351–360 of 384 posts
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I got these mostly because space is a luxury in our freezer (very tiny) and wanted to vertically stack them. I love them. It's such a weird thing to throw praise on, but I've literally told friends to get the silicon cover ice trays and never look back.
The cover is silicon, but the tray is regular plastic?
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in the US natural gas stoves are very common. There is some risk when frying on high heat that you could start an oil fire... Never used induction but gas offers very fine control of heat with a nice stove, especially compared to electric which relies on radiant heat from a coil and cannot change temperatures rapidly
I used gas for 20 years, then induction for 10. Induction wins everywhere (reproducibility of heat, speed to heat, ease of cleaning...) The only thing I miss a tiny bit from gas is the ability to tilt a pan to have oil gather in a puddle to deep fry something small. Other than that everytime I use gas I long for induction.
Sure, you have to take off the grates to clean, but after you spend those 10 seconds to remove the grates its no harder wiping crusted food off of a flat steel surface than a flat glass one.
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Also, get a chest freezer. They are much more efficient. Every time you open a standing freezer, the cold air "false out", since cold air is more dense than warm air. The chest freezer on the other hand will hold the cold air in place.
They are more efficient in keeping the food frozen. But they are less efficient in getting the food out of it. This is how you find 5 year old products at in the bottom of the freezer when you finally clean it up.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/j3SL_cL0MF9c3ASG-LfR...
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This seems like a decent idea if the thing that's in your fridge is ice cream, but not if it's ingredients for cooking meals. Whoever does the cooking is going to spend a ton of time running up and down while stuff overcooks, and then they'll be even more tired and get more complaints from the rest of the family. So you should be absolutely sure that you have an equitable family dynamic and that everyone agrees that…
My mother in law has a small freezer in the kitchen, and a bigger freezer in the basement. That way she can load the cooking ingredients into the smaller kitchen freezer before cooking, can keep most of the stock in the basement. Best of both world, assuming you're sufficiently organized to actually remember to move the stuff to the kitchen in advance, and not forget half of it :-)
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Why?
Why might I want to chill drinks quickly? Because I (or someone) want(s) a chilled drink, and forgot to put it in earlier, or it was only just bought/arrived. I've known people keep celebratory champagne permanently chilled in case of an unexpected call for it; I semi-frequently put beer or white wine in the freezer for 15-30mins ish because I didn't think to put it in the fridge earlier (or had to take them out to m…
Nothing to do with food safety though.
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It actually does, but not as clearly as I'd hoped. "for a freezer of this size, completely packed, you would probably have twice as long before running into problems with melting when the power goes out, so about 36 hours. This assuming it's in a room at 19° C (a cool basement). If it were in a hot garage at 30° C, the food would thaw in about 3/4 of the time. And while the power is out, for each time the door is ope…
He walks back the 36 hours claim which he recognizes is a completely unjustified extrapolation. And the 'subtract 7 minutes' is a very dubious answer to a completely different question.
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PSA: I've worked disaster relief/reconstruction in Houston, New Orleans, and a few other places. If you come across a fridge with the doors taped shut DO NOT OPEN IT. If you come home after power was lost for more than a day or so, TAPE THE DOORS OF YOUR FRIDGE SHUT AND DO NOT OPEN IT. It's not worth it. You will never make the fridge use-able again. If you have to leave ahead of a disaster, consider emptying your fr…
> If you come home after power was lost for more than a day or so, TAPE THE DOORS OF YOUR FRIDGE SHUT AND DO NOT OPEN IT. I think your timing is off here. I lost power for about three days during Hurricane Charley. This was the middle of summer in Orlando, Florida so hot hot hot. As far as I remember, my roommate and I left the fridge closed and evacuated. When we returned, the contents of the fridge were spoiled, bu…
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It's a good trick, although there's a caveat: it only works with freezers that aren't self-defrosting.
If freezers self-defrost by lowering the internal temperature, won't that spoil the food inside by lowering and raising the temp multiple times?
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This is why you will see freezers lining the street for trash collection after a major power outage during a hurricane. Freezers are not super-expensive, and you can usually get them covered by insurance or disaster relief, so it's easier to just duct tape the entire fish coffin and be done with it.
when the covid pandemic first hit and lockdown was looming it was impossible to find freezers, locally and online, even up to the $1K price point.
There's two reasons why most people on the Gulf Coast and lower Eastern seaboard keep their freezers completely stocked: so they have food to eat in the case of an emergency, and because a full freezer stays frozen longer.
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12V/120V freezers do exist and are marketed towards RV, camping, and off grid markets. Disadvantage is they tend to be smaller, cost more. But they are very efficient. Where a residential freezer might draw a couple of hundred watts dual voltage fridges draw 25-50 watts. And automatically switch between 12VDC and 120VAC. So they can be connected to both shore power and a battery at the same time and it 'just works'
There are also propane fridges/freezers but they are also smaller. (Though at the point where you have a large propane tank, you could arguably just as well have a backup generator.)
But yeah cheapest thing to do is get a furnace transfer switch and a generator. That seems to be how rural people in the upper midwest avoid freezing to death when the power goes out in the winter.