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Barilla passive cooker

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Re: Barilla passive cooker

#521

Post by nephanth »

koliber wrote: post #426
nephanth wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally heat half the water in the pot, and half in the electric kettle (adjust proportions depending on the relative power of your appliances) Quickest way to heat up the required amount of water

Assuming you have a four-burner stove, you could split your water five-way, and use four pots and your electric tea kettle. If you want to push, you could improve the efficiency even more. That would require a capital investment into additional stoves and/or electric kettles. You'd probably need something like kubernetes for orchestration as well.

Since I don't have a dishwasher, using more pots actually has time cost, so that approach doesn't work

Interestingly, I feel compelled to wash a pot even if I only used it to boil water, while that's not the case for the kettle. Force of habit I guess

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#523

Post by leoedin »

sitkack wrote: post #505
leoedin wrote: post #463

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…

Gas burners put out 3x-4x the power of an electric burner and have much lower thermal mass, so the acceleration in thermal power is much higher and the absolute thermal power is higher. A large electric burner is 2400-3600 watts, a large gas burner can be 8-16 kw. I think induction could get better power delivery than gas with time. You can get skillful with electric, you just have to see 30 seconds into the future a…

Gas burners may be higher total power, but the heat transfer is surely pretty poor. Induction delivers something like 90% of the power into the pan. Boiling water (which is just an exercise in energy transfer) is much quicker on induction than gas.

In my experience living with an AEG induction stove with a peak single burner power output of 3.7kW - apart from I never did any cooking (apart from boiling water) which needed that level of power for more than a few tens of seconds. The gas stove in my current house felt underpowered in comparison.

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#524

Post by sitkack »

leoedin wrote: post #523
sitkack wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas burners put out 3x-4x the power of an electric burner and have much lower thermal mass, so the acceleration in thermal power is much higher and the absolute thermal power is higher. A large electric burner is 2400-3600 watts, a large gas burner can be 8-16 kw. I think induction could get better power delivery than gas with time. You can get skillful with electric, you just have to see 30 seconds into the future a…

Gas burners may be higher total power, but the heat transfer is surely pretty poor. Induction delivers something like 90% of the power into the pan. Boiling water (which is just an exercise in energy transfer) is much quicker on induction than gas. In my experience living with an AEG induction stove with a peak single burner power output of 3.7kW - apart from I never did any cooking (apart from boiling water) which n…

No disagreement here, induction has way better power transfer to the food than electric resistance heating. I was only comparing resistance heating with gas.

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#525

Post by p1necone »

napoleongl wrote: post #469
kergonath wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you’re right, I forgot about those! They are mostly historical curiosities now, right? Not as cheap as simple resistive cookers, and worse in about all respects than induction ones.

Probably depends on your location. They are still sold here in Sweden for instance, but otoh almost nobody has a gas stove since electricity used to be dirt cheap here.

I have one! I think they're still pretty common in New Zealand too.

They're awful though, I've only got one because I'm renting. The old school exposed spiral element ones are the best non induction electric stoves imo.

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#526

Post by kenneth »

dontlaugh wrote: post #459
hoseja wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never owned a rice cooker but I'm led to believe the rice they make is superior to anything you can reasonably achieve in a simple pot.

It's far easier to achieve consistent results, for sure. We have a small one and it's the best rice we can make at home without significant effort.

Cooking perfect rice in a pot takes technique, for sure. But it's not that hard, and if you do it right it comes out perfect just like a rice cooker.

Wash your rice. Throw in cold pot with 1:1 ratio of rice to water, + a bit extra to account for evaporation[1]. Bring to a full boil. As soon as it's boiling, drop the heat to the lowest setting and cover your pot as tight as you can and let it steam itself until ready. When ready, fluff it immediately.

[1]: the precise amount extra depends on your setup, tbh… how tight your lid seal is, how much surface area your saucepan exposes, etc. but usually an extra 25% will be about right

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#527

Post by valarauko »

sltkr wrote: post #316
chillwaves wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can end up superheating the water that way and scalding yourself. I also prefer to control the temperature of my water which you cannot do in a microwave. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/boil-on-troubled-waters/

It's something to be aware of, but in practice it's very difficult to superheat water at home. For superheating to occur, you need very pure water in a smooth container with no imperfections. Tap water in most places cannot be superheated because it contains too many minerals, and most ceramic cups aren't smooth enough to prevent boiling. If you're making tea, an easy way to prevent superheating is to drop the bag in…

> It's something to be aware of, but in practice it's very difficult to superheat water at home.

Eh, I've had it happen many times at home. A coffee mug of water comes out of the microwave with just a hint of bubbles. Add sugar/tea/instant coffee and the whole thing instantly bubbles up and spills.

Re: Barilla passive cooker

#528

Post by badtension »

Adverblessly wrote: post #500
nephanth wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even hard, just boil a solution of 1/2 white vinegar + 1/2 water, and the CaCO3 (+ 2H(+) from the vinegar) changes back to Ca(2+) + CO2 + H2O You can even see the bubbles from the CO2

I'd recommend using citric acid instead, they sell it here as "lemon salt" so it comes in an easy to use salt shaker. I usually put it in the minimum amount of water required to safely boil it and a small amount depending on how heavy the deposits are (usually up to a spoon is enough for me), though you could also just pour it in and wait. It works really well and doesn't leave the same smell. When I'd previously use…

Do you recommend citric acid over vinegar just because of the smell?

I use vinegar all the time, put in something like 50 ml to the remaining hot water just after making a tea. After a few minutes you can just rinse it and let it evaporate, 5 more mins and the smell is totally gone.

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