dscheidt

Note to self: change the oil much more frequently. My wife went to seal something the other day. She said it sounded weird, and then turned off. Inspection revealed there's a fuse holder in the power socket, complete with a blown fuse. And a spare, yay. I put the spare in, turned it on. It sounded as if the motor or pump were seized. As I was reaching to turn it off, it blew the fuse. (They're 15A AL250 fast blow fuses, 5mmx20mm, which, of course, isn't a fuse I keep on hand.) Today I started to take it apart to see what's going on. First I drained the oil, which was pretty cloudy. Then I pulled the pump out. The pump is coupled to the motor with a Lovejoy style coupler. The pump is attached to the motor with four bolts, which you can see and touch. You can't get a tool on them, at least not easily. I ended up using a 10mm crowsfoot to get them out. A longer than normal one would make it easier, as the pump body is in the way. AT some point, I realized if you take the four screws on the top of the sides out, the whole chamber piece hinges up, and there's a stay to hold it it the service position. This makes it somewhat easier to get at things, but it's still a pain to work on. The pump is a pretty standard eccentric rotary vane pump. Back cover covers the oil reservoir and air seperator bits, it's bolted on. the pump proper is bolted together, and further secured with pins that pull out pretty easily. Three vanes made of aluminum, in a steel rotor, no tensioning, just centrifiugal force to keep the sealed. The pump side of the Lovejoy is keyed to the shaft on the rotor. And welded in place, presumably because that's cheaper. Also means I can't separate the shaft from the front cover, where there's a bearing or bushing (the other end is a brass bushing, I suspect this one is too). There's a lot of play in the rotor shaft there, both end float and side to side. Before I took it apart, it initially wouldn't turn. a little bit of rocking got it turn freely. I didn't see anything that would have caused it to stick, but there's a lot of rust staining on the vanes, so one could have been stuck. The resevoir was full of sludge and built up crud on the bottom, where it would have settled out of the oil. I've cleaned everything up, and when I get replacemet fuses, I'll put it all back together, and see if it works, or if I need to figure out a pump transplant. That'll be a week or two, though....

LiFePO4 batteries are pretty mature technology. they're safe, reliable, and have good lifespan -- 2000 cycles to 10% capacity loss is typical. The disadvantage is they have lower power per weight than other lithium batteries, but for an appliance that doesn't matter as much as a portable device. They're what's in most of the portable battery with household outlets on them. They're also starting to replace conventional lead-acid batteries in some automotive applications, for things like RV house batteries, where the higher capacity, lighter weight, and increased cycle life span make them attractive. They're also getting marketed to classic car owners, because they have low self discharge, and are fine with sitting for months, where conventional batteries tend to not do as well. They're a close enough match to lead-acid batteries that a pretty simple battery management system can make them work properly, and be included in a battery. I'd expect a replacement for to be pretty easy to source for one of these stoves, if required, as 26700 cells are a commodity item, and building a pack to a required capacity is a pretty common thing. Costs are continuing to fall on the batteries, so we'll see more uses like this.

Battery powered devices like this are taking advantage of the device not being used all that much. That means there's plenty of time to charge the battery. That probably wouldn't work for a commercial kitchen. There's a fair amount of larger scale battery buffering being deployed, in many cases where an area has a peak demand greater than what the transmission liine to it can provide, but the energy demand can be met by it (averaged over a day), and it's impracticable to increase transmission capacity. there are also deployments for renewables like wind farms, where peak production can be quite a bit higher than average, and the grid connection isn't big enough for that. I don't think anyone has deployed a system big enough for a solar or wind farm to look like base load plants, but I won't be surprised when it happens.

do they have dates? It's possilbe one of them (probably the old fashioned one) is old.

Duke's is much thicker than Hellman's. I can taste the difference if I taste them directly, but I can't on a sandwich or in egg salad. I've not tried potato salad, but I suspect it would also be indistinguishable to me. It might matter for a dip or something like that, where the mayo is a much bigger part o the flabor. Kewpie, on the other hand, I can taste in anything. I don't like it, but lots of people do.

yes, but because it's easy, not because it's useful. the purpose of the hood is to exhaust smoke, grease, etc, and the design of the hood - shape, location, baffles, and so on - is very important to that. But putting that data on spec sheet is a lot harder than just putting the notional fan capacity. A well designed hood can capture the smoke and get rid of it, using a lot less CFM than one that just does it by brute force. (As an example, I knew some people who opened a restaurant. They took over an existing space, and made changes to the kitchen so they could be a scratch kitchen, and not the 'microwave everything' the previous tenant had been. Because they were on the ground floor of a multi use building, they couldn't easily expand their venting, so they had to find a hood company that could provide an engineered solution that would work. They ended up roughly doubling the number of burners covered by the hoods, but needed less air movement than the old system, and something like 20% of what the prescriptive code requirement was.)

Code requires make up air for fans exhausting 400 CFM or more. If you don't supply it with proper make up, air will be sucked from somewhere, often down the flue of a furnace or water heater, especially in tighter buildings. Don't pretend you'll open a window when you run it, because you won't. Even if you do, other people won't, because they won't know they should. Ideally, make up air is fed into the HVAC, so it can conditioned before being put into the house.

I lost one of the little rubber feet on mine a few years ago. I ended up replacing all of them, and they're much grippier than the originals. I don't know if that was because of age, or if they changed the material. It used to walk a bit when working hard, but it dosn't move anymore.

