What are you panic buying?

[William of Walworth]

Well, internet said 3 times weight so I just threw 21 grams in without premixing with water and it over rose quite a bit (about 20-30 percent more than usual, I do a 3 quarter size loaf and it almost came out of the tin) and finished with a floppy top. In fact I think it was the over rising that was also responsible for ripping the paddle off. Luckily I noticed it vibrating away and knocked back the dough by hand, but probably not enough as it still finished badly.

And my breadmaker probably doesn't make the best bread in the world but it makes a particular bread (made with milk) that my kids gobble up like no other and fits my cutting guide perfectly so it can be sliced and frozen in measured amounts. I've lost three stone this year and if I start making artisan bloomers I'll put it all back on and have nothing to feed the kids.

I'm assuming the premixing is the same for milk as water? Maybe don't need to add flour as milk has sugars anyway.

After all that .....

I'm tempted to try and make beer with the leftover yeast. I wonder if I really need a demi john or if it can just be done in 2l fizzy drink bottles.

... I've corrected the above for you
Actually I don't really recommend beer-making at home -- brewers and home-brewers have warned me about the amount of hard work involved what with all the sterilizing etc., and getting the yeast strain right can be pretty tricky, apparantly.

 

[maomao]

After all that .....


... I've corrected the above for you
Actually I don't really recommend beer-making at home -- brewers and home-brewers have warned me about the amount of hard work involved what with all the sterilizing etc., and getting the yeast strain right can be pretty tricky, apparantly.

Ginger beer! I don't actually drink alcohol usually so wouldn't be brewing it to be very strong.

 

[existentialist]

After all that .....


... I've corrected the above for you
Actually I don't really recommend beer-making at home -- brewers and home-brewers have warned me about the amount of hard work involved what with all the sterilizing etc., and getting the yeast strain right can be pretty tricky, apparantly.

It's not that bad, William! You get a bit of a system going, and then it's quite straightforward. The worst bit is washing and delabelling the bottles, and you only need to do that once, if you remember to give the empties a quick rinse when you have emptied them.

 

[William of Walworth]

It's not that bad, William! You get a bit of a system going, and then it's quite straightforward. The worst bit is washing and delabelling the bottles, and you only need to do that once, if you remember to give the empties a quick rinse when you have emptied them.

You're still not tempting me though ....... I'll stick to ordering** what the experts make

**and even back in pubs, ultra-eventually

 

[existentialist]

You're still not tempting me though ....... I'll stick to ordering** what the experts make

**and even back in pubs, ultra-eventually

You do you. TBH, much as I might try and convince myself of it, home brewing isn't really just about making the stuff - it's the act of making it that is as important as the result. And yes, you'll be hard put to it to produce something reliably to the standard of what the experts make Depending on the experts...

 

[Lurdan]

Whitechapel Sainsbury's. Pretty much like the last couple of visits. No own brand tinned tomatoes of any kind - this is the third visit where that's been the case. Other brands available. I was feeling a little smug about snagging the last 2kg bag of their Basmati rice until I wandered into an aisle I don't generally use and found a big stack of very large bags of the stuff. (Mind you I've no idea how I'd get one of them home). Everything else I was after they had.

Traffic at pre-lockdown mid-morning levels. Foot traffic about the same as the last few weeks. Up on the first couple of weeks of lockdown but nothing like it was before.

 

[Badgers]

Popped into a Nisa for a snack and such when in the park. Couple of weeks ago the staff had full face guards and masks on, nothing today.

Signs up telling people to keep 1m apart.

 

[Mogden]

Very peculiar bloke doing odd things with bunches of bananas in Aldi today. Myself and another chap getting quite huffy with him while he picked up umpteen bunches, tore some off, put some one side and others another side. A good 5 minutes of that and then he wandered off with one of the piles. Nice and hygienic that!

Another bloke intent on chatting to his mate while floundering about in the aisle, walking backwards and bumping off everyone. They are now letting in more than 1 person in a group which means couples are standing for pissing ages making up their minds about what meat to buy for the BBQ

The queues are quicker though. Bread flour is still nowhere to be seen and there was no plain or SF either today. Plenty of eggs. Could do with more decent greens. The best cabbage I could find was a white cabbage. The sweetheart ones were withered and almost looked dehydrated, spring greens absent.

