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dscheidt

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Everything posted by dscheidt

  1. My wife bought an escali from sur la table. The nutri or nutro or something like that. Works fine so far. measures to the half gram, which is nice, but not necessary. has ml and fl oz units, which is dumb without a way to specify density. presumably it's assuming water.
  2. I bought the oxo. I'm returning it. Two problems: it's too wide to fit in the drawer I need to store it in, which is 7"; and my wife didn't approve of it. she though the cord would break, get dirty, etc. I probably could have made one of the problems work, but not both. so, any narrow scales? that's really hard to search on....
  3. So, this scale is dead. I suppose 16.5 years is okay life span. But, I need a scale. I could just buy another, it's still sold. Or I could buy something new. Waht's out there?
  4. I got given a bunch of 10x18 bags, which were even longer than that that, because they were zipper bags, with the zipper end being factory sealed. (they had a pre printed label stuck to them, with wrong info, which meant the converter who'd ordered them coul;dn't use them. My home kitchen not being subject to FDA inspection....) I have a vp215, which is 15" long, inside the chamber. I used a bunch of them up, and gave the rest away, but they worked okay in the machine, you have to fiddle around with where you have the excess, but it's pretty easy to figure out what works. For stuff that doesn't need a super hard vacuum, just folding the extra under works fine. Also, remember that bags get shorter when they have stuff in them,
  5. One day in August a few (four, five?) years ago, I decided I needed a new TV. So I bought one, a not quite top-of-the-range model, of (by modern tv standards) modest size. It was selling everywhere for about the same price. In November, it was a headline sale item at several different places (best buy, walmart), for $50 to $100 more than I'd bought it, not on sale, in August. In February, (after the super bowl) I happened to mention that to someone, and looked, it was a few bucks cheaper than when I bought it.
  6. If you have ever had ice from a bar or restaurant, you've had ice as 'wet' as the stuff that comes out of of one of these machines. It's not a big deal for anything I use ice for.
  7. I'll the one's I've looked at are just an insulated bin, with a drain. Commercial machines have an ice tray, that's cooled by frigerant piping. water is pumped over the tray, some of it freezes to the tray, the rest flows into a sump, and is recirculated. Some circulate constantly, some do it in spurts. when the machine thinks the ice is done, the refrigerant flow through the tray is reversed, which heats it up a bit, enough to melt the cubes off, and they fall out the chute, into storage bin. The ice is wet, because it's had near freezing water on it, and since it's wet, the storage can't be refrigerated, because the wet ice would form huge clumps as the water froze in storage. To get dry ice, you have to stop the flow of water, wait long enough to be sure every thing is frozen, and then release the ice. There are big ice plants that do that, usually with a slightly different batch process. Packaged ice is often made this way, because it's got to be kept frozen, so wet ice makes horrible blobs. your home freezer makes dry ice, because it makes ice the same way as old-fashioned ice cube trays do, using the cold of the freezer air (instead of cooling the tray). That's slow, because heat transfer from air to water is slower than from the tray to water or later in the process, ice to water of the continuous production machines. (some very fancy fridges have a second ice maker in the door of the fridge, which usually operates on the continuous process). My freezer claims to be able to produce 7 or 8 pounds of ice a day, actual production is maybe 5. The little counter top units we had in the office claimed production of something like 25 pounds a day (which would require constant tending to keep the bin from filling up and refill the water.), and in the summer, we probably got six pounds of ice out of it during a work day.
  8. Refrigerated ice bins are bascially unheard of except in residential freezer ice akers, and the biggest commercial plants. it's much simpler, and cheaper, to just run water over a cold plate, and produce wet ice. For almost all domestic uses, that's not a real problem. If you're putting it in soda, the wet ice provides fewer nucleation points to drive CO2 out of solution, so it's a bonus for that. We had a series of these at the office I used to work in. They lasted a year or two, under pretty heavy usage. the ice was fine for stuff you use it in an office.