If you're picking up something hot, and need to hold on to it, a mitt will let heat though, and the radiant heat from a hot pan can burn exposed skin. a grabber keeps your hand further away, and takes longer to transfer heat into your hand. the other place they're used is for grabbing pans out of a shallow oven -- pizza cooked in a 2" deep pan in a 5" oven is pretty tight, and grabbing with a tool is safer. You can reach in with one hand, grab the lip of the pan, pull it out, and put it on the counter. you'd need to use two hands with mitts or gloves, which is likely impossible to do in a crowded oven. @Shel_B the grabbers you list work on pizza pans, and get used in every pizza place in Chicago that does deep dish. some places, the wait staff use them to carry the pans to the table. I don't see why they wouldn't work on a sheet pan, as long as the jaw is short enough. (pizza pans are taller than sheet pans.)_

I buy a bunch of cheap ones at the resturant supply store, and throw them out as they get dull. Except the last one, which I use way too long, because I forget to buy more.

They'll also take a wicked sharp edge if you work at it a bit. they don't hold that edge very long, but it only takes a few seconds to get it back. I toss them when I've taken a little bit off the width, right when they don't cut against a board well anymore. I don't do a whole lot of actual intricate paring, If I did they could go a lot longer.

Crunchy, fatty, salty heresy. Mmmm.

I am not a huge TJ fan, but I worked around the corner from one for a decade, and got to know the products pretty well, because I'd get something for lunch or to take home as part of dinner several times a week. There are a few things I do like, such as the Frito clone (better than original), the dried fruit, some of the cheese and other dairy, and some things that they sell at good prices. But now that it requires a special trip, I only go a couple times a year.

We have one of those, along with a shorter one. It's a nice knife, sharpens pretty easily, stays sharp a decent time, okay but not great handle. It's a bit longer than what @lindag asked for (~4.75"). I think the shorter one is a 90mm (little over 3.5"). They have gotten quite a bit more expensive since I got ours, there may be better values these days, but I haven't looked at knives lately. the victorinox parers @blue_dolphin linked to are excellent values, we have a few of those. They're super thin and a little flexy. They sharpen very easily and take a great edge, and for $10 or so, they're hard to beat.

wood shrinks along the rings, so the outside will shrink more than the inside, which is why rounds like this are likely to split. commercially prepared rounds are usually cut from logs that have been dried whole, so there isn't as much stress on them, but they still often check. There are things people soak them in that are supposed to keep it from happening. polyethylene glycol is one thing, there's also a commercial product called pentacryl that is something else. No experience, but I've heard good things.

I am pretty sure having a terrible parking lot is part of TJ site selection criteria. All of the ones I've ever been to (maybe a dozen, in several states) have had horrible parking lots. Too small for the traffic, horribly laid out, or both.

Webstaurantstore lists a few, including a cadco. The bigger countertop cadco ovens are well regarded. https://www.webstaurantstore.com/14183/countertop-convection-ovens.html?filter=size:1-4-size

yes, but they're not as common, and I'm sure the selection is limited. The only one I dan think of seeing was in a coffee shop that was using it to heat up pastries.

The general term for that sort of oven is a 'half-size' oven. They're available from all sorts of suppliers, with various numbers of shelves from just two or three up to 10 or 12. The smaller 3 or 4 shelf ones are often stacked as a pair. All the ones I've seen have been convection ovens -- and a non-convection one would not work well, because there's very little room around a half sheet pan for natural circulation. They're very common in small places, either for small batch baking or reheating (or finishiing) for service. There are also combi (+steam) versions, but I have no experience.

I have a bunch of these bags, which we use all the time. At one point, we had 23 of them, but some have perished or been lost. I worked next door to a trader joes for a long time, and I'd buy any I liked. I make a modification, though. I add a shoulder strap of 1" webbing. 44" one side to a side release buckle, 6" on hte ohter side of the buckle in a fixed loop. The first couple I did I made a fixed strap out of canvas, and decided it needed to be adjustable. when we lived in the condo and were street parking, I could carry about 12 loaded bags a couple blocks.

We go through a lot of mustard, but we spread it out over several different sorts, so some of the specialty stuff hangs around for a while.

Even the Driscoll strawberries from FL tend to be okay. I had some for breakfast. (The CA ones are awful, at least by the time they get to chicago. I assume this is because Driscoll grow strawberry shaped Styrofoam blobs, instead of fruit, because they ship better. Other growers from CA are better, but tend to have more damaged fruit.) There also tends to be a very brief moment when they're shockingly cheap.

We've had one for about 3 years. It's generally been fine. The static is excessive, and it retains rather more coffee than I'd like. But it does grind well for the most part. Over the weekend, it died in mid-grind. Electronic failure, not a jam. Some troubleshooting turned up a fuse on the PCB that was open. This seems to be a pretty common problem, Fellow's response is "too bad, buy a new one.". But it's an easy fix for someone who knows which end of a soldering iron is which. It's a through-hole fuse, in a common size (3.15A 250V, 8mm DIP format). I have unnice words for people who solder on a motor protection fuse....

Appliance manufacturers say not to use extension cords because there is huge variation in extension cords. Not just wire gauge, but plug fitment and retention as well. They don't know if you're going to plug your 1500 W hot plate into a crappy 16 gauge lamp cord, or a good quality 12 gauge one. it removes the whole variable if someone complains it doesn't work right (or worse, caught on fire). But there's no reason you can't run an appliance on an extension cord, you just need to use a good one, take care of it, and destroy it if it becomes damaged.

WE have a 14 cup cuisinart food processor. the work bowl has broken again. I've been unimpressed with it for the 12 years we've had it, it's gone through a bunch of plastic pieces, and has generally not been as good as the one my mom used to have. So, I think instead of buying yet another work bowl, I think I'd like to get something else. The size is right, both the capacity and counter foot print. We do normal food processor stuff, and a moderate amount of shredding and grating. We have a good blender for blender stuff, this is just for slicing and grating and general mushing together. What do people like that doesn't require an expensive plastic piece on a regular basis?