boilsover
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Posts posted by boilsover
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On 9/19/2017 at 11:14 AM, sct4a said:
Dave also emailed out a new Facebook group for those interested for the spinzall.
I hope it lasts longer that the one for Searzall...
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On 9/22/2017 at 5:32 PM, scott123 said:
A few things.
1. Kenji targets a very non obsessive audience. For the obsessive, everything comes down to bake time with pizza. As you slow down the bake, the dough doesn't puff up as much and it dries out and takes on a stale quality. 8 minutes is better than a 10 minute bake, 6 is better than 8, 4 is better than 6- for most obsessives. The thickness of the steel relates directly to thermal mass, and thermal mass impacts bake time. A 1/4" steel won't bake as fast of a pizza as 1/2" will. For a non obsessive, this may not be the end of the world. At the same time, though, it's pretty much impossible to know whether or not one is ever going get the pizza bug, and should that occur, if they're stuck with a 1/4" product, it's not going to cut it.
Steel, by it's nature, is an advanced pizza baking tool. It almost always the device that people reach for after they've worked with stone a bit and want to take it to the next level. The worst thing someone in those shoes could do, though, is rather than strive for the ultimate, would be to settle for a slight improvement (if any) with 1/4."
2. Another obsessive aspect of steel is length and width. The beginner may be perfectly fine with 13" pizzas, but, as you up your game, you absolutely want to share your works of art with the rest of the world, and, when you do, in order to serve a larger number of people, you need as much real estate as you can get. I've done parties that required six 17" pies in about an hour. That kind of output only happens with a 17 x 17 x .5 steel.
3. A single 30 lb. steel (or, preferably, a 40 lb steel) is very far from portable, but if you get it cut in half, the resulting pieces are a heck of a lot more manageable. In theory, if someone had a health issue and had trouble lifting a 20 lb. steel into place, they could cut the initial steel into thirds. One important aspect is that oven shelves have a tendency to bow a bit in the middle, so you want the seam(s) to run against the bow, not with it.
4. Domestic oven shelves, by their nature, are built to support 25+ lb. Thanksgiving turkeys, inside heavy baking pans, with vegetables and stuffing. 40 lb. is no problem whatsoever for your average oven shelf. During the last decade, I know at least 200 people who've purchased 40 lb+ steels and no one has ever complained about an oven shelf breaking. Believe me, if this were a potential issue, some one would have experienced it, and they would have scream bloody murder. They haven't. The shelf, as I said, will bend a bit, some a bit more than others, but it will not break, and, when you remove the steel, the shelf will bounce back to it's original shape.
Hi, Scott:
I have a 1/2" steel cut to the size of my oven (minus 1" all the way around). I like it a lot, and it's not all that hard to move around. I generally agree with your enumerated points.
However... my only issue with the 1/2" and the bake speed it allows is that the topping finish lags behind the crust bottom. Raising the rack to its highest possible position and switching to High Broil helps, but it's still always a tossup whether my 3 minute pie will be a black panther underneath before the toppings finish.
This may be a weak broiler element, but even so, I can't be the only cook out here with that limitation.
If I had it to do over again, I would split the difference and have a 3/8" sheet cut. For my oven, I think that would be striking a non-obsessive's balance. It might even afford a little extra room to load/unload.
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2 hours ago, ElsieD said:
I have the Polyscience and am very happy with it.
Thanks. How long have you had the Polyscience, and do you use it frequently?
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Ok, thanks everyone. Has anyone here used the Polyscience and the Anova?
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If there's still room on the bandwagon, I'd like to buy my first immersion circulator for sous vide. I don't want the "oven" (the integrated bath appliance), and I don't especially care about Bluetooth and smartphone app features. What I do care about is ease-of-use, power, and ruggedness/durability. A legible display and louder sounds would also be nice. I might also want to sometimes do larger joints in a cooler, rather than single-serve in a small Cambro. Whether I end up using this every day or once a year, I don't want to have to buy another circulator.
The reviews on Amazon don't seem to show any that clearly stand out.
What say you? Thanks.
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(1) No, no danger from thermal shock. The danger is in dropping the hot pan.
(2) This sounds like a sensor fault. It may be particular to your unit, and maybe not. OTOH, an empty pan for 5 minutes at 7/9 on a 24K (or 36K) induction hob is a lot of heat.
Why are you preheating so high? 500F is 'way past the smoke points of most cooking oils.