  9. I had a chef choice 609 or 610 for several years. It worked fine. For what it cost, it was good. It had a number of annoyances, one being the small blad (7"/180 mm, something like that), which limits what you can cut up. It's also a bit annoying noisy, with a whiney high-rpm motor. The tray to catch cuttings sucks. (this appears to have changed in the newest model, which is more expensive than the old, by a lot. I don't know if they've fixed other issues I had with it.) It's under powered, cutting cheese is a chore, and blew a couple fuses trying to do too much at one go. My biggest gripe was the minimum thickness was too thick for italian beef. (A chicago thing, thin sliced roast beef for a sandwhich) And the thickness setting wanders away from the thinnest setting, so it has to be held in place, which complicates slicing. (this isn't an issue at thicker settings. It drifts, but pretty slowly, and you can just check it visually ever few slices.) the optional blade (serrated, I think) improves performance a lot. I bought a 12" Berkel from a thrift store, spent a lot of time cleaning it, and repairing it. It's vastly superior, but for some reason, my wife won't let me keep it in the kitchen, so I don't use it too often.
  10. My experience with vacuum pumps is mostly for pulling a hard vacuum in AC systems. Hydraulic oils have more components that will evaporate at low pressure, and they won't hold up to heavy vacuum use. It probably doesn't matter much for the amount of use most of these sealers see, and the relatively low level of vacuum they pull. But a quart of actual vacuum oil will last several changes in the 215 pump, and it's only a couple bucks a change. that's worth it in my book.
  11. dscheidt

    Aldi

    it can be done, you're not going to be printing a different list for each recipient, but only for a metro area or a region. It's almost certainly not worth the effort, people who read advertising fliers are probably already your customer and know where you are, or are motivated to find you. the ones I've looked at (none terribly recently) have had web stie links for store locators, too, which is easy enough.
  12. No, good strainers work well. Replacements don't, because they have to fit any tailpiece, and they're all different. Some designs, even from expensive brands are just crap, because consumers put up with crap, and make up excuses (like "there's no overflow, so of course they leak") for it, instead of properly throwing a fit that their $1000 sink doesn't hold water. I installed this strainer in my kitchen sink. https://www.homedepot.com/p/KOHLER-Duo-Strainer-Sink-Strainer-K-R8799-C-CP/100654123 note that it's a whole assembly, not just a basket strainer/stopper, but also the drain tailpiece. It has an o-ring that does the sealing, against a slightly tapered seat, which takes up wear from the o-ring (which can be easily replaced). They seal perfectly, and I expect them to continue doing so for quite some time, with suitable maintenance.
  13. i tried foil in a Wrap-n-Snap. It didn't work well. Didn't pull of well, didn't cut perfectly (and I'd expect it to kill the blade, pretty darn quick.) My history with the dispenser: I bought one. My wife got mad at me, told me it was the most ridiculous thing. Insisted it had to live in a cabinet. I got her to try it. Shortly after, she found a home on the counter for it. She's given at least 8 of them as wedding presents. We're on our third (fourth?), they wear out, the cover catch breaks.
  14. When i've done it, I pull a vaccum until it's going to overflow and then turn the machine off. On my machine at least, that leaves the chamber with whatever vacuum it was at. When you turn it back on, it does the bag seal cycle, and lets air back in. leave it off until the foam goes down, then repeat. Two or three cycles, you get a hard vacuum before it starts to foam up.
  15. one of two possibilities: first is they don't think people will do it enough to matter. Second, they might be using a diaphragm pump. They're relatively insensitive to liquids (as long as they don't get a big slug, some are even capable of dealing with that). They're pretty common in labs, because they don't contaminate oil or water, and where a high vacuum isn't required. They're loud, they don't reach as high a vacuum as even a dry rotary vane pump, and they're slow to get to their highest possible vacuum. I'd have to get a look at the pump. a diaphragm pump actually makes sense for low use machine, if you can accept the noise (or figure out how to make it quieter). lab ones are easy to rebuild (new valves, new diaphragm, takes about as long as it took me to write the post); some purpose built ones are disposable.
