u/enanram

I've dabbled in paella before but this is my first time using a proper pan. I think I underestimated the water - the grains in the middle were super crunchy when it had almost boiled away. So I added more water, but at that point I was guessing on timings and all the socarrat burned to the bottom. The rest was salvageable but a bit bland. I think I used too much meat and veg for the amount of rice. I might also try a bit more saffron and paprika next time, as well as measuring the water more carefully. Thoughts? I was going for a Valencian kind of style, making the stock in the pan and marking the water level with some foil.

I've been having some trouble with pizza dough. A couple of days ago, I mixed a dough in the morning - 00 flour, 65% hydration, 2.5% salt, 0.5% dry yeast. I kept the yeast low as I wanted it to go the whole day and it's quite warm at the moment. My kitchen is sitting around 24 degrees (75 Fahrenheit). I kneaded for 15 minutes or so, and did a few stretch and folds. But when it came to about 5pm it wasn't showing any signs of rising. It was really sticky and had no structure. So I decide to start again, this time with an overnight poolish - 1:1, about a third of the flour. I left it on the counter overnight. It was nice and bubbly in the morning so I followed a similar process from there. It recently eventually got going but took most of the day. I really thought it would rise much faster in this heat. Although it didn't look very big and puffy, the poke test looked good so I divided it. The individual pieces held their shape and the pizzas were delicious, but still feel they were a little under-proved. I used yeast that I bought only a few months ago. I've done plenty of pizza and even in cooler weather I need to be careful not to let it over-proof. Any ideas what it might be? Could the yeast be a bad batch to the point it doesn't perform well even with a poolish?

I wanted to keep it simple. Did a small pork shoulder (1.5kg, 3.3 lb) with a few spices and salt rubbed on the night before.

This is a basic smoker I got to try. It doesn't have vents at the bottom - air gets in around the charcoal basket.

I put the meat on at 9:30am. For most of the morning I couldn't get the temperature above about 107c/224f. I used the minion method with briquettes and oak. I don't have pictures of the coals at the beginning.

Some time in the afternoon, during the stall, the temperature fell to about 80-90c (176-194f). Eventually I just lit a half chimney and threw it in, without water this time. The temp went up to about 130c (266f) - got through the stall and I wrapped and put in the oven. We ended up having it the next day as it wasn't done until 11pm. Came out really well though.

For next time, any advice? When the temperature dropped during the stall, I could see the coals were kind of choked in ash. I could barely see any glowing. More coal from the start? Lumpwood instead of briquettes? Snake method? Bear in mind my only method of heat control is the water pan.

I could drill some holes in the bottom of the coal pan to help get some of the ash out during the cook. But I'm worried this might introduce too much oxygen. There's a built in tray under it so I'm not worried about making a mess.

Thanks for reading.

I'm changing my 3-port valve and I don't think I can get these olives off. Will they be ok with some fresh paste? Is it important enough to cut the old nuts off? If so I'll need to go out for a new hacksaw!

My central heating pump is leaking between the black and red areas. Is the ups-3 the right replacement? The valves are seized unfortunately so I think I'll need to drain down the system and replace those too. Are they generally a standard size? I'm hoping to avoid modifying any pipework. And where can I get one quickly? Amazon is a few weeks and screwfix are out of stock.

(It's a Y plan so this is the only pump)

Wanted to get some thoughts - I'm looking into upgrading my water system. Comparing getting a combi to just a pressurised hot water cylinder or pressurised everything.

Current setup: fully vented system. F&E and cistern in the attic, indirect hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard upstairs, conventional gas boiler in the kitchen (pictured), y-plan.

What I want: better hot water pressure balanced with the mains cold, free up space in the airing cupboard and attic (long term we would like to do an attic conversion). And I guess a bit less anxiety about cisterns leaking etc.

Option 1: rip it all out and put in a combi. I'm guessing this will be the most expensive option.

Option 2: keep the boiler, get rid of the cylinder and cistern and put a pressurised indirect cylinder in the attic. Keep the heating loop vented. Try to push the tanks into a corner so if we convert the attic they can be in a little closet out of the way.

Option 3: option 2 plus pressurise the heating loop and get rid of the f&e tank. Don't know if this is possible with the existing boiler.

Considerations:

- we have a pumped shower with really good pressure. While our mains pressure is pretty high, I don't know if a combi would reduce the hot water pressure noticeably if we switch to a combi and thermostatic shower valve and we might miss that.

- we get the boiler serviced every year and have been repeatedly told it has a good bit of life left, so we're reluctant to swap it out until we need to.

- the heating loop is all 22mm as far as I can tell. There is also a 22mm mains feed to the attic for the tanks - this goes up through the soil stack cavity so easily accessible in the bathroom. There are of course hot pipes from the airing cupboard to the bathroom and kitchen (think those are all 15mm) and cold from the attic to the bathroom. So I'm not sure there would be significant repiping involved in options 2 and 3.

- the 3 port valve and pump are easily accessible in the airing cupboard.

Am I right in thinking option 2 would be a lot cheaper than option 1? And is option 3 viable/worth doing?

I'm going to be tiling this backsplash, and as you can see there are areas with paint, old adhesive and some bare plasterboard. I have a polymer primer - is it fine for this whole area? Should I prime the plasterboard and old adhesive? I will make sure to scrape away any adhesive that feels crumbly.

Also there will be an end panel on the left. Just haven't done it yet.

Any issues with how I've done this? With the position of the valves (my own fault, but too late to sort once the floor was down) I ended up having to loop up. Got a bubble but managed to force it through and the heater is working properly. I added a filter on the flow and a lockshield on the return.

Edit: I think a lot of people have misunderstood. I have not joined them yet - I will be scribing it as the walls are out of square. It's a square edge worktop so I'm going to peel back the facing strip and butt join with three worktop bolts which I will rout channels for, as well as titebond 3 and colourfill. My question was if this will be enough. I'll add some brackets for sure if there's a stud or grounds in the right place.

Would you be concerned about this worktop join being unsupported? The (freestanding) washing machine will be under there.

This is my first attempt at a big soldering project. I know it's super over-engineered but I like it. My main aim was to have anything that's not soldered under the sink so I know straight away if it fails. I have copper all the way to the dishwasher and washing machine. I also replaced the seized stop valve with a 22mm lever ball valve. I spent most of today figuring this out, and thankfully nothing leaked except the copper side of the mdpe adapter on the right (it's a supply to the garage so not crucial for now). I may have taken it apart and not put it together right, because it's really tight. I also have separate stand pipes for the appliances so the waste in here will be just a trap, nice and compact. It's a bit improvised, a bit wonky, and I could have used more clips, but any advice? A few pipes come into the cupboard in awkward places, so I had to work around that a little, but any advice on routing?