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15 hours ago, MelissaH said:
I like to go for a few-miles-long walk in the mornings, and I listen to podcasts while I walk. For some reason, I decided to try the Milk Street Kitchen podcasts, maybe because like when you bang your head against the wall, it feels really good when I stop? For all intents and purposes, it's basically a duplicate of the now-discontinued ATK podcasts, right down to the roster of regular rotating guests, with the substitution of Sara Moulton for test cook Bridget and the minuscule loss of the tasting and testing segments. I can handle the interview segments, but every single one of the phone call Q&A sessions makes me want to throw my iPod on the ground because CK tries to sound knowledgeable about things he has no business sounding knowledgeable about, giving answers that don't make sense.
Someone bang my head against the wall, please? So you can stop in a little while?
So, when I got the email from ThermoWorks, I was about ready to scream. I love my Thermapens, but I think if I were to buy a CK-branded timer, my head might just explode with his opinions.
Frequently wrong, never unsure...
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His and CI's gear reviews have always been arbitrary put-up jobs. Strange that All-Clad gets "reviewed" constantly, and always wins, hmm?
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Uh, oh. Will it hector and lecture in CK's awful voice? "Our sensors tried every second to decide when your pie is done, but now I judge this is the perfect time to withdraw it gently from your oven. Read more after we nag you across the paywall..."
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6 hours ago, Porthos said:
@boilsover I am having trouble finding any information about pre-1998 Pyrex that used soda lime glass. Do you have any links handy for me to peruse?
Handy? No. But I believe it was discussed at length here: https://www.chowhound.com/post/consumer-reports-investigates-exploding-pyrex-751340
Corning had two plants, the epoymous one at Corning, and the other at Charleroi, PA. While the latter has been making Pyrex since the 1930s, the Corning plant is no longer in operation. It's my understanding that the Charleroi plant made both soda lime and borosilicate until the early 1990s, and which time it dropped borosilicate manufacture. This predates World Kitchens license of Pyrex from Corning in 1998. IIRC.
Here's a source, quoting Corning and WK people, that Charleroi has been making soda lime Pyrex for 60 years: http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/pyrex.asp#BDYHoeyAKzyLdaaE.99
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8 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:
And they call soda-lime glass Pyrex.
The full story of what is/has been called Pyrex is long and boring. Suffice it to say, at least in USA, Pyrex could always have been either soda lime or borosilicate--the US plants made both, although now all Pyrex under the World Kitchen license is soda lime. So if you're buying new in USA, it's soda lime, and it's still Pyrex. If you're buying vintage, you need some expertise to tell which it is. If you want borosilicate, you can buy the European manufacture. In both cases, it's a safety hazard, but soda lime more so.
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1 minute ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:
However Visions is not -- never to be confused with -- Pyroceram. Please.
Umm...unless you know more than the manufacturer does... "Why is Visions so light and clear and yet able to handle such extreme changes in temperature? Because it’s made of a revolutionary glass ceramic material called Pyroceram " See, http://www.worldkitchen.com/en/blog/blog-Visions-the-visions-story.html
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On 8/5/2017 at 9:36 PM, Lisa Shock said:
Do an internet search for "exploding pyrex". I had a pyrex measuring cup explode in my hand while measuring cold water, nothing hot was involved, about a decade ago. I have gotten rid of almost all all the glass bakeware in my kitchen, just some Duralex custard cups remain, and almost all of the ceramics (just holding on to a couple of vintage items with sentimental value). Honestly, I use my copper clad stainless pots and pans, plus my beloved wok and cast iron, for almost everything and for baking I use professional sheet pans and hotel pans.
I agree with you 100% about Pyrex (yes, all years, both borosilicate and soda lime glass) being an unreasonable safety risk. However, it is a different animal than pyroceram, from which Visions is made. IMO, Visions is much safer in terms of breakage, but words escape me to describe how horrible it is to cook in.
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On 8/2/2017 at 9:05 AM, Toliver said:
Corning makes a "Visions" line of cookware, but I can't recommend it for stove-top use.
My mom had this (click)
sauce pan and tried using it to make something simple like gravy. It always, without fail, burned at the bottom.
Good luck with your search.
This is funny. Visions is THE worst cookware ever, IME. At IHHS last year, even the people making it admitted to me how atrocious it is.
To the OP: No cookware on the market is unsafe (at least from a poison-in-your-food standpoint). If you dine out, you are already regularly eating food cooked in bare aluminum. And you are getting dramatically more aluminum from your toothpastes and antiperspirants, among myriad other products.
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3 hours ago, lindag said:
AnnaNs comments in another thread prompted me to want to talk about plastic wraps.
I can't seem to find one that doesn't frustrate me. Currently I'm using the Costco brand which clings to everything.
I think I've tried all the different kinds, if they cling to the bowl or food, then they don't cling to plastic containers.