 

[circleline]

Three drive-thru Mcds have opened for customers locally. The queues are immense. One is using a significant slice of the next-door Tesco car park to accommodate the queue and another has provoked a petition to local council requesting that it is closed during the day, due to the grid-locked traffic it is causing around the one-way system.

 

[William of Walworth]

Plenty of eggs.

I hardly ever go to Aldis (not near enough) -- not sure either whether our nearby Lidls has improved yet on the eggs front.

But this week is the first one in Sainsbury's (also near to us) where there's been a really good supply of eggs

Previous weeks, I've had to endure cleanly swept shelves, or only the smallest eggs still on sale, etc.

 

[Epona]

We managed to get eggs in Iceland yesterday - it seems a bit hit and miss (and has done for a few weeks now) as to whether they have loads or none - yesterday the egg shelves were about a third full so we got some (but not loads, leaving plenty for others is still the right thing to do with certain goods!)

 

[William of Walworth]

Epona : I definitely agree there, especially with things there's been a shortage of, like eggs.
I aim for six a week but I haven't always succeeded in finding them.
Still, supplies look like they're getting better now

 

[8115]

No yeast for love or money. I bought two packets of farfalle pasta but I am planning to make a massive pasta salad.

 

[Mation]

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but why is everyone so desperate for flour and doing so much baking (if you didn't before)? There are bread and cakes on the shelves

 

[farmerbarleymow]

No yeast for love or money.

The supplier I got mine from is out of stock sadly. But there were quite a few sites where it was on sale when I was looking for it so worth having a look. I bought fermipan dried yeast (500g bags).

 

[maomao]

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but why is everyone so desperate for flour and doing so much baking (if you didn't before)? There are bread and cakes on the shelves

Cheaper, tastier and for once I've got time. Also have been restricting shopping trips to a minimum so it's always nice to have something freshly baked at the end of the shopping week. But we use quite a lot of flour anyway. I think a lot of it is people who bake at home anyway doubling or tripling their output rather than mad people piling fifty bags of flour under the bed.

 

[gridban]

My local Morrisons, which is the only large supermarket within convenient walking distance, seems to be fully stocked with most things now. Except shopping trolleys. I haven't been able to find a trolley for a couple of weeks now - by the time I get to the checkout with a week's worth of groceries in a basket, it's nearly pulling my arm out of its socket.

 

[WouldBe]

My local Morrisons, which is the only large supermarket within convenient walking distance, seems to be fully stocked with most things now. Except shopping trolleys. I haven't been able to find a trolley for a couple of weeks now - by the time I get to the checkout with a week's worth of groceries in a basket, it's nearly pulling my arm out of its socket.

Is that an attempt to restrict how much customers buy?

 

[Badgers]

My local Morrisons, which is the only large supermarket within convenient walking distance, seems to be fully stocked with most things now. Except shopping trolleys. I haven't been able to find a trolley for a couple of weeks now - by the time I get to the checkout with a week's worth of groceries in a basket, it's nearly pulling my arm out of its socket.

That is odd

My local (big) Morrison’s has had plenty throughout this shit. They are also disinfecting them all between uses.

Separate queues for trolley and basket shops. Also a priority queue for key workers or old folk.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

So I found a load of stuff in the freezer that I bought a couple of months ago and forgot about (I don't normally eat frozen food at all, I only started freezing things when stockpiling early on and there wasn't much in the supermarkets). I noticed that literally everything says "eat within a month". Even freezer bags from Sainsbury's say "eat things you freeze in these within a month".

but that's bollocks though surely? Freezing basically preserves things almost indefinitely - it might get freezer burn or whatever but it isn't a case of it being not safe. It's not even a "best before", it's an "eat within".

I suppose it isn't in the supermarkets' interest to have people freezing lots of stuff when it's cheap and living off it rather than coming in and buying new stuff, but you'd think there'd have been some attention to this given that silly "eat by" dates have been looked at recently.

