Vacuum Sealers, built in or portable, Miele, Irinox Zero or what?
waverly6
5 years ago
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digdirt2
5 years agoRelated Discussions
Viking, Sub-Zero, et al. Really better or just snob appeal?
Comments (65)I've had my SZ since '99 when the price tag didn't bother me. Now, its up there. I have a few friends who are realtors who tell me I've added to the value of my house as SubZero has such a great reputation. Even with the mechanical complexity of the ice on the door, I really haven't had any failures once I figured out that you have to switch from a Culligan Reverse Osmosis water purifier to a Kinetico Quickflow for the Ice maker to keep from overflowing. With the low water pressure of the Culligan, I had to manually defrost the icemaker when I tested to see if the freezer really can go below zero. Back in those times, the SZ was the only fridge with ice on the door that consumed less than 900Kw/H a year thanks to the air lock on the door dispenser and having two separate compressors for fridge and freezer. My house is solar, so that was very important to me. If water on the door dispenser stops flowing, you set the fridge temp below 34 and it froze. You can't leave salad stuff outside the crisper even at 34. It will freeze and decay quickly. Same thing with fruits like strawberries. They go bad faster if they start to freeze. My beer has never been as cold and delicious since it started resting in the meat drawer. Your mileage may vary. My other appliances are a beloved F&P dishdrawer and an AGA cooker. But, thats another thread....See MoreJust curious - what is your oldest, working appliance?
Comments (64)There's a clock in a stove in a house that burned in a canyon near us; the burn was 15 years ago at least and the house is gone but the clock still works .... can that have honorary mention? I don't know how old it is though.... We fight with a half propane-half -geez I dunno, kerosene? - that part is gone -- range that predates 1950 every summer. Parents' waffle iron from the 40's still works. I want it but my mother gets very offended when I ask for it. Her grandkids will be too old to enjoy waffles soon.... I have a hand-held beater from the 60's. Love that thing. It's turquoise - what more could you want? It wont work unless you wear an apron. :)...See MoreWent appliance shopping--didn't see much new! Sous Vide Oven?
Comments (14)So, from Pedro's graphs, it appears that the steam oven has a wobble of about 3-4 degrees, which is about what I'd expect from the discussion. Plenty good for making dinner, but not precise enough for when that's the difference between different levels of doneness. I think this is where the immersion circulator is revolutionary and wipes out a lot of the assumptions in the existing texts. Given the assumption that they really are as accurate as they're supposed to be (I tested once with my instant read, because I was using a big roasting pan and wasn't sure about the large volume, and it was fine, but that was nowhere near a scientific test), and have had tremendous results, but haven't had a fail to investigate. When looking at the old style commercial circulators with tanks and commercial or the original high end only CSOs, many thousands of dollars for either, for a specialty piece of equipment, it's a debate worth having. With an inexpensive immersion circulator and a $10 pot or bucket or cooler, easily gotten for free, as well, it just throws those arguments out. The immersion circulator can be classed with the torch, infrared thermometer, and grill press, as a kitchen gadget that's slightly pricey for a limited use item, but is just another tool in the kitchen. It's the price of sous vide grade vacuum bag rolls that's the kicker, nowadays, when a circulator costs about the same as any other countertop oven. I reuse the water for the washing up. :) Well, that paragraph is a mess. What I meant was that a lot of the discussions are from before the immersion circulator (and from a professional perspective) and I think it really changes things, especially for home cooks who already have a vacuum sealer. I didn't find what you were referring to in Cooking Issues, but it was very interesting. I did find the discussion of the pickling in vacuum interesting, but I don't know enough to know if the vacuum chamber is necessary or just what they had? Perhaps it builds a truer vacuum, and the pickler was talking about the pressure and pressure release boiling, so maybe that is different with a chamber than just sucking out the air. If so, that would be a reason for the small vacuum drawers, as well. I've been looking at sous vide turkey breasts. I did the roulades last year, and they were great. I found a lot of recommendations for on the bone, but they still remove the ribs. I don't want to fiddle around with that, though I could probably get the butcher to do it. Some of those drawers don't look like they'd hold a whole turkey breast on the bone, though I'm pretty sure it would fit in my bag material. Chanop, many thanks, again, for the great discussion and for providing so many interesting sources of input. It's a real treat!...See MoreMy Miele induction cooktop died after 7 years
Comments (30)I'm responding to venmar's question: While all of the above comments are true, I do have to wonder why some of the GE and Kenmore branded version induction cooktops from the early 1980's are still functioning while our modern equivalents are so fragile and short lived. Well, actually, there will be some current induction ranges that will last just as long as some of the first gen models you mentioned. Note that I said "some." Seems to me that in any given electronics product line, some units will chug on for a long time and some will not. One of my aunts still has a functioning early Kenmore induction range. (FWIW, it was my intro to induction cooking appliances three decades and something ago.) So, the last time I needed a new stove, I looked into maybe getting a "pre-owned" Kenmore induction range from the 80's. A bit of research showed that every story of longevity like my aunt's was swamped by many tales of woe, of gnashing of teeth, of unrepairability, etc. etc. My take away is this: it is really hard to say if all of our "modern equivalents" really are significantly more fragile and shorter-lived than the older induction models. Or older stoves generally. As plllog says of fridges, nobody really expected a Kenmore to last for decades, even the older models that didn't have any electronics, but some of them did. That some antique appliances are still around and working doesn't necessarily make them better than the current models. That being said, I certainly see the appeal of Venmar's vintage back-up coil burner range for simple reliability and durability. It is not just induction, either; it is pretty much all major brand appliances which run off circuit boards. But there will be tradeoffs. The extent of those trade-offs may or may not be worthwhile to any given one of us. As appealing as the simplicity and reliablity factors can make a vintage range seem, there are still some major trade-offs in day to day cooking such as waste heat, slow responsiveness, uneven ovens, etc. Seems to me that this is pretty much applicable to all appliances. Fr'instance, even with all my neo-luddite tendencies, there is no way I would trade my current Kitchenaid/Whilrpool FD fridge for the 1954 Westinghouse chill chest I had in graduate school 40 years ago. The problem as I see it is the uncertainty. There is no way to know if your unit is going to last a long time or fail early. That is why I find myself nodding in agreement every time Kas says "I now consider these cooktops to be effectively leased . . ." Regarding Kas' s comments about GE maybe building those old induction ranges better, my recollection is that those early GE and Kenmore induction ranges were actually rebadged units built by Sanyo in Japan....See Morewaverly6
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