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Barilla passive cooker

barilla.com

481–490 of 528 posts

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still a huge amount of energy that gets dumped out into the kitchen by any non-induction cooktop, no matter what pot you use.

I always wanted some kind of "collar" that I could put around a burner to try to direct that excess heat back into the pan/pot.

Old cast iron skillets had a collar under them to better fit on the pot belly stovetop.

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#482
post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a gas stove in my studio apartment. I still use an electric kettle to get water boiling before dumping it into a preheated pan to cook noodles/whatever. Highly recommend this approach if you are stuck with gas.

> Highly recommend this approach if you are stuck with gas. My partner, who cooks more, bemoans that our new apartment has electric. Grew up using gas and claims that it’s better for cooking. I prefer not to intentionally dump gas into our house and welcome the minor benefit of energy efficiency. Funny how different people see the world (and technology).

If you can afford it, a high end induction stove might be an upgrade you both enjoy without needing gas. Higher end ones have more precision and consistency and easier controls.

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#483
post #347

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Changing people's habits because it's the "right thing to do" is not the way to solve climate change. The main reason why is that it's very hard to change people, especially so if the benefits are not immediate. What we do need is lots of innovative new technologies to solve the problem. Carbon capture is just scratching the surface.

I do think that the way certain people live can be improved, look at the carbon use of rich people in the USA compared to the average person in other countries. Larger houses, cars, more of everything, it all adds up.

Its fine to think that - and you're probably right. But again the solution will never be to ask people to change their consumption habits and their way of life. Its a non starter. The smarter thing to do is tweak incentives. A simple tax on electricity for example: now its more expensive to heat or cool a large house, leads to smaller homes, leads to more energy efficient units. That has a way way more impactful result than telling individuals what to do and how to do it.

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"no basis in reality". Do you cook? Gas is functionally superior than traditional electric resistance cooking. That's not some evil lobby, that's practical experience. You can instantly control the temperature without juggling multiple burners at different heats. That makes it better. I'd take gas over electric (resistive or halogen) all the time - and I've lived with both. Induction is on par with gas in controllabi…

Every gas range( Wolf, Viking, GE, Bosch, Maytag ) I've used seems to vary dramatically with temps at different settings. The lowest setting on some ranges might be a High setting on others.

I used to be a cook in a a few michelin starred restaurants, so you can trust my opinion here.

Gas is far superior to electric heating elements because of the speed at which it can change temperature, and makes flambeing a cinch.

That being said Induction ranges are several orders of magnitude superior to gas. As are ovens with humidity and air flow control.

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mold can definitely grow on the surface of liquids. Have you never left a cup of coffee out on a counter for a few days?

It can grow on the surface, but won't be able to grow on submerged rice. Bacteria could still ferment the rice though.

No, while the visible majority of mold grows on the surface of things, it also sends out tendrils that penetrate through the medium. That's why you shouldn't cut mold off of bread or soft cheeses and eat the visibly "ok" part, you should treat the entire thing as contaminated. Hard cheeses that have only a little bit of mold can be scraped, but anything soft will get explored pretty thoroughly.

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#486
post #20

According to Kenji, you don't even need boiling water to cook pasta: https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-cook-pasta-salt-water-boi... https://www.seriouseats.com/tips-for-better-easier-pasta "Want to get even more crazy efficient? Try soaking pasta in water as your prep your other ingredients. By the time your sauce is ready, you can just add the pasta (along with some of its soaking liquid) to the pan and, with a min…

Harold McGee himself (author of the food geek bible On Food and Cooking) also presented this idea back in 2011: https://www.splendidtable.org/story/2011/01/15/you-can-cook-... > I just did the experiment of cooking a pound of pasta in just enough water for it to absorb. I thought, "While I'm at it, why don't I play with the heating as well? I'll start them in cold water and see what happens." > I found that starting…

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Re: Barilla passive cooker

#487
post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wanted some kind of "collar" that I could put around a burner to try to direct that excess heat back into the pan/pot.

There used to be (still is?) a sort of vertical chute/collar available to put around camp pots. Think mountaineering applications. The idea was that they would capture heat energy escaping off the bottom of the pot that would rise/disperse into the environment, and channel it close to the side of the pot where it would heat the vessel as it rose. Think of wrapping a section of corrugated cardboard around the outside…

This is maybe useful for boiling water but not so great for cooking. You want your pot to have a relatively uniform temperature, and gas burns very hot. This means that, especially if the walls of the pan are thin, any part of the wall that has good thermal contact with combustion products and poor contact with food will get extremely hot, with various unfortunate consequences. Also the handles will get hot.

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What efficiency (in terms of energy transfer to the intended material vs to the environment) is observed with gas? IIRC, gas achieves maybe 35-50% efficiency (depending on the surface area and material of the pan) compared with ~80% for electric resistance heating and >90% for induction. Adam Ragusea did a water boiling comparison and the gas stove was dumping so much energy into the air around the pot that his therm…

The claim on the site is that the heat exchanger base boosts efficiency up to 60%. You still of course do have the problem that home rangehoods usually aren't powerful enough to create enough air-flow to properly deal with the NOx and SOx produced by burning gas, which turns out to be a big health risk...

Most home range hoods are too powerful. Go to any site that calculates commercial range hood requirements, enter in your parameters, and then try to find a nice range hood that matches. Those 700 cfm or 1000 cfm beasts the appliance stores sell are entirely inappropriate.

There may well be a problem with a poorly designed range hood and exhaust that inevitably isn’t captured. And people might not like using the hoods all the time.

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#489
post #218
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're on target here. I have become the dumping ground for misbehaving keurigs from family and have managed to make most of them work or frankenstein parts between them. I hate the machines and wish this never happened. I was happy with a french press. Curse my urge to not waste things.

> I was happy with a french press. Curse my urge to not waste things. I don't understand this sentence, I would much rather waste some ground coffee beans and water than plastic.

With a French Press, you don't have to buy and throw away a constant stream of paper filters.
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