Friday, May 8, 2009
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The “Glorious Jubilee” Largest Black Opal In The World
A few months ago I was fortunate enough to meet the owner of the largest Black Opal that is in existence today. At 755 carats, the “GLORIOUS JUBILEE” is truly an amazing stone.
It’s the largest super sized Lightning Ridge Black Opal I have ever heard of or seen. This Black Opal was found many years ago by a miner at the Lightning Ridge Opal Field in Australia. The opal miner, a few years ago, finally decided to sell it to the gentleman I met.
Someday this gem will be remembered like the Famous “Hope Diamond” for it’s uniqueness and rarity. The Opal Is one piece with thickness up to 14mm, longest point 106, and widest point 84.5mm.
The recommended wholesale value is US $4,000.00 per carat with a total current wholesale value of $3,020,000.
This gemstone has almost every color of the rainbow, changing shades from purple, to blue, to vivid blue green, with lemon, orange and red. From every angle, with even the slightest movement, the variety of color and pattern changes.
It is truly an amazing gemstone recognized worldwide for it’s outstanding uniqueness and this is the only natural gemstone that was ever found that from a specific angle has a clearly visible picture of Mt. Fuji, with red hot lava flowing down the sides.
Well I guess if you have an October birthday, like my mother or good friend Jenifer Jeffers, then it’s gotta go on the ”must have” list right? Anyway, thought that was truly an amazing thing to see and thought you all may like to see and hear about it as well.
Making A Macchiato
A macchiato is a beautiful, and tasty scientific drink.
It consists of layers of Chocolate, foam, milk, and coffee. And with the right tools and proper techniques, they are very easy to make.
When making coffee you must do some Grinding, Tamping, Pouring, Foaming, and Layering. Each step needs proper techniques and practice to do it successfully.
For this you will need:
Espresso Machine
Espresso Cups
Coffee Beans
Coffee Grinder
Thermometer
Milk
Chocolate Sauce
Tamper
Cold Milk Frothing Pitcher
Glass Cup
Grinding:
Ideally you would grind your coffee with a bur grinder, but those can be very expensive, and most people don't have access to one so I will teach you how to use a blade grinder.
Coffee is freshest immediately after it is ground. After grinding coffee beans, the oils that were protected inside the bean are exposed to the air which oxidizes and stales the coffee. This occurs immediately after coffee grinding so it is important to tamp and extract the espresso as quickly as possible. The coffee grinder should be ran for 15-20 seconds every time a shot is desired so that only freshly ground coffee is used, for this reason it is not recommended to use pre-ground.
Tamping:
When your tamping the goal is to make a pellet of coffee that the the hot water from the espresso machine will penetrate evenly. Since the water from the espresso machine is under pressure, the espresso pellet must be hard and evenly tamped. Once your done grinding, put the ground coffee into you filter, use 2.5 to 3 teaspoons for a double shot.
Put the filled coffee filter on a sturdy surface, and take your coffee tamper and place it on top of the coffee in the filter. It should fit snugly into the top of the filter. If the tamper is too small, the coffee around the edges of the filter won't be compressed, and the water will flow through the grounds there, losing its flavor. Press straight down, applying even, firm pressure. You should aim for about 30 pounds of pressure. Push down, twisting slightly in one direction and lift straight up. The surface of the coffee should be smooth with no crumbs. Brush away any crumbs of coffee from around the edge of the filter and place the filter onto your espresso machine.
Pouring:
As a general rule of thumb, the darker the roast the shorter the extraction time should be. For example, espresso uses a Dark roast, and therefore the extraction time is quite short. The ideal rate-of-pour for espresso has the consistency of syrup, About 25-30 seconds.
When foaming your milk, use very cold milk. It is important to keep the milk temperature right above freezing. Keep the steam pitchers in the refrigerator also. This will allow you to steam the milk for a longer period of time.
Fill your milk pitcher half way with cold milk and place the tip of the frothing wand about 1/4 inch - 1/2 inch below the milk surface level. Then slightly tilt the pitcher (if the bottom of the pitcher is parallel with the floor, tilt the pitcher about 15 degrees). Make sure to tilt the front of the pitcher towards the frothing device. Then release the valve to full blast. You will will hear a high pitched squeal, as this happens you will notice the level of the milk will rise. If you see large bubbles starting to grow on the top of the milk, your wand is too close to the top, and if you see no foam form on the milks surface, and hear a deep, throaty wine, the wand is down too deep.
Keep doing this until a foam dome is formed at the very top of the pitcher.
Once the temperature reaches 180 degrees, stop heating the milk.
This can take a lot of practice to get it just right, so I recommend using an electric milk frothier until you master it.
Once you have your espresso shots, and frothed milk, take out your glass cup and chocolate syrup.
The first thing you pour in is your milk, on the bottom will be your milk, and on top will be the foam.
Then pour in your espresso shots right down the middle, you will notice it stays in the middle.
