A smallish thread about a smallish kitchen renovation

[Anna N]

 Yes, I’m afraid that might have been a dealbreaker for me. With a double sink I might just have tolerated it. But with the single sink and nowhere on that right-hand side… 

 

I am sure you will become accustomed to it. I have always said that life is a series of compromises. You will have a wonderful kitchen to make up for it. And it could well be that for you it is much less of an issue than it would be for me!   Enjoy your new space.

[haresfur]

41 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 Yes, I’m afraid that might have been a dealbreaker for me. With a double sink I might just have tolerated it. But with the single sink and nowhere on that right-hand side… 

 

I am sure you will become accustomed to it. I have always said that life is a series of compromises. You will have a wonderful kitchen to make up for it. And it could well be that for you it is much less of an issue than it would be for me!   Enjoy your new space.

 

We had a double sink previously and I''m actually looking forward to the single, since I always had trouble washing big cutting boards and sheet pans. We will just have dirty dishes on the island as before.

[chromedome]

I have a slight preference for a double sink, but I do appreciate the versatility of having one large one. My last place in Nova Scotia had the big old-fashioned sink, and I "doubled" it by the simple expedient of using a small plastic tub as my washbasin for dishes. The rest of the sink then became the functional equivalent of a second. When necessary (big roasters, etc) I'd just lift out the basin, and have the full space for oversized items.

[haresfur]

5 minutes ago, chromedome said:

I have a slight preference for a double sink, but I do appreciate the versatility of having one large one. My last place in Nova Scotia had the big old-fashioned sink, and I "doubled" it by the simple expedient of using a small plastic tub as my washbasin for dishes. The rest of the sink then became the functional equivalent of a second. When necessary (big roasters, etc) I'd just lift out the basin, and have the full space for oversized items.

 

I usually use a large pot or bowl for this. Bonus if it was already dirty.

[haresfur]

I eventually managed to turn on the oven *and* set the timer to heat up a quiche for supper.

[ChrisTaylor]

I think that's the first time I've seen the (original) bench top!

 

Nicely done.

[haresfur]

We tracked down the message to the cabinet guy specifying we wanted rounded safety corners on the bench top. "Don't laugh but I'll kill myself running into the island if we don't round the corners" said DB. He did the ordering for us and we had discussed what we needed to ask for with the fake stone company. So after sending him a copy of the message a few times, he talked with the bench guy who offered to come out. He rounded the corners with a grinder sans charge. He didn't want to take too much off because it would not look right and said this would keep it from catching if you hit it and make more of a glancing blow. "I have rounded corners and kids and can tell you, if they hit the bench, they're going down." 😄 I would have liked to see a bit more taken off, but it is certainly better.

 

The carpenter came out and finished the trim. Painting is done, so about all left is staining/varnishing trim and the backsplash.

[haresfur]

Decided to give the oven a bit of a test with Modernist Cuisine's low temperature steak. Seared it first in a cast iron pan over the wok burner on full whack. Verdict is that the burner with the broader outside ring going as well as the focused flame is great for this. The ample smoke was handled very well by the exhaust fan with very little smell in the room. Put the oven's temp probe into the meat along with my needle thermocouple probe. Then into the oven at 60 C, which turned out to be too low so I bumped it to 65 then 70. However, the meat temperature stalled well beyond supper time and it barely reached 55 C. The temp probes in the meat were a couple of degrees apart, which is a bit of a problem if you were really wanting to have the oven turn itself off at temperature. Probably better for a roast where the oven's probe could be inserted all the way into the meat (I think it is an RTD). But the oven temperature was rock steady and within a degree of a separate thermocouple I put in. The oven temperature can only be set to 5 degrees but goes down to 30 C. I think that is sufficient.

 

Don't know why I had so much trouble getting the meat to temperature since the oven was holding the proper T. Anyway the meat was great cold today.

 

A couple of pictures. Sorry about the spill on the door.

 

Spock gave it the seal of smell-approval.

 

[lindag]

6 hours ago, haresfur said:

Decided to give the oven a bit of a test with Modernist Cuisine's low temperature steak. Seared it first in a cast iron pan over the wok burner on full whack. Verdict is that the burner with the broader outside ring going as well as the focused flame is great for this. The ample smoke was handled very well by the exhaust fan with very little smell in the room. Put the oven's temp probe into the meat along with my needle thermocouple probe. Then into the oven at 60 C, which turned out to be too low so I bumped it to 65 then 70. However, the meat temperature stalled well beyond supper time and it barely reached 55 C. The temp probes in the meat were a couple of degrees apart, which is a bit of a problem if you were really wanting to have the oven turn itself off at temperature. Probably better for a roast where the oven's probe could be inserted all the way into the meat (I think it is an RTD). But the oven temperature was rock steady and within a degree of a separate thermocouple I put in. The oven temperature can only be set to 5 degrees but goes down to 30 C. I think that is sufficient.

