btbyrd

I mostly use it to check the temperature of a cooking surface (pan/grill) before adding food. I could see how it would be useful for working with liquids (that one is constantly agitating). In either event, a probe or Thermapen is a much more useful tool all around -- but for much different purposes.

It cooks even better than it looks. I can't think of anything else I've gotten for $30 that has yielded such great results. I've used it to cold smoke cheese, butter, and pork belly, and have had fantastic results hot smoking pork shoulder and pork/beef killer ribs. The A-Maze-N people also make very high quality pellets for the smoker, and they're reasonably priced (especially if you buy in larger quantities). Those pellets can be useful if you also have Grill Grates. If you're cooking a steak or chop, for instance, and want just a bit of smoke flavor, you can sprinkle some wood pellets over the grates before you throw the meat on.

I've used several kinds of smoker box (and aluminum foil) over the years, and nothing - NOTHING - comes remotely close to the results I've gotten from an A-Maze-N Tube smoker burning wood pellets. Hours of quality smoke effortlessly. Also, +1 for Grill Grates.

+1 for everything FauxPas said. 68.2C is too high unless you're looking for a medium-well chop. 62C is medium rare, and is my preferred temp for pork chops. Doug Baldwin suggests going slightly lower (61C). And the Polyscience app lists 60C as its recommended temp for pork chops. Your preference may vary, but 68.2 is likely way too high. A 2 inch thick chop (51mm) will be pasteurized after 2.25 hours at 62C. You really don't need to pasteurize the product unless you want to. A cooked, chilled chop will last for a week in the fridge without pasteurization. If you're going to cook, chill, and then freeze immediately you don't need to pasteurize. There's no need to cook tender cuts for any longer than it takes for their core temperature to reach your desired doneness (unless you want to pasteurize). They don't have any tough connective tissue that needs to break down. Longer cook times won't "overcook" a steak or chop, but it can negatively impact the texture and make it mushy.

Trying to replicate SV eggs on the stovetop is imprecise, inconsistent, and time-consuming. The author of that article purportedly traveled 20,000 miles to figure out that "secret" (which how the Momofuku cookbook suggests that people create onsen eggs without a circulator) but would have been better off just paying the $175-200 for a circulator. The time savings from not having to babysit a pot of water on the stove for an hour every time you make eggs is almost reason enough to get a circulator.

Pressure cooked chili verde a la Kenji. First time making this... And it won't be the last! http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/04/pressure-cooker-fast-and-easy-chicken-chile-verde.html

The size thing is just a quirk of the Amazon listing. There was talk at one point of making a tabletop salamander for home use, but I think that fizzled out. Dave Arnold has dropped hints that B&D's next product will be an affordable consumer centrifuge.

Tamworth pork shoulder steak, maple pork jus, fennel pollen.

My dog loves it. I do not. It works out well for both of us. The only exception is if I'm using something really meaty like oxtails to make pho broth. The anise and other spices in the broth flavor the meat nicely, so even though the oxtail isn't particularly meaty tasting it's still flavorful.

A lot of portable induction burners claim to be able to maintain steady temperatures, but few are actually capable of doing so. The Vollrath Mirage Pro is the best I know of in this regard, as it has 100 power/temperature settings and is much better designed than the cheap burners which typically have only 10 or 12 settings. But it's also very expensive compared to what else is out there. If you have the funds for it, it's definitely worth it. If you really want something that will maintain a constant temperature, I'd suggest a quality portable gas burner combined with Meld (once Meld comes out).

St. Louis cut. The time/temp combo is from the ChefSteps recipe (which is for baby back, not St. Louis) ; 75C for four hours, then to a very low smoker for 3-4 hours. I usually only smoke for two hours at around 200F, but that's mostly because I can't wait to eat them at that point. The results have been quite nice. You could go for longer in the bath, depending on how close to "falling off the bone" you like them. But I prefer mine with a bit of bite to them.

I usually do ribs for 4 hours at 75C, at which point I glaze them or apply a rub and transfer to a smoker or a low oven (225-250F) for an hour or so to help create a bit of texture and crust. If you eat them straight from the bag they can be a little soft. Finishing them in a dry heat environment helps improve the texture. EDIT: I obviously read this as a rib question, not a rib tip question. My bad. I still think that 3-4 hours at 75C would help soften up any connective tissue inside the tips and create a nice jus that you could reduce down to a glaze after you unbag them.

Rancho Gordo midnight black beans, eggs, bacon, aji amarillo paste, queso fresco, onions and cilantro.

But did it taste grilled?

Some people sure like to complain. God forbid your supermarket tomatoes be bred to travel and store well. Sorry they didn't taste better, which is shocking given that it's the height of tomato season.

I've had good luck reheating short ribs like I'm cooking a regular steak. I either sear it hard on all sides and then transfer to a cool pan and then the oven, or I throw it on the grill and turn it frequently. The edge-to-edge doneness isn't as good, but it's still pretty magical.

You can grind it with some fat and make burgers out of it!

Ribs. And some solid potato salad.

Ceviche made with Chilean sea bass and aji amarillo chilies.

Pink shrimp and Rancho Gordo midnight black beans. I don't know why the lighting looks all Instagram in the second picture, but whatever.

Haven't tried the flat side yet for steak, but they do a bang-up job on shrimp.

Cooking in hay is an old technique. (Or techniques, really, since you can use it multiple ways) Stable to Table Dining. Hitting the Hay Fergus Henderson's Ham in Hay Heston Blumenthal's Hay Smoked Mackerel Heston also uses that technique to smoke fish for pies. The technique starts at about 12:40 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UULOU7bOICs

I can get the grates up over 800F if I run my Weber wide open and that's still not hot enough to get significant browning between grate marks (unless you overcook everything and let the grill marks totally carbonize). I'm going to flip two of my GrillGrates over so I have a dedicated plancha portion of the grill and see how that works. The advantage of using the Searzall over the plancha (at least for steaks) is that a plancha heats primarily by conduction while the Searzall does not. You can develop a serious crust with the Searzall yet leave the interior basically untouched by the extra heat. If you sear hard on a plancha, you have to be much more careful with the heat because the heat at the exterior is constantly being conducted/diffused through the meat. The plancha surface may be well-suited for "the Heston method" of turning the meat every 10-15 seconds.

Ice/gelatin filtration works pretty well, but it takes a while and the yield isn't awesome. If you try that technique, be sure to make the stock with bones and cuts that have lots of connective tissue so you can extract enough gelatin for the technique to work. I'm a fan of the ChefSteps consomme strategy which employs a Methocel/protein raft to clarify.

Maybe the only thing I haven't loved about GrillGrates is using them for steaks and chops. They are absolutely wonderful for pretty much everything else I grill -- chicken, fish, burgers, sausage -- but they're not good at developing a nice crust. Beautiful grill marks, yes. But with gray meat in between. It tastes great, but the texture and the deep Maillard flavors aren't there. But last night I figured out a nice workaround: the Searzall. It may seem silly (and it may be silly) to use a blowtorch on a piece of meat while it's grilling, but the results speak for themselves. You can get a proper crust and awesome sear marks without overcooking the interior.