I'm not sure. It is certainly possible if the vinegar or salt is in high enough concentration, but that is a balancing act that I have not explored.
Hare is the only meat that I have brined. The only other meats we consume on a regular basis (and that depends on my success in the woods) is deer, moose and grouse. I do not find that any of those meats needs much of anything except a small amount of rub (typically, salt, pepper, garlic powder and thyme - or maybe herbes de provence) and then about 1.5 to 2 minutes in a hot, cast iron pan or over coals. Often, less is more when dealing with these meats (both with respect to seasoning and cooking time). For roasts, I keep it quite simple as well, and never more than medium rare. This isn't to say that I will never try brining any of it - just that I have not had the desire to.
As I said above, I have not done much brining except with hare, and only for BBQ purposes. The recipe I followed for the brine did not include sugar. I suspect this is due to the fact that sugar can burn so easily on the BBQ.
That's a good tip, thanks. I am using a classic Weber kettle and the low and slow is something that I am still working on. It is important to make sure that not much else is going on that day except sunshine, beer, a chair, and some good tunes. 😀
... which brings us back to the topic of weather.
It is about -7C here right now. Tomorrow will be a perfect day to harvest some meat! 🙂
It is about -7C here right now. Tomorrow will be a perfect day to harvest some meat! 🙂
That, has something to do with the cold? 😀
Maybe, just maybe, in an afterlife we will be stew ourselves.
Maybe, just maybe, in an afterlife we will be stew ourselves.
My sister was on Easter Island and honored to attend the ceremonial pig roast. A few days later she was in the hospital, so sick that the doctors (such as they are there) asked her "What shall we do with your remains?" A crude hospital with dirt floors and cockroaches everywhere. She made it back to Hawaii, now 10 years later still suffering the effects.
At least it's not cold on Easter Island.
A week ago, I get up, it's -9º and the dog looks at me funny when I opened the door. This morning it's clear and 9º and the doggie didn't want to come home.
Ahhhh...life on the west coast...
Ahhhh...life on the west coast...
Today was the first day above freezing without rain in about 2 weeks. That subwoofer sized popsicle we call the heat pump has thawed, so I decide to attack it.
After Dremeling the heads off two rusty screws to get the outside unit apart, I find the Defrost Control Board. Digging through the paperwork I find that our friends who were living here last winter paid $150 to have a "Circuit Panel" replaced. The defrost board is the only thing that resembles a "circuit panel" in the whole system, but it has 2008 date codes on it. The unit has a 2005 build date, so the board is not the original, but it is not new either. It either came from a scrap unit, or the HVAC guy didn't replace it at all. Judging from the dirt and crud all over everything inside the box, and the fact that it took an hour to get it open, I vote for the latter.
Upon power up, I discover that there is zero voltage anywhere on the board.....guess why it doesn't defrost? There are about a dozen wire nuts inside the box, some wires have 3 splices in them. From the wiring diagram I can tell that the brown wire is ground, and the red wire should have 24 volts AC. The cable going into the house has no brown wire, but it has a black that is spliced to a green, that is spliced to a brown, which is connected to the "B" terminal on the board, which measures 0 ohms to ground....."EXPERTS" have been here! This is going to be fun.....The cable had a red wire AND it is connected to the "R" terminal, but there is no voltage on it. I make a map of what color wires go to what terminals on the board and go back inside.
Inside I find the black wire connected to ground....good. And the red wire is connected to....NOTHING, it has been cut. There is no trace of the other end of the cut. No dead end red wire anywhere.....WTF???
SO, I just do what Tubelab would do! I shove a pair of tweezers into the wire nut that connects to the 24 volt transformer, connect a clip lead to the tweezers, connect a 2 amp fuse to the clip lead, and route the other end of the fuse to the cut red wire with another clip ead. I duck and flip the breakers on....it runs.
Back outside I find 26 volts on the control board and the machine goes into a defrost cycle when I short the two "TEST" pins.....I remove the tweezers, clean up some of the wiring and put all the covers back on. Freezing rain and snow is expected on Monday night / Tuesday....we will see.
After Dremeling the heads off two rusty screws to get the outside unit apart, I find the Defrost Control Board. Digging through the paperwork I find that our friends who were living here last winter paid $150 to have a "Circuit Panel" replaced. The defrost board is the only thing that resembles a "circuit panel" in the whole system, but it has 2008 date codes on it. The unit has a 2005 build date, so the board is not the original, but it is not new either. It either came from a scrap unit, or the HVAC guy didn't replace it at all. Judging from the dirt and crud all over everything inside the box, and the fact that it took an hour to get it open, I vote for the latter.
Upon power up, I discover that there is zero voltage anywhere on the board.....guess why it doesn't defrost? There are about a dozen wire nuts inside the box, some wires have 3 splices in them. From the wiring diagram I can tell that the brown wire is ground, and the red wire should have 24 volts AC. The cable going into the house has no brown wire, but it has a black that is spliced to a green, that is spliced to a brown, which is connected to the "B" terminal on the board, which measures 0 ohms to ground....."EXPERTS" have been here! This is going to be fun.....The cable had a red wire AND it is connected to the "R" terminal, but there is no voltage on it. I make a map of what color wires go to what terminals on the board and go back inside.
Inside I find the black wire connected to ground....good. And the red wire is connected to....NOTHING, it has been cut. There is no trace of the other end of the cut. No dead end red wire anywhere.....WTF???
SO, I just do what Tubelab would do! I shove a pair of tweezers into the wire nut that connects to the 24 volt transformer, connect a clip lead to the tweezers, connect a 2 amp fuse to the clip lead, and route the other end of the fuse to the cut red wire with another clip ead. I duck and flip the breakers on....it runs.