 

Don't know why I had so much trouble getting the meat to temperature since the oven was holding the proper T. Anyway the meat was great cold today.

 

A couple of pictures. Sorry about the spill on the door.

 

 

Spock gave it the seal of smell-approval.

 

 

 

Very nice!!

[gfweb]

6 hours ago, haresfur said:

Decided to give the oven a bit of a test with Modernist Cuisine's low temperature steak. Seared it first in a cast iron pan over the wok burner on full whack. Verdict is that the burner with the broader outside ring going as well as the focused flame is great for this. The ample smoke was handled very well by the exhaust fan with very little smell in the room. Put the oven's temp probe into the meat along with my needle thermocouple probe. Then into the oven at 60 C, which turned out to be too low so I bumped it to 65 then 70. However, the meat temperature stalled well beyond supper time and it barely reached 55 C. The temp probes in the meat were a couple of degrees apart, which is a bit of a problem if you were really wanting to have the oven turn itself off at temperature. Probably better for a roast where the oven's probe could be inserted all the way into the meat (I think it is an RTD). But the oven temperature was rock steady and within a degree of a separate thermocouple I put in. The oven temperature can only be set to 5 degrees but goes down to 30 C. I think that is sufficient.

 

Don't know why I had so much trouble getting the meat to temperature since the oven was holding the proper T. Anyway the meat was great cold today.

 

A couple of pictures. Sorry about the spill on the door.

 

 

 

I don't get the value of MCs method here. The time to cook would be longer than that required for sous vide since heat conduction is less in air than water.

 

It might go better in a steam oven, but still there would be temp swings given the way ovens are controlled.

[kayb]

I want Spock.

 

[haresfur]

On 12/18/2018 at 1:10 AM, gfweb said:

 

I don't get the value of MCs method here. The time to cook would be longer than that required for sous vide since heat conduction is less in air than water.

 

It might go better in a steam oven, but still there would be temp swings given the way ovens are controlled.

 

I agree. I probably should have used the fan-forced heat, but I'm not sure that would have made much difference. I mostly did it to challenge the oven.  The steak was really tasty, though.

[rotuts]

@haresfur

 

curious on how long that Steak a la MC was in the oven.

 

using a fan in a dry oven , well , dries things out.

 

convention bake , even w 2 fans , a fan for circulation , and a fan that circulates ' fresh heat ' from a hot coil

 

dont do a lot for cooks over a certain time.

 

they do give your oven ' even heat '

 

so you can do short cooks , i.e a bazillion sheet pans of cookies   

 

all at the same time w fairly uniform results.

 

the Combi-Oven Goddess's need to get over themselves

 

and do the right thing and set us all up w domestic combi ovens

[haresfur]

The steak was in about 5 hours. I think the meat temperature went up only a degree in the last hour.

 

Thanks for the thoughts on convection. My new oven has a lot of different heating options and I still need to figure out what to use when. I did the steak with top and bottom heating elements. I was impressed at how steady the heat was. You can also use either one of those plus fan or a convection setting where the air is heated as it goes through the fan. A number of ovens here have water reservoirs to spritz moisture into the oven but that's not really a steam oven.

[dcarch]

12 hours ago, haresfur said:

I don't get the value of MCs method here. The time to cook would be longer than that required for sous vide since heat conduction is less in air than water.

 

True in a way, but ---

Once the surface temperature gets to, let's say, 130F, this temperature will travel at the same speed to the center of food. Thermal conductivity is a constant regardless of heat source.

 

dcarch.

 

 

[haresfur]

Finally getting to posting a photo of the finished cooktop and splash-back or back-splash, depending on your country. I think the colour worked out well. I was worried it would be a bit much. We should swap the power points for black ones.

 

ETA: It really isn't that orange - more of a deep red

 

Picking flooring has been a challenge. There are a lot of different shades and tones including the wood floors surrounding the kitchen. I think we are going with a pale tufa look. We are concerned that it is a bit too close to the cabinet colour but nothing else worked for two sets of eyes.

Edited January 13, 2019 by haresfur (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, haresfur said:

Finally getting to posting a photo of the finished cooktop and splash-back or back-splash, depending on your country. I think the colour worked out well. I was worried it would be a bit much. We should swap the power points for black ones.

 

Lovely renovation.  Now what about the CSO?

 

In this country of course power points are slide presentations.

 

[gfweb]

5 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

 

In this country of course power points are slide presentations.

 

 Took me a while to figure it out

[haresfur]

1 hour ago, gfweb said:

 Took me a while to figure it out

 

I keep forgetting that not everyone is bilingual.

[chromedome]

"Divided by a common language," as they say.