cdh

I've heard good things about the Breville grinders at the high end, but have never played with them. My knowledge of the Baratza and Ascaso is from years of personal experience.

And if you're looking for a source of knowledgable reviews, get yourself over to coffeegeek. They've got 'em.

What style of coffee are you looking to make? Espresso grinders and drip grinders are different animals. If you're thinking espresso, something from Ascaso is not a bad starting point. Baratza does grinders for less fine styles well. You're looking at $175-$200 for either of these new. You might want to ebay around and try your luck on a used grinder from somebody who felt the need to upgrade.

I've just signed on to the edx course... looks like it could be good fun.

Why do you want to avoid sugar in the first place? There are multiple reasons for sugar to b e in a recipe... it adds sweetness... but it also caramelizes when heated.... most substitutes do the first but not the second.

Has anybody ever filled up an ISI whipper with this stuff and played around?

So Darienne... do you think that adding something like Xanthan or Carageenan or other slime enhancer would help with the body of the mousse? How about just more chocolate, or maybe just more cocoa butter?

The name does make me shake my head... Norrristown doesn't need reminders about crime. It's like a quip I used while working there: We're very efficient in Montgomery County-- we put our courthouse right in the middle of all of our criminals... that's Norristown. Things do seem to have gotten better down there lately... is this name a shot at retro nostalgia?

Wow... looking good.

Beaten egg whites start to go back to liquid after sitting a while too... isn't that why gelatin stabilizers get thrown into mousses? A pinch of agar would probably maintain the effect and the vegan-ity with this stuff...

Who woulda thunk it? I'm amazed that this stuff hasn't been common knowledge for forever... but nobody thought to play with the gooey leftovers of their beans or flax seeds...

This stuff has popped up on my radar recently, and I don't see any discussion on it here. IT seems that chickpea canning liquid plus a good beating turns into a air filled protein matrix that does the job of egg white meringue in a lot of applications. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kExpx2BzIOQ Anybody here done anything cool with it?

I drive by there pretty regularly and have never noticed them. Vegan stuff for its own sake has no appeal to me, but if it looked/smelled good, I'll pop in and check it out. Any relation to that SuperBazaar indian market along that strip?

My guess? Unpleasant and potentially dangerous, if the FDA dosage rec of 82 mg/l is a threshold for bad things starting to happen... Really, the bitterness of tonic is not the majority of the flavor in there... it's just the unusual aspect, so it is what we notice and pay attention to. Commercial tonics are mostly sweet, with a bit of sour and a hint of bitter... look at the approaches above in the thread that use sugar, citric and quinine and little else... without the complexity of the citrus-y melange in the background, gin and quinine would be horrible.

I got some of the Paradijswijn from Ton Overmars a year ago. Not on the shelf... but they had some if you ask. Pain in the neck that they don't take credit cards... so bring cash unless you've got a debit card from a Dutch bank.

I've done a very successful tonic batch recently. Here's what I used: 2T cinchona bark - the chunky stuff, not the fine powder 1lb lemongrass - fresh from the korean market dried peel of 1 temple orange - homemade... dried the peel of an orange I ate over the winter. 2 drops lime oil - NOW foods brand is what I used. citric acid - standard food safe chemical grade... same stuff I use to clean my espresso machine. Here's how I did it: Part I - Dealing with the cinchona In the past, I've dumped the cinchona bark in with the other stuff... and it made the tonic brown and woodsy and bark-flavored with weird floral notes. I did no want that. Noting the post above that mentions that quinine is much more soluble in alcohol than in water I decided to make use of that trait. This time I made cinchona tea... twice... and threw it out both times. Standard 5 minute steep with water near boiling. It was bitter and bark-y and weird like all of the boiled-in-water cinchona experiments before. I then soaked the pre-boiled cinchona in some cheap vodka for a half hour. That made for some slightly brown and very bitter quinine tincture. I've still got 20x the quinine tincture I used in this batch in a bottle. Part II - Getting the citrus/sour/sweet thing balanced I took the pound of lemongrass, 5 big long stalks and ran them through the slicing blade on the food processor. Then I took the heap of little woody circles and put them in a pot with 2 cups of sugar and the orange peel, and added water to cover. Heated to boiling. Added lime oil while it was boiling in hopes of it emulsifying some. Let it cool and filled a 750ml bottle with it. Didn't measure the citric acid I added... Just until it tasted "right" to me. Part III - Getting it together So I find that the quinine tincture goes a long long way. 2 or so tablespoons of it added to the 750 ml bottle seems about right for a good tonic-y bitterness. Part IV - Using it So far, I find that a 3/4 oz measure of the tonic syrup makes a good 10oz glass of gin and tonic when combined with a 1 1/2 oz measure of gin, and topped with seltzer and a squeeze of lime. Moral of the story- boil your cinchona... then throw out the tea and extract the quinine you need with alcohol.

Totally correct.

Zuidam aged genever is good. Stuff made by Rutte is also tasty.

Practice, practice, practice. Learn what you like and why you like it... then learn to make it how you like it.

Airlock. Actual system is water bath in cooler, carboy full of beer in water bath in cooler, circulator in water bath. No beer is being circulated.

I'm putting mine to a novel use now. I'm using it in conjunction with a 10 gallon igloo cooler and a carboy full of fermenting beer to experiment with what yeast flavor profiles get expressed at what fermentation temperatures. I've never had this kind of precise control over a fermentation before.

It appears that UV sterilization may become much more available shortly... http://cen.acs.org/articles/93/web/2015/05/First-Ultraviolet-Quantum-Dots-Shine.html UV LEDs are on the way.

Drought in lime-growing regions in North America?

Lots of bitter drinks work well with some tonic added for fizz. Pegu Clubs and Jasmines are lovely was long drinks topped up with tonic.

Frozen works fine.