JoNorvelleWalker

Alas, last I checked Neisson and La Favorite were not available around here and my stocks are running low. My mai tai recipe is actually half La Favorite and half Wray & Nephew. I only went to all Wray & Nephew when La Favorite became hard to get.

Orange juice should work as long as you adjust the sugar to get the final Brix in the right range. I'm thinking blood orange soda would particularly nice.

The three stores near me were not on the list. Wray & Nephew will either come back in stock or I'll change my mai tai formulation.

The small print says "Check with the merchant for stock availability."

Almost every day I get fun stuff to evaluate, although some of the fun stuff is more fun than others. I just finished a review of a new West Bend 5 cubic foot chest freezer: (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) What a joy. I'd never had a chest freezer before. Amazing, when you lift the lid of a chest freezer the contents don't go spilling out onto the floor. I relocated my blast freezer to the dining room, and set up the West Bend in the living room where the blast freezer used to be. The West Bend easily held all the food from my ice bound freezer in the kitchen with oodles of space to spare. I've now been able to defrost both the kitchen freezer and the blast freezer. The blast freezer is not recommended to be run continuously, though I confess I had been using the blast freezer as an overflow freezer from the kitchen. If there is a power interruption the blast freezer does not automatically restart. The West Bend will. Meanwhile I have high hopes for a new nugget ice maker that's on the way. Considering the current Excessive Heat Watch the ice maker can't get here soon enough!

I have three refractometers but for the grapefruit soda I used DiFluid brand... (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)

Returning to my grapefruit... Now that I have the Vinci juicer I can quickly and easily juice grapefruit. I treated the fresh squeezed juice with Pectinex and let it sit overnight in a 1000ml separatory funnel. (I have to complain grapefruit juice does not clarify as readily as apple juice.) I took 400ml of the clarified grapefruit juice and added 100ml water and 25g sucrose. The final Brix measured 12.8. I have not measured the pH of the soda, but the pH of the juice was 3.1. I charged the soda in an iSi and let it rest in the refrigerator for a few days. I sampled the first glass this afternoon. Wow, was I delighted. Good stuff. Perfect sweetness and acidity. I only wish I had the refrigerator capacity to keep the sep funnel cold while clarifying.

It would seem Pimm's is not the only beverage with supply issues. The other night when a kind friend drove me to the ethanol emporium, I was no sooner in the door than I heard "I can't get your rum!" Apparently Wray and Nephew is not to be had in New Jersey.

There is a thread on commercial lever presses here. I think the Vinci extracts less oil than my Hamilton Beach. Whether that is better is a matter of taste. Certainly the Vinci makes good juice. And it juices grapefruit! Would you use a masticating juicer for citrus?

Almost all the kitchen toys I get are products provided at no cost in exchange for my evaluation and review. An outstanding new toy for my collection that I actually paid for myself is the Vinci Hands Free Electric Citrus Juicer... (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) Think of the Vinci as an inverted Nija CREAMi. The reamer rises from below. Sensors stop over extraction. Works with citrus sizes from limes to grapefruit. The flavor of the juice is very clean. Compared to my beloved Hamilton Beach 932 Commercial, the Vinci is lighter, takes up less counter space, and produces better juice. The Hamilton Beach has had almost daily use for nine years and is still going strong. Spare parts for the Hamilton Beach have been available for going on a century. I can't say how long the Vinci will last. All parts of the Vinci except the motor are top rack dishwasher safe. But cleanup is simple, as is cleanup of the Hamilton Beach. The big thing is the Vinci will juice grapefruit, whilst the Hamilton Beach will not. The Vinci would be great for anyone with arm problems. Of course unlike the Hamilton Beach the Vinci needs to be plugged in.

But if the opener does not shut off think of the impact on the electric bill.

Thank you @Smithy! The recipe I used was from Warburtons by way of Nagi of recipetineats. I simplified by just throwing all ingredients in the Blendtec and pressing the batter button. I have Nagi's cookbook home from work and I must say her recipes, what few I've tried, work well. Her mother has a Japanese food site that is a joy to peruse, although I've not tried cooking from it.

Sorry, no picture. I ate the two most photogenic ones and I don't have the energy for photography.

