daveb

The Tad INOX is comparable to the Suisin IH and last I looked was 20% (or so) less expensive - still a more affordable alternative. Both very good knives but well north of what the OP wants to spend. The Gesshin Stainless and the Suisin Inox Western are comparable in price and performance and I expect them to remain very good values as entry level knives.

Chef Steps has been in bed with Poly Science for so long I've wondered if they realized the growing market for circulators is looking for a sub $200 unit. I'm sure I'm not their only "member" who follows the site, uses it for reference and recipes and then plugs in an Anova.

Do love a Tad.... Remarkably nimble for their size. At the inexpensive end of the knife spectrum Wusthof is making a run on VNox's market with their "Pro" series. A lot of retailers have the 8" Cooks Knife at a promo price of 24.95. The knife has the classic German rocker profile, handles well, is quality stainless and even sharpens up readily. It's available in 6", 8" and 10". I usually favor the Japanese Gyuto but I like this one and it certainly has it's place. At the $100 price point there are two Japanese knives I like, the Gesshin Stainless from Japanese Knife Imports and the Suisin Western Inox from Korin. (the site does not like links to these). Both have Western handles, are stainless, cut very well and sharpen readily. I slightly prefer the Gesshin for long prep times, the Suisin looks nicer on the wall.

If you're willing to leave Wally World for your night out that would open a wide range of possibilities.

I think of it as tipping for a fixed service and not based on meal cost. Driver brings me food. I give driver money. Everybody wins. $5.00 is normal for me and is well received. If I go outside the scope of "normal" with a party sized order I'll go up another $5.00. Keeps the math simple.

Nothing definitive here but wonder if it's more too fast a vac rather too much vac. My VacMaster VP-112 goes to -.9 (just under -1) and does fine (except the time I tried to seal sauce right out of the VMix. You'll only do that ONCE ). It takes 30 seconds to get there. The bag does appear swollen until seal is complete then it compresses around the product as it should. A 10 second vac seems almost violent in it's speed. For salmon; a pellicle will form when cooked unless the fish has been brined prior. Don't think yours was a function of the sealer but rather fish cooked well but not brined. Overcooked salmon will cook off the pellicle. Your peppercorns mirrors my results when bagging leftover walnuts yesterday. Bagged tight and commercial like sealing.

In the US we usually shuck by prying the shell apart at the hinge. I do this and have not found a better knife for it than the Dexter Russell. Japanese friends shuck by cutting (?) the shells apart at the sides and favor a thinner knife. What is you're preferred technique?

Looks like Swiss Steak meat to me.

I don't like it. Can't point to any science but garlic and botulism go together like white on rice. Same recipe, used fresh would be fine. Roasted for an hour or so, then refrigerated would be fine. PC to a garlic confit then refrigerated would be fine.

Truer words never spoken. Retail at a glance.

Thanks but I was making a funny...

What's a steel?

dcarch, I'd like to add my perspective by first taking some license with your initial comment: More than 98% of the cooking needs in a normal home kitchen are satisfied with whatever knife is available, with little to no thought of how sharp the knife is. Only an inconsequential percentage of home cooks know how to evaluate sharpness and fewer still so anything to achieve or maintain sharpness.with their knives. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. In a forum that favors quantitative measure over qualitative ones the notion of "sharp" "extremely sharp" "ultra sharp" "scary sharp" and "too sharp" elude definition. To your question I'll suggest that my knives are sharpened to an optimal sharpness that will vary with the knife, the application and the user. I use the grit of the final sharpening stone in the sharpening progression to quantify sharpness. To wit, I have two gyuto that travel with me. One is a stainless "laser" that I sharpen to 6K and use for slicing/dicing fruits and vegetables. I could sharpen to 8K but the optimal edge will stay sharp for all day cutting and an 8K edge would not. The other gyuto is stainless clad with a bit more heft that I use for all around cutting. Hard squash, pineapples, peeling melons, cutting meat. I finish it on a 3-4K natural stone, again so the edge will stay sharp all day. I'll also carry an application specific suji (slicer) with me. For raw proteins I have a stainless laser that I finish on either a 6K or 8K stone. For cooked and crusted proteins I have a stainless clad that is finished on a 6K stone for a more toothy edge that will hold up longer. In either case, either knife will do either task. In each case, one of the knives is optimized to the task. These knives are as sharp as they need to be but not to fragile for their application. None of them are "ultra sharp" scary sharp" or "too sharp".

