slkinsey

What made you choose 68C? That temperature is way too high.

Soot. If you have actual flames, you're going to get soot.

Also, it's been a little meh lately. Does anyone really care that he gave one star to BarBao?

I suppose it depends on what it is. How do you suppose the acid might be added? If you're talking about spirits such as straight bourbon and rye, this would not be possible under the law.

http://www.unitedcityicecube.com/

I like Wild Turkey rye as much as the next guy. But Old Overholt is pretty awesome stuff. Jim Beam rye? Meh.

Why would there be legalities concerning acidity?

I used to have a standalone pasta extruder machine. It was a huge pain to use and the pasta was mediocre, so I stopped using it and eventually gave it away to some sucker, er, friend.

Yes. That is my argument. My argument is that it is impossible to make home-extruded pasta that is competitive with even, say, Ronzoni in terms of quality. Making dry pasta is an industrial process. The durum wheat is mixed into a very stiff dough with very little water, and yet needs to be worked with a very strong machine in order to develop the gluten properly. Few, if any, home mixers or standalone pasta extruding machines are capable of doing this. Certainly I've almost choked my heavy-duty KitchenAid on durum pasta doughs that were really already too wet. After that, this stiff dough needs to be forced through a die with a lot of pressure (again, something that few machines can do well) in order to get the correct coating, texture and firm bite. After that, the pasta needs to be thoroughly dried in a temperature and humidity controlled environment. All these things are difficult-to-impossible for a home cook, even one who may be willing to invest multiple thousands of dollars. What you can perhaps get is a not-so-great version of the not-so-great "fresh extruded pasta" you can buy in some supermarkets. If you like this sort of pasta (I find it neither fish nor fowl, having none of the properties I desire in either dry or fresh pasta), then you might find one of these machines worthwhile. But, in terms of making real dry pasta that won't make you think "this isn't as good as a $1.19 box of De Cecco" -- I don't think it's going to happen.

I think the new NP is pretty good. Perhaps even better than the old. My disappointment isn't necessarily that NO is shipping an inferior product (and for this we should be thankful, since it is the usual course of events) but rather in the loss of the old American formula. The only inherent downside I can see to the new stuff is that a Fitty-Fitty tends to look a bit like a urine sample with a lemon twist.

My going-in hypothesis is that the parchment is mostly useful because it reduces the effective "air space" in the braising vessel, which may have some effect. If one were to use a braising vessel with shorter sides, this perhaps wouldn't be an issue. I'm not sure I can buy the "burning off on the lid" theory. Presumably, if the heavy iron lid is above the boiling point of water, then vapors from the braising liquid would not condense there. If vapors from the braising liquid are able to condense there, then it seems likely that the inner surface of the lid is lower than 100C. This does obscure one important fact about enameled cast iron cocottes such as Le Creuset, which is that they're not particularly optimized for use in the oven. Rather, they're designed to be used on the stovetop, and I would actually argue in favor of stovetop braising (I would recommend the addition of an aluminum disk even when using enameled cast iron). On the stove top, the heavy lid stays relatively cool and recondenses cooking vapors back into the braise (Staub even has little nodules on the underside of the lid to facilitate this).

Actually, everything conducts heat. Some things just do it better than others. I'm not sure I follow the logic of including parchment paper if the braise is condicted in an appropriately sized vessel with a heavy and well-fitting lid. Using something like a Staub shouldn't result in much evaporation anyway. Perhaps someone can explain this a bit better.

I may have said this before, but it bears repeating: There is no reason to have a home extruder. There is a very simple reason for this, which is that extruder machines make pasta secca (dried pasta such as spaghetti, penne and so forth) comprised of water and durum wheat flour. This is an industrial process, and it is more or less impossible to make pasta secca at home that approaches the quality of even relatively pedestrian examples from the store, never mind a top quality artisinal brand. In this sense, pasta secca is entirely different from pasta fresca, which is most commonly made with eggs and soft wheat, and most traditionally made at home by hand. Homemade pasta fresca will almost always be better than anything you can buy in a store. I would rate home pasta extruder machines as the most common machine to live untouched in the back of a kitchen cabinet. I used to have one, but it was difficult to use and not much fun, and didn't make particularly good pasta.

I wouldn't say that the "new" NP is sweeter than the "old." Perhaps the opposite.

That makes perfect sense to me! I have a much smaller burr grinder that I use for non-espresso coffee, and which I load/grind per batch of coffee. For espresso, I have the one blend that I use, and once I have that dialed into the machine, I don't want to fiddle around with readjusting the machine for different blends every other time. I figure I'm using at least a whole hopper's worth of beans before I might move on to a different blend (which I haven't done in around 5 years, being pretty happy with the blend I use now -- Sweet Maria's Espresso Monkey blent supplemented with 10% each of primo robusta and Monsooned Malabar).

I roast my own beans on a weekly basis. Never have beans that are more than about 8 days old. So there's not much profit in storing them anywhere other than the hopper.

