Junkbot

Unless the author is talking about carbs inducing more of a fat storage hormone mechanism compared to protein/fats, this doesn't make any sense. 100 calories is the same amount of energy, no matter the source. If they're talking about how whole foods generally have more fiber (and thus their calorie calculation is a bit high), then they should have just said fiber rather than having a processed vs whole food comment. There's a lot of research on the role of sucrose and fructose on the body, You're absolutely correct in that fructose is pretty terrible for you.

I think I'm going to go with an Espro press. I'm not looking to make pea butter, just get most of the fines out of homemade liquors/bitters. The press would be one of the fastest methods as well. I can then finish off the dregs with an Aeropress.

Ah, Buchner. Doing a search now. Thanks!

Has anyone made a vacuum or pressure filtration system to use in their kitchen? Or found some way to filter fine particles out of solution in a timely manner? I remember back in my lab days, we used setups like these to quickly filter precipitates out of solution. When I was making tomatoe vodka, trying to filter it through coffee strainers was a mess as the filters would constantly get plugged up, and the whole process would take forever. I figure using a vacuum/pressure system would speed up the whole process, as well as enable one to filter out much smaller particles than with just gravity. One idea I had was to reappropriate an Aeropress... it would take a while since it's fairly small, but it would filter out very fine particles much more efficiently than trying to use coffee filters.

A couple things. 1. Does this happen when you use a santoku/chinese clever? 2. Does the lip form on the opposite side when you pull-cut? What I'm wondering is if the belly of the knife is not making good contact with the cutting board with your strokes. It looks like you're essentially pushing the top portion of the food with the belly of the knife rather than cutting it by wedging the knife against the board. If this still happens with a belly-less knife (a flatter santoku/clever), or with pull-cuts (removes the belly factor), then I'm out of ideas.

Thanks for the suggestions. One more question: what can I do with overworked pie dough? I'll try the new techniques, but there are a few mounds in the fridge that I know are overworked.

How cold does everything have to be? Do people put their flour in the freezer as well as their butter? I don't have a food processor, and my dough always comes out tough cause the pastry cutter takes so long.

The initial temperature of the ice actually does very little in terms of cooling. The cooling power of ice comes from the heat of enthalpy, or when ice turns to water. The benefit of freezing large blocks of ice at home is that you lower the surface area of the ice block, so that it melts slower. This means that the cooler won't be as cool, but it'll only be a few degress warmer, and the trade off of the ice lasting a lot longer is a much greater benefit.

If you want giant clear ice, just buy a freezer big enough to fit a cooler. http://www.alcademics.com/2010/08/a-homemade-giant-crystal-clear-ice-cube-tray.html And disgregard anything about boiling, purifying, etc the water. It's the method of freezing that makes it clear.

Could you take a picture of this setup? I'm having a hard time visuallizing the lid/SideKIC arrangement.

So how would you deal with a restaurant that's selling Kobe? If I went to a tobacco shop, and they tried to sell me 'Cuban' cigars, I'd immediately call them out on that. But for some reason, I'd have reservations on doing that in a restaurant selling 'Kobe' beef.

So armed with this knowledge, are we justified to call out restaurants that have Kobe on their menu? Should we talk to the manager/chef and question their misleading use of Kobe?

Oh man, please give an update when you do this. I thought a blender was going overboard, but the nitrous charge would make the thickest foam...

Can anyone comment on the blender method? Given that the more shaking the better, wouldn't a blender be the ultimate method to create froth? I was also thinking about using an immersion blender for slightly less cleanup.

A fond memory I have is KFC Sundays as a kid, and how ridiculously delicious a bucket smelled when my parents brought it into the car. I haven't had KFC for many many years, and reading your comment reaffirms that I shouldn't have KFC again lest I destroy that nostalgia.

Wow, kudos to Duncan for listening to his customer base and implementing the changes so quickly. Less than a month for an upgrade? That is incredible.

Guess I could. What's the purpose of chilling the dough? Will the dough get too dry if portioned out?

I love Alton's Chewie recipe, but one thing I have trouble with is dishing the chilled cookie dough. It is ROCK HARD and nearly impossible to dish without a lot of muscle. I usually end up waiting around a bit for the dough to warm up so that it's a bit more malleable, but was curious if there were any tips/tricks for handling chilled dough?

I think I'd do this just so that I had ice spheres on hand. It looks like the press takes around 30-60sec to melt the ice which might get annoying when you have multiple drinks to prepare. But the tradeoff would be that I'd have to wait for the ice to come up in temperature a bit before I could use them in a drink. See my reply to dcarch at the bottom about using straight from freezer ice. I'm experimenting with spherical molds right now. The issue with them is that it's difficult to get clear ice with molds (due to outside-in freezing). One thing I'm trying though, is to place the molds in a water filled cooler to see if directional freezing can help. Although there is some pressure involved, most of the melting is due to the fact that the mold is a giant heat sink for the ice. A few of the molds have instructions that say to keep the mold in warm water before use, emphasizing the ice melting abilities of the mold. This is why the mold is made from aluminum or copper since they're great at conducting heat. Also, if you're talking about changing ice to liquid through pressure, that's not the explanation used for ice skating anymore. Also, the wire going through a block of ice is known as regelation, which can only occur with great pressure (not practical), and very cold ice (not desireable). The reason you don't want straight-out-of-the-freezer ice for the mold is because the ice will crack due to the extreme change in temperature. If you took ice straight from the freezer and stuck it in this mold, it would have massive internal cracking (due to the melt water), which would ruin the whole purpose of clear ice balls. You have to let ice come up in temperature a bit so that contact with the mold doesn't shock the ice. This is the same reason why if you premake/order the ice balls, you should not pour liquid over them straight out of the freezer; you'll end up shocking them, causing massive internal cracks.

Very nice post. Thanks for the experiment. It's interesting for me that the copper plate concentrated the heat to the center, judging by the second picture. I think I'm going to stop by the junkyard and pick up a slab of aluminum. Not quite as good as copper, but much cheaper.

For all you who have the copper diffusers, would you be able to do a toast test with flour with and without the plate? I'm just curious how much that extra layer of copper evens out the heat. Example of test.

They're labeling that as a trivet. Do you need a flame-tamer or a diffuser? Because cast iron would make a horrible diffuser since it doesn't conduct heat very evenly. Cast Iron doesn't conduct heat evenly? News to me... trivet or not, it provides a buffer from the flame than allows my pots to actually simmer over the burner whereas they just boil without it. If you just want to tone down the heat, I supposed putting anything between the burner and the pot would be good, including cast iron. But cast iron is notorious for conducting heat unevenly. That's why I was looking into getting a flame diffuser made of aluminum (copper plates are a bit too pricey at the moment).

They're labeling that as a trivet. Do you need a flame-tamer or a diffuser? Because cast iron would make a horrible diffuser since it doesn't conduct heat very evenly.

$500 seems a bit pricey when you can get the SVM/FMM combo for about $330. Granted this unit is a bit more compact. The Stealth looks remarkably similar to the DIY version feature here.

Any updates on this? Not too impressed with it on paper, but user experience could be different.