flippant

Trying to find the appropriate firmware for my model was like pulling teeth (Polyscience, Breville USA, Breville Australia, etc) until I emailed Dale at Sous Vide Australia (his name at business name dot com), who knew exactly what my model peculiarities were and what version of the firmware I should be using. If I ever decide to get a second one, he's my first call. After revisiting my reverse engineering notes and being annoyed with how incomplete they were, I took a few hours today to finish it off, and ended up writing a simple implementation. If any of you are so inclined, please feel free to build on it; I am unlikely to have the time to take it further. Here is a GitHub gist containing the code.

Given how bare-bones the recipe structure is, I don't think there's room for much of anything you can't already get interacting directly with the CF. There are 10 empty bytes there though – they might yet add some functionality to make use of that space, but that would require a firmware upgrade first.

I spent a couple of hours reverse engineering the recipe storage format a couple of months ago, but haven't had time to write anything up. My notes are a bit inscrutable to me, but I'll post them here in case it helps anyone develop some way to share recipes. It's very minimal, with each recipe taking only 36 bytes. The recipes are written in a continuous span in the file and overwritten without nulling out the underlying bytes first. Here is my understanding of the recipe structure, italicised text representing uncertainties. Bytes 1-20 are reserved for the name, each byte corresponding to the ASCII value of the letter or character, with the hex sequence `00 30 31` denoting early return. Bytes 21-30 are empty. Byte 31 corresponds to the temperature in Fahrenheit. If the temperature is above the max decimal value expressible by a byte (255), the high bit on the next byte, 32, is high (e.g has a value of `1` rather than `0`), indicating that `255` is to be added to the integer value represented by byte. Byte 32's 4 minor bits represents some sort of bitmask corresponding to the power level, I believe. 0000 = 1, 0010 = 2, 1000 = 3, 1100 = 4 Byte 33 corresponds to the hour timer value. Byte 34 corresponds to the minute timer value. Byte 35 corresponds to the second timer value. Byte 36 possibly corresponds to the action(s) to take after the timer ends and/or when to start the timer? Possibly a split byte like 32. Provided the uncertainties are done a way with, it should be a trivial matter to write a small piece of software (a web service, perhaps?) to generate these files from shared recipes.

I've been making a lot of cast iron sourdough toasties. 5 minutes on each side, weighed down with another cast iron pan. Nothing that can't be done with other equipment, but very satisfying.

I just got one of these about a month ago! (pawn shop find; paid about the same as CHC) Despite the price, I think it's well worth it for – among others – the following reasons: As opposed to other bits of expensive equipment, this is bound to see much more use (what don't you use a pot or pan for?) Seeing the temperatures and heat transference settings makes you think more about how you cook Perfect rolling boil for that won't overflow Perfect pressure cooker pressure, every time, with no variance Deep frying control Slow cast iron grilled cheese Can take it outside to sear steak, deep fry or do anything else that stinks up the house. @CanadianHomeChef: Who did you contact to get updated firmware? Mine's older than the hills.

Cooking for the sake of the tools (well, toys) is always going to last for exactly as long as they are interesting to you. If you don't have any intrinsic motivation to keep you in the kitchen – and beyond whatever your domestic situation requires, you don't have to – perhaps tools that will make your time spent in the kitchen shorter, while still possibly improving your output? To that end: A precise kitchen scale. Try to formalise what you are currently doing with the recipes you are cooking, and figure out how you can start changing variables to improve the end result. If you don't know what you're testing for, you're not experimenting, just riffing. A pressure cooker. This will make short work of many dishes that have traditionally required many hours to complete, like (particularly) stocks, soups, (to a certain extent) braises, stews, browning onions, etc. It will also allow for bulk preparations. If your domestic situation is < 4 people, the CSO steam toaster oven – you'll see the thread in this forum. It's a small oven with a huge amount of potential, and a loud timer to let you know when stuff is done (and out of the kitchen).

Have you considered a bokashi bucket? They're about the size of a small waste bin. I have two that I keep outside, letting one ferment while I fill the other, and cycle them that way. There's no smell.

I've been looking for information on these pans (that aren't a sales pitch) for a while. Now that I'm on induction I've also been looking hard at their one piece ferritic stainless pans. I'll probably end up getting the wrought iron, slightly larger version of the same pan. Kenji got a couple of them, but to my knowledge never posted an actual review of them

I've got the Angel AG500 juicer, and as luck would have it, it lends itself very well to making masa. The juicer itself is essentially a 3HP motor, so it has no issues with the torque required. It's nowhere near as fast as the Nixtamatic, but for a home user it's fast enough. I was using a blender, but that necessitated adding liquid to get enough movement going and then balancing that with masa harina. With the juicer it is purely nixtamalised corn and salt. The cleanup does take a while (fresh masa can be sticky!), so I normally do a double batch and then vac seal the masa in convenient portions. Heating the "old" masa in the bag to 40+ degrees and kneading it back into submission will make it easy to reform.

I've had the CSO for a number of years now, but have yet to actually bake bread in it. Reading through the Modernist Bread thread on this forum I see many of you are using the CSO to great effect, which is heartening. To that end, I would like to know about your experience baking bread in it – what sort of extra equipment you use (pans, cast iron? etc), what breads work the best, any corrections you find yourself making, or anything you feel might be useful to someone else using the CSO. Thank you!

I ordered the block (4 of them in a bamboo block with a wi-fi extender), which still hasn't shipped AFAIK.

I backed it on Kickstarter more than two years ago and have not received anything yet.

The VP215 can fit two pint sized (wide mouth) Ball mason jars standing upright. Very handy.

Turns out the Spinzall does MC beef jus! On a sidenote: I had to manually construct that direct link using an old link in an email they sent with the group and post IDs switched out. Argh.

This juicer: It's a legitimately great juicer and capable of extracting most of the juice from everything – I even use it to grind corn for masa. The only thing that has triggered an engine stop is a very thick, very fibrous bit of kale stem. Instead of skipping breakfast, we now have a cup of coffee and a green juice every morning. While I have no love for the handwavy, cult-like treatment juicing gets elsewhere (God was it hard to do research!), it's hard to argue with the benefits of getting another pound of fruit and vegetables in you every day. We've seen a noticeable improvement in focus. This thermal mixer: Very handy item to have in the kitchen. It frees me up to do other stuff – in the kitchen, naturally – while it stirs and cooks. It's a great blender as well, and it has been making soups weekly throughout winter. Not on the list: the centrifuge, which arrived last week. No time to put it through its paces yet, but we've had some lovely cocktails/drinks and herb oils made with it.