Back outside I find 26 volts on the control board and the machine goes into a defrost cycle when I short the two "TEST" pins.....I remove the tweezers, clean up some of the wiring and put all the covers back on. Freezing rain and snow is expected on Monday night / Tuesday....we will see.
Attachments
They are telling us the same thing....just 12 to 24 hours earlier than you. The rain starts Monday night, snow Tuesday and Wednesday, 2 to 5 inches are possible, although we usually don't get hit as hard as the TV predicts.
It certainly sounds like some service tech didn't have any idea about what he was doing, and he may have used some revenue enhancement techniques to boot. Keep in the back of your mind that he was probably summoned to correct some kind of defect. By crippling the defrost controller board he may have treated some symptom that was annoying your renters, but the underlying problem may still be present.
That's my general opinion. From 1977 - 1988 I lived in two different houses equipped with heat pumps. Both were supposedly highly-rated, premium grade models. On one, I was the original owner; the other was 4 or 5 years old when we bought the house. I wasn't satisfied with either one, and both required more (costly) repairs than I expected. The technology may have "matured" in the last 25 years and supposedly corrected these problems, but I won't believe such claims until I see some hard, credible evidence.
Dale
The people living here last winter were friends that needed a place to stay for a few months while we were in Florida. The house had been empty for several months prior to their arrival. HVAC worked OK before that.
They first called the local (and well regarded) HVAC shop when the unit died completely after making some smoke and stink. The 24 volt transformer was fried, so a new one was installed. It fried 2 weeks later. The ace technician jerry rigged in a 3 amp transformer and also "protected it" by adding an automotive fuseholder on the secondary and installing a 5 amp fuse.
The unit started blowing the 24 volt fuses last January so the HVAC shop installed the new "circuit panel" and the problem went away. Another episode of blown fuses in February brought the technicians back. I suspect this is when the red wire was cut. The occupants were told to use emergency heat if it was real cold outside since it was "more efficient." They left before there were any more blown fuses. During the last visit by the "experts" I got on the phone (from Florida) with the owner of the company. He said that all the low voltage wiring was "non standard" and needed to be upgraded. He would do it for nearly $1000 after winter was over. I declined his offer and explained that I would be moving up there shortly and look at it myself. They called again last month, just to see if I needed their "help."
We have had no issues with the AC or heat until the freeze up. I suspect that there could be an intermittent short in the wiring, and it may show up at the most inopportune moment, but at least I know enough to make it work. There were a dozen or so unnecessary wire nuts in the system, some with little wire ends sticking out. I eliminated them, so the intermittent may be fixed already.
They have indeed improved in the past 10 years, and this one is 10 years old. We inherited this house after Sherri's mom passed. We let our friends stay here while their new house was being built. We are living here while our new house is being built. After that we will probably sell this place, so we don't want to replace the unit.
If you are blowing the 24V fuse, there is a chance it is in the thermostat line.
I'm waiting for a replacement NEST after it croaked and was taking out the fuse on the 24V line.
I'm waiting for a replacement NEST after it croaked and was taking out the fuse on the 24V line.
The fuse blowing stopped when they cut the power wire to the defrost control board. This would lead me to believe that the problem lies with the defrost board or the wiring. I reconnected the power wire yesterday and fixed a lot of suspicious wiring.
This morning it was 28 degrees when I went outside (7AM). My Honda required 10 minutes of scraping to clear the glass. There was some frost and ice on the exterior sheet metal of the heat pump, but the coils were free of ice.
The temps have been in the 30's all day and the unit remains free of ice. There is a line of snow/rain that stretches from Hudson Bay to Cincinnati that will pass through here overnight.....we will see what it looks like tomorrow.
This morning it was 28 degrees when I went outside (7AM). My Honda required 10 minutes of scraping to clear the glass. There was some frost and ice on the exterior sheet metal of the heat pump, but the coils were free of ice.
The temps have been in the 30's all day and the unit remains free of ice. There is a line of snow/rain that stretches from Hudson Bay to Cincinnati that will pass through here overnight.....we will see what it looks like tomorrow.
Google paid $3.3bn to purchase NEST - it's now amusing to see how Honeywell has morphed their thermostat product line -- no serious price competition yet...
Google paid $12.5bn to buy Motorola Mobility.....less than 3 years later Google sold what was left of Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for about $4bn, keeping most of the the patents. Most of my friends lost their jobs in the process.
Does Google want NEST, or just their IP. Only time will tell.
True, but to what end?
So far as I can see, they already control an awful lot of what people see, and make huge amounts of money. What's next?
xkcd: Password Reuse
Chris
So far as I can see, they already control an awful lot of what people see, and make huge amounts of money. What's next?
xkcd: Password Reuse
Chris
That's because all the cold and nasty weather has gathered together flash mob style over the northeast corner of the US and south east Canada.
Most of the nasty stuff the Weather Channel promised us managed to transport itself to the New England area skipping right over us. I was outside for most of the day in a t shirt and flip flops.
They still say we will get snow and freezing rain tonight although their radar is clear to the west of us for a few hundred miles. Now at the other end of Pennsylvania.....that's a different story.
Most of the nasty stuff the Weather Channel promised us managed to transport itself to the New England area skipping right over us. I was outside for most of the day in a t shirt and flip flops.
They still say we will get snow and freezing rain tonight although their radar is clear to the west of us for a few hundred miles. Now at the other end of Pennsylvania.....that's a different story.
No doubt, eh? It was +14C in Kamloops today. Just a few days ago it was -14C.
Not sure if we will even have a white Christmas at this rate, but there's still plenty on the slopes!