Oxo makes good, relatively inexpensive, kitchen products. I have one of their kitchen scales, a food mill, a V-slicer mandolin and last I looked a couple of their thermometers. They know their target customer and do not offer "high end" products. I'm guessing they offer resistive thermometers because they can do that pretty well and hit a $20 price point. Thermoworks offers thermocouples with the Thermapen - the gold standard for instant reads and also offer t/c with their K-connector probes. I have some of each and use them for "important" stuff like smoking and grilling. They are not prohibitively expensive but they ain't cheap and won't appeal to most consumers. That said I'm liking the considerably less expensive DOT more everytime I use it.

You are indeed correct. It should be called the reddish (pinkish?) tinged liquid that is not blood per se but liquid that results from cooking reddish tinged proteins. But "blood" or "juices" is easier to type.

Soda Stream, a great tool for carbonating water, offers Coke and other syrups to flavor the water. They syrups get almost no traction as a retail product. Can't imagine a Kuerig doing much better at a buck+/ glass + the machine to make it with.

No problem here with the juices. Every protein will have them and I usually try and incorporate them into sauce. Curious that it does not appear you have rendered the fat off the breasts. If rendered prior to bagging an hour would have been fine. To do so post-bath you may well overcook them. Hope to see pics of the final product.

I've got a few and almost all are from Thermoworks. The DOT is the one I'm using the most now - it's the same probe size as the Thermapen, it can be left in product for monitoring or used as a hand held for quick checking.. I also like the Thermapens a lot and keep one for the kitchen and one for the grill. And of course a two channel meter with K type probes for the smoker and the grill. http://www.thermoworks.com/products/alarm/dot.html

I just start mine early enough that time is not a factor. I suck at math.

I think it's almost certain that the meat had spoilage bacteria on it when purchased though not enough to detect by an off smell. Oxtail is traditionally cooked in a braise, at or just under boiling point, which would kill the bacteria before it "blossomed". With the low temp of SV cooking the bacteria was able to flourish while in the long bath.

I described a similar problem I had with Short Ribs in this post: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/151863-sous-vide-demo/ Got some great feedback. My take-away is to dip the sealed bags in boiling water prior to dropping in a low temp, long bath. With you oxtails all going into the same bag, only one needed to be tainted with spoilage for it to spread to the others. Other take-away is don't cut bloated bags open

Relevance? Didn't think so. My lawn mower only cuts grass - but the blade still needs periodic sharpening. You're reasoning would suggest that grass is harder than the steel blade. It's generally accepted in the knife world that the type of cutting board used makes a difference in edge retention. End grain boards at one end of spectrum and glass at the other. Knives dull on boards. Any knife, any board. You can change some properties of each to reduce or minimize dulling but you can't eliminate it. Food also dulls edges. Not suggesting it scratches or grinds the edge, just that it dulls it. It this were not the case then sushi chefs would not need to sharpen their Deba or Yanagiba because they primarily cut through fish with little board contact. In practice the good ones sharpen and polish their blades every day.

Yes with butter or oil. Wanted a stupid amount of infused thyme, rosemary and garlic n EVOO . And wanted it right now. VMix was the easy button. Worked well.

This part I agree with. The rest not so much.

A friend is trying to open a food truck. I've talked to him about how to incorporate SV into his program - hands off cooking, predictable and controllable results, etc. Did a little business mixer with SV Tacos. Kewl. On the food side it was a pork loin, well trimmed. Not much available for time/temp on a loin. (Lot on tenderloin) Went with 136F for 3 hours. First time I did a sear prior to SV, thought it worked well. Finished on flat top with Korean BBQ sauce for a twist on Spicy Korean Pork. Little crazy but so is friend. I would do it again.