Then take out your chocolate syrup and pour it in until you can see it at the button, and then put a thin layer of chocolate on top of the foam. (make sure not to make it too thick or it will sink.)
And you have your finished product, a 5 layer macchiato.
This is a great example of density. Looking at this drink we can see that Chocolate Sauce is very dense, and the foam is not.
Density is a measure of how much mass is contained in a given unit volume (density = mass/volume). Put simply, if mass is a measure of how much ‘stuff’ there is in an object, density is a measure of how tightly that ‘stuff’ is packed together.
It consists of layers of Chocolate, foam, milk, and coffee. And with the right tools and proper techniques, they are very easy to make.
When making coffee you must do some Grinding, Tamping, Pouring, Foaming, and Layering. Each step needs proper techniques and practice to do it successfully.
For this you will need:
Espresso Machine
Espresso Cups
Coffee Beans
Coffee Grinder
Thermometer
Milk
Chocolate Sauce
Tamper
Cold Milk Frothing Pitcher
Glass Cup
Grinding:
Ideally you would grind your coffee with a bur grinder, but those can be very expensive, and most people don't have access to one so I will teach you how to use a blade grinder.
Coffee is freshest immediately after it is ground. After grinding coffee beans, the oils that were protected inside the bean are exposed to the air which oxidizes and stales the coffee. This occurs immediately after coffee grinding so it is important to tamp and extract the espresso as quickly as possible. The coffee grinder should be ran for 15-20 seconds every time a shot is desired so that only freshly ground coffee is used, for this reason it is not recommended to use pre-ground.
Tamping:
When your tamping the goal is to make a pellet of coffee that the the hot water from the espresso machine will penetrate evenly. Since the water from the espresso machine is under pressure, the espresso pellet must be hard and evenly tamped. Once your done grinding, put the ground coffee into you filter, use 2.5 to 3 teaspoons for a double shot.
Put the filled coffee filter on a sturdy surface, and take your coffee tamper and place it on top of the coffee in the filter. It should fit snugly into the top of the filter. If the tamper is too small, the coffee around the edges of the filter won't be compressed, and the water will flow through the grounds there, losing its flavor. Press straight down, applying even, firm pressure. You should aim for about 30 pounds of pressure. Push down, twisting slightly in one direction and lift straight up. The surface of the coffee should be smooth with no crumbs. Brush away any crumbs of coffee from around the edge of the filter and place the filter onto your espresso machine.
Pouring:
As a general rule of thumb, the darker the roast the shorter the extraction time should be. For example, espresso uses a Dark roast, and therefore the extraction time is quite short. The ideal rate-of-pour for espresso has the consistency of syrup, About 25-30 seconds.
When foaming your milk, use very cold milk. It is important to keep the milk temperature right above freezing. Keep the steam pitchers in the refrigerator also. This will allow you to steam the milk for a longer period of time.
Fill your milk pitcher half way with cold milk and place the tip of the frothing wand about 1/4 inch - 1/2 inch below the milk surface level. Then slightly tilt the pitcher (if the bottom of the pitcher is parallel with the floor, tilt the pitcher about 15 degrees). Make sure to tilt the front of the pitcher towards the frothing device. Then release the valve to full blast. You will will hear a high pitched squeal, as this happens you will notice the level of the milk will rise. If you see large bubbles starting to grow on the top of the milk, your wand is too close to the top, and if you see no foam form on the milks surface, and hear a deep, throaty wine, the wand is down too deep.
Keep doing this until a foam dome is formed at the very top of the pitcher.
Once the temperature reaches 180 degrees, stop heating the milk.
This can take a lot of practice to get it just right, so I recommend using an electric milk frothier until you master it.
Once you have your espresso shots, and frothed milk, take out your glass cup and chocolate syrup.
The first thing you pour in is your milk, on the bottom will be your milk, and on top will be the foam.
Then pour in your espresso shots right down the middle, you will notice it stays in the middle.
Then take out your chocolate syrup and pour it in until you can see it at the button, and then put a thin layer of chocolate on top of the foam. (make sure not to make it too thick or it will sink.)
And you have your finished product, a 5 layer macchiato.
This is a great example of density. Looking at this drink we can see that Chocolate Sauce is very dense, and the foam is not.
Density is a measure of how much mass is contained in a given unit volume (density = mass/volume). Put simply, if mass is a measure of how much ‘stuff’ there is in an object, density is a measure of how tightly that ‘stuff’ is packed together.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
U-Learn-It.com is all about knowledge
We believe that knowledge is the key to success in any endeavor. As such, we hope that we can have a part in making you more knowledgeable about whatever subject you are interested in. So find a topic of interest and go…U Learn It!
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
A Way To Make It Through This Recession!
How would you like to make an extra $1000 - $5000
per month?...even in the current economic downturn?
It's not as hard as you may think.
You know, they say there is a recession going
on...my question to you is...are you going to
participate?
per month?...even in the current economic downturn?
It's not as hard as you may think.
You know, they say there is a recession going
on...my question to you is...are you going to
participate?
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