Trust me, you do not want a manual ice crusher. Been there. Not going back. What you want is a vintage Ice-O-Matic ice crusher by Rival, like this one. They can usually be found on eBay for a reasonable price. Just search for "ice crusher" and "rival." You want one of the deco-style ones.

Beef has by far the most free glutamate of any non-cured meat, at around 110 mg per 100 g (almost a factor of ten more than chicken or pork). Presumably aging naturally increases this amount, and one would expect to see some variability according to what the animal ate. This is nowhere near the amount found in, say, parmigiano reggiano, which is closer to 1,200 mg per 100 g.

Just for the sake of completing Nathan's comments... we should mention that the foregoing is true of the first cut (aka "flat) part of the brisket, and not as much true of the second cut (aka "deckle") part of the brisket. The latter can be quite fatty throughout (which is why it is so delicious!).

Yes, I should have said "richer" rather than "sweeter."

Given the fact that one isn't using a ton of the stuff for cooking, I think "dry white wine" will suffice.

I've always used white.

Isn't "cocktail sherry" sweeter than that? Like an oloroso?

Yea. I could have got something fairly similar for around half the price from Auber, but their kit uses the controller's on-off function to control the steam temperature and for some reason I wanted the PID to control the temperature. There are other reasons for the price difference. First, Auber is selling a kit with a PID that they manufacture themselves, so they're getting a cost savings right there. Also, the PID itself is far less expensive than the PID used in PIDKits implementation (Auber sells their SYL-1512A for 36 bucks; Watlow's Series 96 PID goes for a couple hundred bucks). Ultimately though... yea, I paid double for a small upgrade in performance over the Auber kit. That's how I roll. I am by no means an electronics expert, and the instructions are very detailed and clear. But there is some fiddly work that has to be done in very tight spaces. Several spade-type connectors need to be disconnected without damaging anything, which was especially tricky on my older machine as the connectors were very firm with a hair-trigger release, the old plastic was a bit brittle, and they were in difficult to reach spots. What makes installing the steam piece tricky is that you have to partially remove the front panel in order to access the steam switch (there is simply no room to get a finger in there while it connected). But there are plenty of wires that are connected, and need to stay connected to the front panel. So you have to be very careful and move the front panel in a very specific way (explained and illustrated in the instructions) in order to access the steam switch. So, it's doable for anyone who is reasonably coordinated and capable of reading and following instructions (which even remind you to save all the screws in a separate bowl). But it's... you know... tricky. The only tools required are medium tip philips and flathead screwdrivers of reasonable length, a small flathead screwdriver, needlenose pliers and scissors. They also recommend a 7mm deep well socket for tightening the nut that holds down the SSR, but I was able to do it with my long/thin needlenose pliers. If you ask, they'll send you the socket to borrow.

Since the tea people have been posting interesting shots of their wares, I though it would be interesting to see what everyone is using for coffee. Should be an interesting contrast, since I expect coffee brewing setups to be more industrial and high tech whereas tea brewing setups tend to lean artisanal and low tech -- for the fanatics, anyway. The must obvious comparison would be a tricked out espresso machine versus a yixing teapot. This contrast is not universally true, of course. I'm sure there are some high tech tea brewing setups, and some coffee lovers use a simple cone filter. But it seems more or less accurate in a general sort of way. Speaking of tricked out espresso setups, here is mine. Relatively humble compared to many other machines, but does the trick for me. On the left is a Rancilio doserless Rocky grinder. The machine is a Rancilio Silvia hacked with a dual-setpoint Watlow 96 PID controller that regulates both the brewing and steaming temperatures. This was fairly tricky to install, because you have to partially remove the front panel of the machine to gain access to the steam switch (you also have to remove the front and internal splashplates and the top and back panels, but that is not so tricky). Once installed, however, it's been sweet. All I have to do is turn on the steam switch like normal and the PID automatically kicks over to the higher setpoint for steaming. The other material modification I did on the machine is to replace the regular steam tip with a three-hole steam tip. As it so happens, I have three portafilters. Overkill, I know, but I acquired them at different times. In the machine is a bottomless portafilter with a La Marzocco triple basket inside. That's what I use pretty much all the time. Over on top of the knock box is a regular (with bottom) double spout Rancilio pro portafilter. I got this when I first bought the machine, because it was considerably heavier than the stock portafilter. This was back before people were doing the bottomless portafilter thing. Also on the knock box is the stock portafilter, retrofitted with a single spout. I really never use this for its intended purpose, and keep it mostly fitted with a blank insert for backflushing. On top are some Miscela D'Oro branded espresso and cappuccino cups. I have cups from a number of different brands, but I like the Miscela D'Oro ones the best because they are the thickest. Especially the espresso cups, which are the thickest I have ever found. Down on the tray are my tampers. On the right is the Ergo-Packer from Espresso Vivace (aka "old busted") and on the left is my new C-Ripple tamper from Reg Barber (aka "new hotness"). As you can see, the whole thing is on some Metro Shelving, and I store some sheet pans underneath. This is really convenient when it comes to cleanup, because I can just sweep away any coffee grinds and the fall through onto the sheet pan, where they are easily dumped into the sink. Who's next?