I made crumpets for the first time. Not as difficult as I had thought. I had hoped to consult the Modernist Bread crumpet recipe, but digging out the book would have required more energy than I have.

Thanks! I read Poilane when it first came out, but now I have a Kindle copy.

I received a Caraway pot today. It's cute if nothing else. Any suggestions on how to use it? I have no experience with this sort of cookware.

I shall never again allow my pressure cooker of Rancho Gordo pinto beans to boil dry. In the last couple days I've had additional never again moments. I use nitrile gloves in the kitchen, but previously I've kept them in the living room. Doesn't everyone? One of the products I was reviewing for Amazon was a lovely clear acrylic glove box holder. Another product was double sided adhesive sheets. I used the adhesive sheets to affix the glove box holder to my refrigerator door. The refrigerator in the kitchen. The wretched adhesive did not hold and the glove box holder crashed to the kitchen floor and smashed. Meanwhile everything in my other refrigerator was sticky. I'd wash the stuff and put it in clean bags. Only to become sticky again. Eventually it dawned on me that my iSi of homemade apple soda had been leaking. Worse the soda was flat. It was a pain but I scrubbed out the refrigerator. But the experience convinced me that I should use a silicone mat under the refrigerator to protect the hardwood floor. To get to the extension cord outlet for the refrigerator I had to move boxes and pull my bureau out from the bedroom wall. The stress was too much for the corroded antique hanging hardware supporting the large mirror above the bureau. The mirror crashed to the bedroom floor. Remarkably, and thankfully, the mirror did not crack. Now I need to put a silicone mat under the blast freezer in the living room.

Brita is a German company. However in the Americas Brita filters are made by the Clorox Company, which has the rights to the Brita name. Clorox made Brita is not the same design as Brita made Brita. Which is why I order my Brita filters from Europe. I cannot speak for Clorox made Brita, however Brita made Brita filters do remove water hardness... https://forums.egullet.org/topic/136349-do-brita-type-filters-work/?do=findComment&comment=2162319

I shall never again drop peach pie on the kitchen floor twice.

What is hot honey?

The meatloaf was not getting made by itself, and the chuck roast was beginning to show its age. Last night I got home from work around 8:30. Put the grinder parts in the freezer. Grated the onion, minced the garlic, beat the eggs. Chopped the parsley. Started grinding the meat at midnight. Meatloaf went in the Anova at 1:00, 176C, 40% steam. Last 20 minutes with top element on as well. Total bake time 75 minutes. House Special Glazed Meatloaf from Nagi Maehashi's Recipetin Eats Dinner pp 32,33. I omitted the ketchup glaze and covered the loaf with bacon and brown sugar. Thanks everyone for the help. I would not have believed how good this was -- and indeed still is. Plan is to mash potatoes to go with more meatloaf for tonight.

Cherry season, so clafoutis.

I cut the PolyScience vacuum hose in half. The ID is 4mm (5/32 inches). On Amazon I found this 5/16" to 5/32" adaptor: (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) It would be prudent to wait until next payday, though no one has ever called me prudent.

The PolyScience tubing 7mm OD was what I measured with my micrometer. I was too lazy to convert. Granted I could just have pressed a button on the micrometer. I have no idea how well the PolyScience tubing will stretch until I cut off one of the end pieces and try.

My chamber vacuum sealer is a PolyScience 300. It came with a length of vacuum tubing to connect to the PolyScience vacuum canister, which I also have. Each end of the tubing is terminated in a plastic plug. The setup is a very poor design in that one has to hold the plug in the port on the vacuum sealer with one hand while manipulating the valve on the canister with the other, and operating the controls with the third. Now, ten years later, I have a vacuum pump. I would like to connect the vacuum pump to the PolyScience canister. To do so I need to reduce the 5/16" ID vacuum tubing from the pump to the PolyScience tubing. I'm guessing the ID of the PolyScience tubing is 1/4" but I can't be sure until I cut an end off. From product pictures it appears PolyScience reengineered the external vacuum port since ten years ago, so the diameter may have changed since I got mine. The OD of the PolyScience tubing is 7mm. Should I just get a 5/16" to 1/4" reducer to see if the setup works?