jsolomon

It's not at thermal equilibrium til the ice is mostly melted. Ice doesn't have a high thermal conductivity.

Don't forget, there are a lot of bars out there that store their glasses in a freezer, so even sans-drink, they would form ice crystals due to the temperature of the glass. It really pisses me off when I have to strain the slush from my drink through my teeth. I let my bartender know after the first time that I expect a room-temperature glass.

Wow, I totally missed seeing that. Hmm... I must need to get my eyes checked. Now, if I could only see the phone...

The only food-related deal-breaker I remembered after I posted previously is one time I took a smokin'-hot gal (and ethics violation, but that's beside the point) out for sushi. She was such an A.D.D. queen that we left in 3 minutes flat because she hadn't seen a server since we were seated. Even now when I think about it, I feel rather like the wino that Richard Pryor claims he ran by when he lit himself on fire. I don't know what really happened with her in that place, but it was fast, spectacular, and unusual.

4 is completely bogus. If I drop something that is 4 kg at 35F into 8 kg of water at 122 F, I'm going to get a significant temperature drop. That's just thermodynamics. Now, recovery is based on several things, not the least of which is the sheer wattage of your device. But, then you get into response studies, specifying your sampling intervals, and all of that. 2 is really not a problem. However, requesting a reasonable recovery time is not out of the realm of possibility. Asking for a 2 minute recovery time WITH a 2 degree temperature range is adding several hundred dollars of cooling capacity to a $80 challenge, which is either an overzealousness (cheap, fast, reliable-> pick 2) or an oversight. But, I'm not going to crank out something for a challenge that is just based on someone's bluster on a board. If there is a challenge, we need an award.

What about a sodium alginate "rice", a la Ferran Adria?

So does my question. If I come in under $80 (your suggestion), what do I get?

UL doesn't certify prototypes, to my knowledge. I can use UL certified parts, but that doesn't make the whole UL certified.

1: I don't work for minimum wage. 2: Temperature being adjusted in increments of 0.1 deg is all well and good, but you're missing slkinsey's finer point of accuracy vs reproducibility. I can guarantee you that for your $1000, you purchased something that you can set to the 0.1 degree, but is only accurate to within 1-2 degrees of your set-point.

Okay, how much do I win when I give you the prototype with COTS parts of said item?

I pre-screen the eating sensibilities of potential dates so there are no such embarassing first encounters. I simply will not abide cooking for someone or eating with someone who will editorialize my choices and expect me to bite my tongue when I want to call them a popular-culture-crazed simpleton. My fiance is awesome. She wants me to try brains, and she loves tongue tacoes. And, she doesn't mind the manners that I picked up eating MRE after MRE in the Army. *eye food on floor* You gonna eat that?

That's something that we were never clued in to when I worked for $tarbuck$ It probably would have helped to some extent (but not nearly enough)

Update: I got Scholle on the phone yesterday, and they are sending me some bags to try. So, if they get here in time to bottle on Thursday, spooktacular. I will taste side-by-side in a month or so. If they don't, I guess I'll have to run another batch through the fermentor. Oh, such troubles weigh on my weary mind

I just got reminded of this (hat-tip to www.digg.com) Do you really brew this for 30 total seconds? Egads, that doesn't sound like long. But, for some applications, my melitta 1-cup doesn't quite work--it doesn't fit well on my thermos that I take to classes. So, I'm looking for alternatives. Has anyone had more experience with this? What are the required brew temperatures? What do extended brew times do?

A religious friend once assured me that the afterlife hosts all have impeccable taste in food and wine.

No, it's true. One of the final tests for presence of Pseudomonas (a nasty bacterium) is fluorescence under a UV light. This is usually shown to microbiology lab students using rotting chicken, but you can use rotting pork just the same. Although, the green fluorescence protein-engineered pigs are pretty spectacular. I wanna know what their bacon looks like.

They're only cool until the interfere with the barristo pulling my espresso. Then, I may come over the counter and caffeinate myself in a most un-customer-like fashion.

On a completely different note, I think if there were a squid-ink beer, I would try it. But, not in my sacred martini. I can't even bring myself to drink a vodka "martini" without vituperative editorial comments. I wonder what squid-ink would do to beer.

I don't understand why someone is necessitating your portafilter be in thermal equilibrium. An extraction is necessarily a non-equilibrium process, so having the temperatures be sans-equilibrium (but close) sounds reasonable to me.

It does, but molecular biology grade from Sigma will be equivalent.

As an analytical chemist/microbiologist working in Food/Pharmaceuticals, my suggestion is to ask for "USP" or "Molecular Biology" grade reagents.

Making your own decent water bath is certainly not something that is too difficult. With a $40 PID controller and a $20 heater/stirrer, you can get yourself a reasonable water bath off of eBay that would support the use of an 8qt (maybe even 12 qt) pot.

Who are the Hash House Harriers? There are thousands of willing participants. Who's going to write the grant?

My mother has some experience with this. She uses it just like regular whole-wheat flour. Tastes great. Not less filling.

Fish pants, naturally