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A Chanukah hood miracle

9 years ago

I fried latkes (potato pancakes) and Sufganiot (jelly donuts) for a crowd, and instead of the smell lasting for eight nights, it did not last even one. ;) ( My cabinets and backsplash didn't even get greasy.)

Thank you GWers for having me get a real hood! (Mine is a Windster WS-38U30SS.)

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Comments (16)

justmakeit
9 years ago
Same miracle occurred at my house! Yay for good grease-sucking hoods. Chag sameach!
vedazu
9 years ago
Me, three! made the sufganiot at night, finishing at 1:30. Sleepers didn't notice a thing!
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I can only guess on this one because a true comparison would require both to be the same size and have the same achieved air flow rate. I would not expect anyone to have such a setup that could be compared. The baffle noise will be due to turbulence from air passing over the sharp edges of the baffle sheet metal. The mesh noise will be due to turbulence from air passing over the edges of the mesh holes. Although baffles have more metal surface than meshes filling the same area, I would argue that baffles have less edge length. This suggests that the mesh filters would generate more turbulence and thus be noisier. However, the size of the turbulence cells could be different in each case, and the sound frequency spectrum for one might be different than the other, leading to different perceptions of the noise relative to the actual achieved acoustic power. So, we are faced with a lot of qualitative fluid dynamics phenomena that don't lead to an obvious conclusion, so intuition prevails. In my estimation baffles will be no more noisy than meshes for the same air flow rate. I would also estimate that at moderate flow rates where the mesh induced noise isn't partly ultrasonic, the mesh noise will be louder. Also, relative to the italics above, equal fans do not yield equal flow rates, even with perfect MUA control. The losses in ducts of different diameter are not equal, and meshes will cause greater pressure loss, even when clean, than baffles for the same actual aperture area. (And most mesh filters do not cover as much area under their hood's boundaries as baffles usually do for the same hood boundaries.) So the flow rate achieved with meshes may be lower, but at the same time the air velocity at the mesh may be higher, and hence more noise is generated per unit area for less area. This is a non-trivial condition for which to have to estimate relative noise. kas
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Thanks to all for the kind words. Jemdandy, I was just trying to give background to my answers of the initial question about our observances. I'd think a newspaper would want something more festive. Thank-you for the suggestion, however. I'm flattered. No, SW, what your colleague said about it and what I said about it are in agreement, and I'm sure he agrees with the origin and reasoning behind it. This is fact. I may not have been 100% clear. For me, who has been seen in this forum using "G-d" it is a matter of preference according to context and my feelings about it. For people at my level of observance, it is also a matter of individual choice. The hyper-observant always choose it, as I said, whereas there are many who have little religious knowledge or practice who don't even know it's an issue. It's similar to whether one chooses to express dates as B.C./A.D. or B.C.E./C.E. It's a little thing that is meaningful to some and silly to others. Whether or not you keep kosher is a very big thing. My family has taken an intellectual view of practice for generations, so we don't. Family traditions carry as much weight as rabbinic ones, and when the rabbis don't know the answer, they poll the community to find out what practice has been handed down. We talk about the anthropological origins, and go outside of the texts. Instead, for my home, I follow the "new kashrut", choosing foods, as much as possible, that are created with good stewardship and kindness. We don't have a central authority other than the court. We haven't had a king for a thousand years. There are organizations of organizations where they discuss how they see matters, and some see things very differently from others, but Jewish practice is an individual obligation and will be done in an individual manner. And then all the neighbors will kibbitz about it. :)
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vdinli
9 years ago
Sigh..I wish I could join you guys in celeberating a hood miracle. I was so looking forward to it when I bought the highly recommended Kobe CHX 191 hood. I am so underwhelmed by its performance-it is vented straight up through the roof and even when operating at the highest CFM it can't seem to keep up with the raising fumes from the front burners. I hadn't realized how little the hood and range overlap less than 12 inches so I am forced to use the back small burners for the oily stuff! I brought the baffle version thinking it will be a breeze to pop those in the DW but alas, they don't fit in my Bosch unless I remove all trays from it. Sorry, don't mean to rain on ur parade but just as a word of advice to other hood shoppers-check the overlap between the hood and range.
detroit_burb
9 years ago
you guys are funny. I oven fried the livivot.
Niki Friedman
9 years ago
Love this! Happy Hanukkah to all!
bpath
9 years ago
Oh, that sounds so nice...the food and the hood! I was at a friend's for dinner, something spilled over in the range oven, smoke poured out, she turned on the hood and in 3 silent seconds the room was clear. Awesome.

