RAL

Smoking with an egg

This is how I do it

Adding wood to a regular barby like a Weber is easy, adding it to an egg is a pain especially when using the platesetter so I dreamt this up.

I used a machine screw with 3 nuts, a circular piece of steel which is a bit dished, a stainless steel jug and a grid from a potato ricer. The bottom plate from the egg with the holes is made from a soft cast iron which is easily drilled. Anyone that needs detailed instructions probably shouldn't go too near fire. 

;-)

Fill the jug with chips, top up with water and put the grid on. The grid's not essential but prevents hot charcoal going into the chips if you dump it from a chimney starter.

It takes 30 minutes or so to boil off the water and start the smoking by which time the egg should have come up to temperature and the food loaded.

Dampening the wood is a waste of time with a Weber; the wood won't smoke whilst it's wet so you just delay the inevitable, it doesn't make the chips smoulder for longer either, the trick for that is to pack them in metal foil and punch some holes in it. However, with the egg, the water prevents wasting the chips before they're needed.

This is the first one in the world.

Chrome search going to Turkey

Part 1

I like Chrome, it's fast, it's free, it's a shame that it doesn't use sRGB colourspace but I digress
I like the highlight/ right click/ search facility but a few days ago it started using google.com.tr
Various people have had trouble with this since 2010 or so and there is much twaddle all over the web as to what causes it

Forget clearing the cache, resetting your language, HTTP/SSL, Proxy settings and all the other tripe, this is how to fix it and if it doesn't, you can have your money back


Go into Settings (previously called Options I think, may change in the future....), find the Manage search engines button and click it

The rogue entry is at the top, carefully recreated by YouknowwhatShop

Do this

N.B. the third box should contain this, no spaces:

{google:baseURL}search?q=%s&{google:RLZ}{google:originalQueryForSuggestion}{google:assistedQueryStats}{google:searchFieldtrialParameter}{google:bookmarkBarPinned}{google:searchClient}{google:sourceId}{google:instantExtendedEnabledParameter}{google:omniboxStartMarginParameter}ie={inputEncoding}

Chrome should now use your Google of choice for searching, like this

That may be enough but best to set the default location

Open a Google page, search for something and scroll to the bottom of the screen

Allow Google to know your location

Then this will appear at the bottom of the page

Tada

Except that the right click image search was no longer available

Part 2

I tried all sorts of alchemy, nothing worked so I used the cleanup tool, that found nothing however the final option was a reset, which I had already tried unsuccessfully but this time bingo

Oh yeah, that's my new bedtime reading

Part 2

24 hours after the 'fix' and Turkey's back, virus scan shows nothing, so I've reset the location, it's alright again but for how long?
To be continued

Apple pasties

Four manky looking Bramleys weighed in at 1036g

The plan:
Xg apples after peeling and coring
X/2g sugar
X/4g raisins
Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice....
Rough puff pastry

683g apples in the end so
350g sugar
175g raisins
500g pastry - a lump from the freezer, just about enough

Blitz the spices and sugar and place in a big bowl
Alligator the raisins
Place in the big bowl and rub around with fingers to separate the lumps

Core, peel and dump the bad bits from the apples
Slice about 10mm thick, place into big jug with a couple of slices of lemon and top up with boiling water
Put plate on top and leave for about 10 minutes then drain
Alligator the apples, this cleans the Alligator a bit so do it second

Add to big bowl and stir
It seemed a bit too wet

so I strained it

Butter the moulds, load and add tops

I tried tops smaller than the pies so that the steam would escape and the fruit would caremalise

plus some variations

Make holes for steam to escape and milk or egg wash

10minutes at Mk7 then 35 at Mk5½

The JH special weighed 268g raw

and 237g cooked
Some of the strained liquid ended up in a marinade for belly pork, the rest is going into ice cream

Mrs Doughnut thinks it's far too sweet but I don't
Next time I'd try 250g raisins, no sugar and reduce the cooking a bit

Central heating woes

The history

Some of the radiators were taking ages to heat up and the boiler was cycling every couple of minutes so something's up.
Sludge?
I put in some desludger, waited a couple of days but nothing much had changed
Low flow?
Whipped out the pump and found this, a rather blocked impeller

so I went and bought a new one.

Ok so KTM doesn't make CH pumps and it really looks like this

Still no real improvement so I ran it for a bit and then did a thorough flush, or so I thought.

Ran the pump at full speed with no heat, one radiator at a time, drained from the bottom of the system with the header tank still connected. A few hours later

and this muck had been removed. Not a lot bearing in mind the age but I think that a lot of sludge has also been removed.

Here's a closeup of the magnetic stuff

Now all of the radiators get heat at the same time so the headers are flushed but it's still cycling too much with the boiler stat set low and the pump running full speed.

To be continued.

Boiler stat max

Pump speed max

35s on

60s off

Water outlet temp 56°C eventually

Time to check the thermostat and overheat switch

I then tested the cutoff temperature using 

a thermocouple and a mug of hot water:

• Boiler stat min, turned off over 68°C
• Boiler stat max, turned off over 87°C

No figures available but it seems about right as the overheat protector would trip at about 95°C.

You don't need a meter, the gas valve goes clunk.

Top tip: tie a bit of string around the phial circlip before removing it. The phial takes a bit of a pull as it was installed with thermal conductive paste. It'll go back with Copaslip.

Made a half arsed attempt at testing the overheat protector with a fag lighter, it got pretty hot but stayed open circuit; I presume this is normal otherwise the boiler wouldn't light.

It's still in bits and I'm going down the pub.

To be continued.

Burner pressure was over 4½" w.g. The manual says 4.2" max for 30,000 Btu/h. The calculated load was 29,000 so it was reset to 100mm.

Reassembling the phial and circlip was a pain with the limited access and lack of a third hand but it's in.

On test:

Pump speed 6 out of 7

Boiler stat  turn off temp

1                    44

2                    56

3                    64

4                    69  On for 1m 25s, off for 35s

5                    72

Pump speed  Boiler ∆T  °C

6                   20

5                   got bored

4                   20

3                   15

2                   24

1                   27

So that's telling me very little except that I'm not waiting long enough for it to stabilise between changes so I am going to set both at 3 and go down the pub

To be continued

Flush results TDS ppm

Tap water      400

Boiler water   660 - bugger, ideal is <1.1 *400=440 but like a berk I forget to take a sample of the water before the inhibitor was added so dunno what effect that had

ph 8.2

I seem to remember from the dim distant past that checking boiler and radiator ∆T is a laborious job best done when it's cold outside and the boiler is running at capacity so I'm going to settle on pump and boiler stat at 4 then see what's happening on Christmas day.

Old tech

New tech

It's a barby radio thermometer with two probes. Use a Terry clip to fix the probe to the pipe then clip over a short length of pipe insulation.

Flue gas temp is 130°C at an ambient of 17°C, boiler stat on 4. Typical range is 120-200ºC for a non-condensing boiler.

To be continued

Croatia 2016

Another September, another pilgrimage to Croatia to celebrate Mrs Doughnut's birthday.
Birdstrike in Budapest so our flight out was delayed by three hours, marvellous©Slinger.
We were staying in an apartment in an area that we'd been before; up the hill from the port/ bus station/ railway station, just past the nick and opposite the convent. We finally arrived there at about 11pm. Dumped the gear, headed for Toc, formerly known as the Black Cat, it was shut so we went to a small bar close by with a posh sign 
and found a table outside for drinkies. Then it started to rain so we headed home via a small grocery shop.
First night's dinner

Ožujsko ain't the best at the best of times but out of cans it's 'orrible unless you're very thirsty

View from the window 

to be continued.....