dcarch

Reporting back. Sous vided the entire frozen 18-lb turkey in its original plastic bag was a success. Temperature - set at 150F, internal was 149F when taken out. It was a little well done. Next time I will go lower. Time - 7 hours. The brined turkey was not salty at all. As a matter of fact, there was no taste of salt. I will post pictures another time. dcarch

My theory, just a theory: It is not freezer funk, it may be refrigerator funk. Typical refrigerator has one compressor serving both the freezer well as the refrigerator. Air gets circulated from the fridge to he freezer. The freezer being much colder, condenses moisture, smells and vapors from the refrigerator. Try cleaning the fridge more often, and keep a box of activated charcoal in the fridge may help. dcarch

Thanks guys. I made that board from tree braches from my garden. The knives I want would come to more than $2,000. So I bought #32.00 of 1095 steel to make my own. I will need to get $7.00 of charcoal to harden them. dcarch

Whenever I have some time, I hope to finish making these. The long one is a 12" blade. Metal is 1095 high carbon steel. I use mostly Chinese cleavers, so these may be very useful. dcarch

Sometime ago, I did get a chance to visit a paper pulp manufacturer in Alabama, it was a huge operation. They grow their own trees. I can tell you, for me, the chemicals they use, the machinery, the facility, the workers ----- , far from being food-grade. I seem to remember, paper making is THE one industry which uses more water than any other industries. dcarch

Many non food white items, including laundry, clothing, paper, etc, has chemicals which reacts with UV to make them look white. dcarch

I am not sure it is safe (or not safe). I would not be surprised paper towels are made with some kind of wetting agent, whatever that chemical is. Obviously the paper used has been heavily bleached also, who knows how that is done. dcarch

"---BTW, Mr. dcarch I've taken your tomato trellis method and ran with it, I love it!!!!" It must have been 6 or 7 years with my "Invisible" system in use, I have not had to buy anything for replacement yet. Looks like it will be good for another 10 years, even we have had many wind and snow storms. A few neighbors came by, because from across the street, you can't see the supports at all, just red tomatoes. dcarch

I am with pyrguy. Typically the cooling fan is a shaded pole motor, which is constant speed. The magnetron tube operates only on or off, the power output therefore is FM (Frequency Modulated) not AM (Amplitude Modulated) dcarch

"--You had good luck with that. At that temp, ---" I think I had it for 7 hours in the oven. It was cooked very well, just a little light pink right next to the bone. Half of a turkey takes a lot less time. I think it got to 165 F the coldest spot. dcarch

Yes, the turkey is 8% brined. The last one, the one I sawed in half, was the same brand, it was not salty at all. I roasted it from frozen in the oven at 185F. dcarch

I have a very good reason for doing it this wat, I am very lazy! LOL Yes, I am thinking of sous vide the whole thing frozen, with all the goodies inside. Otherwise I will have to wait and thaw the whole thing, cut it up in small pieces to fit in bags many times. This way I can do it two times, once for the whole bird, then the dark meat. dcarch

Hi All, I got an extra frozen turey which I would like to cook now to make room in the freezer. It is a 18-lb 6"-thick bird. I want to sous vide the entire frozen turkey in the plastic wraping it came with. I know the plastic is food grade, but may not be boilable. I am not going to worry about that for this time. They did use high heat to shrink the plastic. I will not be eating the skin. I want to cook it based on the breast meat temperature, then carve all the meat out, saving the bones and giblits, then just sous vide the legs once more to a higher temperature. Any comments will be appreciated, timing? temperature? tips? etc. TIA dcarch

"Holy maillard reaction! How did you get such a nice char? " By definition, Char Siu means "burnt on a fire" I did it on a BBQ grill. dcarch

Nice looking char siu. Sous vide Char Siu is wonderful. I have done it many times. For my own meals, I don't add the red color. dcarch

I decided to cut the turkey myself because: I wasn't going home right away after shopping. I have done this before, it take less time then to wait for the butcher in the supermarket. I intend to sous vide the turkey, just want to be sure that there would be no other meat bits got into the turkey. I may cut the turkey into even smaller pieces. 1/2 of a turkey is still too big for one meal. dcarch

Frozen turkeys can be very cheap. I got two 18-lb turkeys for $0.49 a lb. What if you don’t want to make a whole turkey and you don’t want to thaw and refreeze the turkey? Here is how I cut a rock hard frozen turkey in half. dcarch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdqR9ZV-8_4

"---The tamarind glaze was good, not great." Tamarind + 1/4 oyster sauce = great! dcarch

I don't think so. An object "sings" based on mass, stiffness (or tension) and length, has nothing much to do with edge condition. dcarch

It also depends on what kind of stove. Electric heats by conduction, and gas by convection. Then, open surface area enters into calculation. The larger area creates more evaporation (laten heat loss), unless your food is covered with oil on the top layer. The surface area of the cookware follows the "Black body" radiation law, i.e. the larger the surface area, the more radiant heat lost (sensible heat loss). dcarch

Anyone with a high school physics can tell you that there is no electricity passing thru the steak in the first photo. I have done this when I was a kid (Warning, don't you try this, you can be killed!!!): Stick a nail in each end of a hot dog, wire up the nails and plug into an outlet. The hot dog will be cooked in no time. dcarch

Hair dryer is not a reliable long lasting heating device. An inexpensive convection oven would work better. The PID controller can take over the convection oven's thermostat if you set the thermostat at the highest. Why world you need to control humidity? You always want the air the driest. To dry air at lower temperature, you need to have a refrigeration cycle to dry the air and then reheat the air to accelerate the dehydration. dcarch

Thanks guys. Went to Fairway, they had geese. $4.00 a lb. I figured, considering skin, fat, bones, head, neck, wings, giblets, feet, --- It probably came to $25.00 a lb. Oh well, once a year. :-) dcarch

Modified Golden Sand Shrimp? dcarch

It seems to me that the entire population of France are slow eaters. dcarch