h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yet.

I'm too careful to ever drop it in teh bin. really. its food. I ain't gona drop it.

I once knocked a frying pan of sasuages that were just* cooked, off the stove top.

CAught the pan mid flight. didn't drop a sausage.

took a week for the burns to get down to a not excruitating pain level; but I didn't lose a sausage, and... that's my association with food; couple weeks painful bad burnt hand, with big bliteres; that is acceptible; I didn't drop a sausage! I'm normally just ultra careful though... mindful of what I'm doing hence; lodger's broken about four or five times more glasses, cups and plates etc, than I have since living here and he's the one in the house who can see

Dropping a sausage would indeed have been a tragedy!

TRiG.

Indeed, and all the moreso, for if I recall correctly, there were at least four of them in the frying pan damn the frying pan was hot when I caught it though... and took a moment, to find a suitable place to put it down, on top of a heat mat ... but I saved the sausages, so the consequent bad burning was kinda worth it

On the chicken question, I really don't know, but, since whatever it is is aggravating my gout, I would surmise elevated levels of urea, predisposing to elevated uric acid production, urea being a common stock feed additive ever since it was first synthesised in the laboratory over a hundred years ago.

I could be wrong of course.

I read the other day, it might have been in the Guardian but I can't remember, that boiled eggs are better (peeling wise) if the eggs are old.

Oh maybe it was in the fridge thread on Ask?

The best way I've ever found to peel boiled eggs is to immediately drop them into cold water when they're done boiling, cracking the shell and the membrane inside the shell to allow water to penetrate between the membrane and egg while they cool.

Makes peeling the egg almost effortless.

Of course if they're to be packed with shells intact in lunches or something like that, this doesn't apply.

I useually just yell, shout and swear at them loudly, until they spontainiously unshell themselves. it actually seems tow ork sometimes.

I see... and no complaints from the neighbours?

Neightbours? I didn't relaise I had any... if there are, I can't hear them over the 2000 Whats of pure Ozzy, opera, or Zappa that fills the towers anyhow... would any neighbour be insane enough to confront me over anything? I must buy myself thi s new feather boa... in purple... just in case the neighbourhood thinks I'm going soft since I got this so-called 'ill' rubbish it'll match the new chainmail cuffs I just ordered

Here's the latest viral video showing how to peal an egg. You simply put the egg in a small glass of water and shake it vigorously in the sink.


How to Quickly Peel a Boiled Egg in a Glass of Water: http://youtu.be/FkWISKfgqZ0

http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/04/03/2015/cracking-the-egg.html

SCIENCE!

How interesting. I'll give it a go

I guess I should summarize.

The advice they gave for an easy to peel hard cooked egg is to NOT cook it fresh, 4-5 days old is best as that lets its pH rise a bit. You should also not bring it slowly to a boil. Best method is to steam the eggs for 12 minutes. You can just use a quarter inch of water if you don't have a proper steamer. They also recommend poking a tiny hole in the egg to prevent cracking. It won't help with boiling an egg, but it does release pressure when steaming. You can also shock the cooked egg in cold water after steaming if you want a round egg, rather than one with a flat end.

I went to their YouTube channel and immediately found the one about beer foam and sloshing liquids http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpA5jH04ayU

They... really did overthink that one somewhat. A few weeks as a bartender or a waiter (and a mind open to inquiry) will tell you that the bubbles in a beer head or the steamed milk on top of a cappuccino absorb the energy of a wave on top of a cup or a glass of liquid and dampen its movement, without all the need for that high-falutin' laboratory equipment

There's a good bar bet you can usually win with a similar phenomenon regarding beer foam.

Stick a straw in two glasses of beer (no head) and bet your opponent that they can't balance the straw in the glass for more than 10 seconds (or just have two friends compete). They're not allowed to use anything else on the table or handily available.


The trick is, considering this context, obviously to blow bubbles in your beer. This trick was originally demonstrated to me in white Russians, but that makes it a bit more obvious. You might think of blowing bubbles in milk, but not in your beer!


And in the list of suggested videos, I found another scientific link. The science of "bonking" beer bottles.

http://youtu.be/p11X5ueA6Sk

There's also a bit farther you can take that. There's the ultimate "bonk" where you shear the bottom of a beer bottle (refilled with water, not beer) by slapping your hand on the top. At first guess, most people assume that it happens because of the pressure you apply compressing the air at the top of the bottle, but that's not quite it. What actually happens is that you accelerate the bottle faster than the fluid inside it. This creates a cavitation bubble at the bottom of the bottle. This bubble has very low pressure and the fluid then quickly accelerates to "catch up" with the bottom of the bottle and collapse the cavitation bubble. When it then slams back into the bottom of the bottle, it shears the bottom off with it.

http://youtu.be/lj3x2U4CaEs

I suspect there's some cavitation involved in the beer foaming bonk as well as the "pressure waves" as described in the previous video. With beer, any cavitation bubbles will just fill with the available CO2 rather than collapse at high speed.

Success Except I was distracted by my oven timer going off, telling me to turn the loaf around in the oven and lower the temperature, so I have a flat bottom

Because I forgot to shock the eggs in iced water.

Yeah, I'm not quite sure how that works. He says shocking the eggs stops them from cooking, but how that prevents the flat end (and the gas in the remaining cavity from forming?) I don't know.