-off knives at this point. I make them because I hate to have to spend a few thousand dollars for a set of real sharp knives. Sushi making is all about sharpest knives, otherwise you are just making raw fish. Cold smoked salmon gets messed up without a long sharp blade. And cutting prosciutto !!! dcarch

Come on - how hard do you have to smack a clove of garlic to crush it? I had a 12” Sujihiki I made from 1095 high carbon steel. I guess I must had been too aggressive in heat treating and hardening and did not anneal/temper properly, one day as I was filleting salmon, I heard a “pop”. A ½” crack happened a few inches from the tip. So I bent the damaged tip off and made the knife into kind of like a santoku. I still need a long knife for sushi, so I am making a 13” blade Yanagi. I am using D-2 steel. This time I am not going to take a chance. I sent the blade to a place to have it professionally hardened and cryo tempered. As I said, any knife maker can tell you how metal can crack, even spontaneously. dcarch

It should a very easy and simple mod. Get a hose clamp from Home Depot ($2.00?) and bend a piece of metal to an upside down "U" shape, clamp it on and you are in business. dcarch

First, I assume you are not talking about ceramic knives. In rare situations, damage can happen to high carbon steel or high carbon stainless steel knives. Good quality knives tend to be hardened to the maximum which creates a great deal of internal metal stress, some even can crack and warp at this stage. A knife maker can tell you that this is not unusual. After hardening the knives are tempered to relief some the the stresses, but some of the stress will remain, especially specific tempering temperature and time are not followed based on the particular metal. In another food forum I have seen members' posts of their knives cracking after strong impact. dcarch .

Is there a cooling fan or did you mean the impeller? I don't think any one of these similar devices have cooling fans that you can hear. Some motors have turbine blades integral with the rotor for ventilation, but these motors are running at low RPMs and you should not hear "fan" noise. There are brushless micro fans, which are also very quiet. The noise you hear possible is water turbulence. The other possible source of the noise is the motor mounted to the body without rubber vibration isolators. dcarch

"----The electric range in my new apartment seems to put out quite a bit of heat, and I was wondering if there's a way to even out the heat that gets transferred to the cookware. ----" Can you explain a little more? I am not sure what is that you want. Too much heat and uneven heating are two different situations. dcarch

I would like to see UL approvals on all these water related appliances. dcarch

Instructions suggest that you return it immediately if it falls in the water. Exactly my point. dcarch Just questions, There may not be issues. I am sure they have engineers who have already considered this. Many immersion blender motors are not ventilated, which means less openings for water to get in. Also, blenders are made in mass quantities, they can afford to have custom water sealed gasketed bearing around the motor's rotating shaft. You can see the Sainsaire pump motor is ventilated and it does not look like the kind of motor that has water sealed bearings. dcarch

Instructions suggest that you return it immediately if it falls in the water. Exactly my point. dcarch

The Stainless steel part may be water proof, but there may be components inside which may not be. Also, looking closely at these units, I am not sure how electrically insulated they are if water gets inside. The Sainsaire for instance, the pump motor does not look like it is water proofed or electrically insulated. dcarch

Ridiculous! There is no harm in washing, as long as you don't lick your sink dry afterwards. IMHO. There is always germs everywhere before you wash your chicken anyway. I had seen a study advising never flush your toilet. The flushing spreads toilet "stuff" all over your house. dcarch

There is no mass market for home sous vide cooker yet, and the Chinese food do not need to be sous vide cooked. Otherwise the Chinese can knock off a sous vide cooker in a month for around $40.00, a little more than a slow cooker. When that happens, all sous vide cooker makers will be out of business. dcarch

Depends on the way the water flows, how powerful, in what direction, and the shape of the container, it can be annoying that it either pushes the bag away too much or draws the bag too close to the heater by Venturi force. Some adjustments can be helpful. dcarch

You will probably have duct tape floating in your bath or worse yet jamming your pump and ruining the machine. You can vector the pump so it hits the closest wall, even the wall the circulator is mounted on, and that would reduce the how much power the rest of the bath sees if that's what you want to do.A very good comment. I should have pointed out that what you see those so called "duct tape", or "duck tape" are no longer duct tapes. They are illegal to be used as duct tapes. They are just fabric adhesive tapes that look like duct tape. The duct tape I am talking about is the aluminum foil silver tapes which are legal to be used for heating/cooling pressurized duct work, they are much more durable. I have used it in boiling water with no problems. dcarch

"----Would the Anova have a variable Flow Rate? thats not really important but Id like to use this for my smaller SV OP's----" For an impeller type of circulator, all you need to do is to block off with duct tape some in or out ports. The blocking off of in or out ports actually lessens the load to the motor for an impeller type of pump. dcarch

Don't think it's safe. The sous vide temperature was around 135F? Not high enough to sanitize everything. dcarch

The unit I now have is sitting comfortably on a 12-inch shelf, although the front of the unit extends slightly over the shelf. Not possible for a mid size 1,000 watt one. Not possible also because you want a full size dinner plate, the front door can be close to one inch thick. Some model with power cable in the back which can take another inch of back space. dcarch

1000 watt is mid size, 1.1 cu ft to 1.4 cu ft capacity. 12.5 inch height is common. 12 inch depth is not possible. dcarch

"------ 2) taking the skirt off and running the unit where objects gets jammed into the impellers------" Or if you try to be a smart axx and use the unit to heat up thick soup. dcarch

"---Pump Motors are rated for 5K hours per warranty and will last much longer if you actually take care of the system ----" ​Motors require no maintenance in general. Sintered bronze bearing are permanently oiled. Ball bearing motors require no oiling. Brushed universal motors are not used because the speed may be too high. Brushless motors are all electronic driven. Shaded pole motors, or induction motors, most suitable, has one magnetic coil driving a rotor. May be dust removal, they all need good ventilation. dcarch

"---i have a DIY system with several of those $ 8.00 mug heaters but its a little bit of a pain to set up. cheap though.--" If you have good working knowledge and skills in electric work, ------- My cheapest reliable way - A 240 V hot water heating element or a 240 V stove heating element running at 120 V. They are very high wattage, like 2,000 watts, 4,000 watts, but at 1/2 voltage, they are about 1/4 the wattage. Furthermore you can wire them in series with a diode and cut the wattage in half. These heating element are very inexpensive. At reduced wattage, they will last many centuries. You must electrically ground them well and insulate to the maximum with a ground fault outlet, or you will cook yourself before you cook the meat. dcarch