  16. Most chamber vacuum sealers use a rotary vane pump, whether dry or oil sealed. Dry rotary vane pumps are relatively reliable, as long as they're used dry. Vapor and solid debris damage the seals. the seals also have physical contact with surfaces, so they wear out. very few home users are going to use one enough to wear them out (lifespans are in hundreds to low thousands of hours, when used at low duty cycles. heavier duty cycles, the seals get hot and wear out faster. At a minute a bag, 1000 hours is 60,000 bags.....) Oil rotary vane pumps have the oil forming the seal, which has the advantage of being renewed constantly, and also makes them resistant to getting liquid or vapor into the pump (as long as you change the oil often enough that it's not water logged.) They do not pull nearly as hard a vacuum, which is probably not a problem for most home use (it matters if you're trying to do some of the fancy compression stuff. Not all of it, though.) Size of the chamber is the biggest issue. i have a vp215. I'd very much like a bigger chamber, both wider (10" bags limit how big a thing you can get into one, and taller. length isn't usual a problem.
  17. and the conveyor belt to bring the cases out from the back?
  18. Way past time. The oil is clear or very slightly amber when new, it's clearly got lots of emusified water in it. I changed it, ran one cycle, and what showed up in the pump sight glass looked filthy, so I drained it again. I'll change it a second time in a few days when I get some more oil. (It takes about 3 ounces.) This shows the skis, and the cantilever required to get the drain plug over the edge. To fill, you have to take the back cover off (easy, just four screws). this is piss poor design, it should be easier to do this.
  19. I have put my vp215 on a pair of skis so I can slide the drain plug past the edge of the cart it's on to change the oil. While I can lift it, I have no desire to do so any more than strictly necessary. The skis are just 5/4 deck boards that span from the front and back feet on each side, and allow the very small cantilever required to get to the drain plug. (not to self: time to change oil....)
  20. I can't be the only one who uses a whisk? A nice heavy ballon whisk, like you'd use for whipping up some cream.
  21. They undboutedly mean "MAP PRO", or however they style it, which is propylene (AKA propene (not propane)). It's maybe 10% hotter, and has a little higher energy content. Not worth the price premium over propane for most uses.
  22. My experience is I want two kinds of peels in my kitchen. A wooden one for launching the pie, and a metal one for pulling it out (and moving it around, it you do that). Metal peels stick more than a wooden peel, but they're thinner and easier to get under the pizza.
  23. I have a somewhat fancier (and more expensive) version of this. Mine has a 20K BTU front left burner, the other front burner is 18K, a different center burner (it's got the ring mode like this, which works for the griddle, but also a center section that's got a pot shaped flame), came with the center grate (and two griddles, but I think that was a mistake). It's also a free standing model, with oven controls on the back. I'm generally pleased with it. I'd prefer the higher output burner on the right, which is an artificat of my layout. I find the oven controls a little annoying, and it always takes me five minutes to reset the clock. Oven thermostat went wrong, and I had to fiddle with it to get it right, but once I did that, it's been fine. It came with three oven racks, which I find annoying. It's great for baking cookies, and stuff like that, but the extra rack gets in the way, and I never remember to adjust the racks before I turn the oven on. (Were it up to me, I'd simply remove one of the racks, and put it back when I needed it, but it's not, so it stays in.)
  24. Blade is removed only for replacement or belt replacement. It weighs about five pounds and is razor sharp, so removal is not a routine task. when the blade guard is removed, you can get to the whol front of the blade, and about 1/4 of the back. Rotate it acouple times to clean the rest.
  25. Cleaning is take the output tray and blade cover off (they're stainless, and could go through the dishwasher). Then remove the move the part of the carriage that touches the food (it's probably not dishwasher safe). Wash those components. The bit that adjusts to set the thickness of slices swings up and back, so you can easily wash it, and access the space under the cariage. Remove any food crumbs, carefully wipe the blade clean. Then spray with steramine, let dry, reassemble. that takes a few minutes, not really worth it for a single tomato, but if it were on my kitchen counter, I might use it to slice everything for a single sandwich. It's less of a hassle than the plastic chef's choice I have is.
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