 

[Epona]

So I found a load of stuff in the freezer that I bought a couple of months ago and forgot about (I don't normally eat frozen food at all, I only started freezing things when stockpiling early on and there wasn't much in the supermarkets). I noticed that literally everything says "eat within a month". Even freezer bags from Sainsbury's say "eat things you freeze in these within a month".

but that's bollocks though surely? Freezing basically preserves things almost indefinitely - it might get freezer burn or whatever but it isn't a case of it being not safe. It's not even a "best before", it's an "eat within".

I suppose it isn't in the supermarkets' interest to have people freezing lots of stuff when it's cheap and living off it rather than coming in and buying new stuff, but you'd think there'd have been some attention to this given that silly "eat by" dates have been looked at recently.

It's fine in terms of safety (as long as it is defrosted properly and cooked to a safe temperature - the usual "piping hot in the middle" is a good indicator that this has been achieved in the absence of a food thermometer!), but quality deteriorates so food that has been frozen a long time may be unappetising and mushy.*

EDIT: Should add that it is unlikely to be "oh no that's ruined" after just a couple of months frozen, if that was the case I'd regularly be throwing food away which is kind of missing the point of having a freezer!

 

[Mogden]

Complete rubbish. I pay no attention to the supposed shelf life of frozen foods. I would take it to mean it's a quality issue rather than I've eaten x, will I die. Bear in mind they have no idea who has a super new freezer and it does it gently compared to those of us with a decade old metal iceberg

 

[FridgeMagnet]

It's fine in terms of safety (as long as it is defrosted properly and cooked to a safe temperature - the usual "piping hot in the middle" is a good indicator that this has been achieved in the absence of a food thermometer!), but quality deteriorates so food that has been frozen a long time may be unappetising and mushy.*

EDIT: Should add that it is unlikely to be "oh no that's ruined" after just a couple of months frozen, if that was the case I'd regularly be throwing food away which is kind of missing the point of having a freezer!

Oh sure - I just mean that it's worded to say basically you should not eat this after a month, which was the issue with the "eat by" dates which led to them often being revised.

Actually it also says "once defrosted eat within one day" too, on everything from Sainsbury's at least (seems to just be cut and pasted). So technically if I were to freeze the pita bread I just bought then defrost it, I would have to eat it days before even the best before date had I not frozen it

 

[Epona]

I find fairly thin white fish fillets tend to be one of the most fragile in terms of freezer-burn and mushiness - I have on occasion defrosted a fillet and thought "yeah actually not eating that", so I tend to prioritise those if the freezer is getting full and stuff is getting older.

 

[platinumsage]

Frost-free freezers make things a lot worse for long-term storage as they cycle the temperature.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

but that's bollocks though surely? Freezing basically preserves things almost indefinitely - it might get freezer burn or whatever but it isn't a case of it being not safe. It's not even a "best before", it's an "eat within".

Yeah, you can ignore that as long as it's cooked properly. Some things do lose texture and stuff. There's stuff in my freezer that's been there at least a year - I tend to forget to even look in it to see what's there. It's completely full though.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I'm mostly saying this because I am easily spooked even if I know something is bullshit intellectually and I am cross that I threw away a couple of nice bits of fish because of the dates But if I did, other people will too.

 

[WouldBe]

That is odd

My local (big) Morrison’s has had plenty throughout this shit. They are also disinfecting them all between uses.

Separate queues for trolley and basket shops. Also a priority queue for key workers or old folk.

Same at my local Morrisons.

 

[gentlegreen]

Bread flour is still nowhere to be seen and there was no plain or SF either today. .

Our local Aldi manager says bread flour is now just a special ... it always was a bit touch and go before all this ... I used to buy bread mixes in there until I realised how grim they were.

 

[Mogden]

Our local Aldi manager says bread flour is now just a special ... it always was a bit touch and go before all this ... I used to buy bread mixes in there until I realised how grim they were.

Shame cos I rated the bread mixes. I did get one bag of strong wholemeal from Sainsburys last week but there was bugger all else.