Happy Holiday Cooking!
quahog
9 years ago
Congrats and enjoy!

We are going through unpleasantness with our contractor over the positioning and bad finish work on a new hood installation, unfortunately, but as-is it does move air and is such a gigantic improvement over having an un-vented kitchen.

Very glad we went for a serious piece of equipment -- an Imperial 600cfm. Also nice is that it takes standard PAR20 floodlight bulbs, 2 x 50 watts, which means a wide range of halogen or LED bulbs fit and with tons of light. Much more enjoyable to cook!
joygreenwald
Original Author
9 years ago
Livundev_liny, I'm sorry that your hood isn't effective. It's so frustrating to do your homework and do it all right and have it fail.

Bpathome, mine is far from silent. I knew that was a sacrifice I made in enchange for power and economy. I'm sound sensitive, and it's not loud. But it's not as quiet as it could be. Of course, I was paranoid, so I used it on high. Low is far quieter.

Quahog, I read your thread. I was going to comment, but so many people already had. I'm glad at least it works. I hope he makes it right. That is so wrong.

Happy Chanukah all.
Cook1
9 years ago
Wow- I only wish for a hood like that. Night 7 and I'm still smelling the grease from the first night. All listed hoods are now on my shortlist. Best test of a hood that I know of. Thanks,
Niki Friedman
9 years ago
A side note on latkes... We're at my parents house for a few days and my mom made amazing latkes, baked, not fried, with hash browns! Now, I'm a traditional girl who likes my latkes crispy and oily, but these really were good. Even my kids ate them and they are picky.
a2gemini
9 years ago
Happy Chanukah
Sounds delicious even if you can't smell it for days.
I got scared away from a more powerful hood due to the MUA issue and having induction. The good news, I can only smell dinner for about 12 hours instead of days. I was thinking of replacing with a Kobe but will nuke that one.
I need a rear vent.
joygreenwald
Original Author
9 years ago
Viennamommy, I'm glad that one actually worked for you guys. My husband says I'm Cooks Illustrated cult member. Last year I tried their hash brown, baked latke recipe. Total failure. None of us liked them at all. So this year I went back to the traditional method.

A2gemini, mine vents to the rear. It's not actually that powerful... Only 620 CFM. But we also didn't want to deal with MUA. We'd originally budgeted for an OTR microwave, but then I was educated here. No money left for anything generally recommended. I was able to get mine for under $400; so it was powerful for the price, and it had baffles that I can put in my dishwasher. I'm sure it's not the best hood out there. But as it passed the Chanukah test, I'm willing to give it my stamp of approval. I used to smell my curries, etc all night long, especially in my daughter's room. Now I don't smell them so long as we clean up after dinner. For reference, I'm coming from basically no venting. In my old kitchen, there was a fan in the ceiling that vented into the attic. (The wall was full of mold they pulled it down.). As I said, I tend to use it on high because I'm paranoid. It's 6.5 sones on high, so it's not horrible, but it's pretty damn loud. Even on low it is still 3 sones. If we'd had the budget, I'm sure I could have found something quieter. But I used to set of my smoke detector constantly, and I haven't once since I've had it. No smokey house any more when I make hamburgers or steaks. And I can always turn it off right after cooking, so I never hear it while we eat.
quahog
9 years ago
cook1: One other plus for the Imperial brand is that it has a 7 year warranty which includes in-home service -- if it breaks, a tech comes to your kitchen and repairs it.

That's also why we're insisting our contractor mount it in a way that fully complies with mfg specs -- we'd have gone cheaper w/o the warranty so it'd really suck to have it voided.
sjhockeyfan325
9 years ago
The miracle in my case is that I didn't set off the smoke detector when frying my latkes (we only have a recirculating hood - not possible to vent outside). We set it off just twice over the past year, I think making salmon in both cases, and oh, what a pain to turn it off (and it is absolutely ear-splitting).

Happy last night of Chanukah!
cat_mom
9 years ago
We went more for form than function when we chose our hood (figuring, anything was better than the piece o'crap in our old kitchen!). DH did tell me after we started using it (and were kinda underwhelmed with its power), that we could replace it.....

It does look sleek, and is pretty quiet (on the lower speeds especially), but I wouldn't mind replacing it with something that's still relatively quiet, but clears away the latke aromas better!
nancyjwb
9 years ago
Lucky you! I'm still smelling the brisket with mushroom and onion gravy from Sunday dinner. My kitchen is unvented and has no windows:( I hope someday to join the ranks of the venters!

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