Most want to cling to itself better than anything else.
Is there a brand that really works for you?
I thought all plastic wrap/clingform clung, no? I think until someone makes a static-dissipating box, we're all in the same boat.
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29 minutes ago, cdh said:
I recall reading on here years ago that GE had some sort of precision controlled induction burner in development. Not entirely sure what happened to that... but this device could be the offspring of that research project. The price is nice... hope the quality is up to snuff. I do wonder why nobody had done a precision induction burner before now... are there hard EE problems to be solved in modulating the RF field that makes the pan heat up? Even the "pro" flavored induction plates only had 20 stops on their control dials. I am not sold on the whole everything needs to be controlled over wifi with an app design philosophy... but this application of it is super cool sounding.
Anyway here's the link: Tasty Onetop
So how many settings does it have?
This is a poor man's "Control Freak" or Hestan Cue at <1/10 the price.
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Sierra Trading Post now has the 3Q Zwilling Sensation saute--with cover--for $101.
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OK, someone help me out here, please? I have handled an EdgePro in Bob Kramer's shop (he used to sell them), but I've never owned one. I've read the EP patent, and other than a certain "heavy duty-ness", I must be missing what made the EP the sine qua non of sharpeners. Lansky and several others offered variable angle jigs/clamps and guided stone sets long before EP.
So what made it a better mousetrap?
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Just now, Anna N said:
It is indeed. Read most of the way through it with a little information about that frozen function. But I suspect that you are correct. My Breville has a frozen button, also. Never found a reason to use it though.
I've tried it with frozen crappo supermarket pizza. It works about as well as pizza in general--not very well.
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You are correct--the manual is opaque about this.
As far as I can tell, the little "Frozen" button merely extends the cooking time by an arbitrarily-set duration intended to cook frozen foods, where their thawed brethren would overcook. In practice, this feature is as fraught and imprecise as the difference in setting "4 slices" vs. "6 slices" in Toast mode.
If you're willing to take the time, you can compare the regular duration with the "Frozen" duration (in all authorized modes), simply by starting a cycle in the cool oven with one setting and then the other. I think I may have posted this boring information at a competing site...
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Good review and congratulations.
I have the ThermaQ b/c I need to use the commercial griddle contact probe. But having the ability to monitor temps from afar sometimes would be nice.
ThermaQ is available with a rubber boot that has a very strong magnet to stick wherever.
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If you like brioche style buns, you should try them. They're even sweeter, dissolve faster on the tongue, and can compress to nothingness. On the Glycemic Index, they're right between fructose and sucrose (JK!).
They're sort of the Wonderbread of brioche, but like that "bread", can be addictive.
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On 7/9/2017 at 1:02 PM, chromedome said:
That's not necessarily a bad thing. Lasers were once a solution in search of a problem, and they turned out to be pretty useful.
Yes, lasers have amused millions of cats and dogs, helped me remember which end of my pistol and thermometer was which, and kept Led Zepplin music popular...
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21 hours ago, pastrygirl said:
Interesting, but I don't consider sugar to be the only mark of deliciousness. What would it do with Granny Smith apples, say they are all bad? Can it detect whether a peach will be mealy and gross, or only the sugar? Can it tell how juicy a lemon will be? Maybe I could use it to find less sweet corn because all the super-sweet is too sweet for me - sometimes I want produce that is "poor" on the sugar scale!
Almost everything packaged already has nutrition info. Ok, cheese sold by weight might not, but anyone counting calories already knows that cheese tends to be high fat. I guess it could be useful at buffets or something but in general if you don't want crap produce, don't buy out of season or flown in from the other hemisphere.
I wonder if it is accurate enough for people with actual medical needs, like whether a diabetic could trust the sugar info.
On a consumer level, how many of us have bought more than $200 of disappointing produce in a year? I doubt this device would pay for itself in terms of food waste avoided. Even mealy, un-sweet peaches can be made edible by cooking with a bit of sugar. Cool toy, but not necessary in my world.
A $20 refractometer will measure sugar. This thing is mostly a hipster solution in search of a problem, IMO.
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sauce pan and tried using it to make something simple like gravy. It always, without fail, burned at the bottom.
Pizza Baking Steel
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted · Edited by boilsover (log)
Yes, of course. Don't you subscribe to the theory that the shortest bake is best? I can ratchet the steel temp up to 700F by alternating the oven and broiler.
No. It's on >98% of the time. When it cuts out, I crack the door and it comes right back on. The IR gun says this has a negligible effect on the steel temp.
What do you suggest that temperature be for a 4-minute pie on a 1/2" steel?
Thanks.