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Steak Recipe - How To Make Steak Tender

Steak Recipe - How To Make Steak Tender   You invest a lot of time and money into the steaks for a special occasion and when dinner time comes, they are tough. What happened? How can you cook steaks as tender as your favorite restaurant? The first step to cooking a good steak is to choose the right grade of steak. The top quality beef is graded USDA Prime and commands top prices. USDA Prime grade meats are sold to the restaurant industry and specialty markets and are not as likely to be found at your local grocery chain. The next grade of beef is USDA Choice. USDA Choice is tender, flavorful and only slightly lower in quality than USDA Prime. The meat is well marbled with fat and will be tender and juicy when properly prepared. USDA Choice makes up about 70% of all graded beef and is readily available in your supermarket. USDA Good graded beef is an acceptable grade of beef that has only minimal marbling of fat. It is leaner, but may not be as tender as USDA Prime or Choice. Next, ...
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Hamilton Beach Brew Station 12 Cup Coffee Maker


Hamilton Beach Brew Station 12 Cup Coffee Maker 


Hamilton Beach Brew Station 12 Cup Coffee Maker


The Hamilton Beach Brew Station 12 Cup Coffee Maker is unique amongst coffee makers. This coffee maker has no carafe, instead the coffee is self contained within the unit and is released into your cup by pressing on a dispenser. A great idea it is, but Hamilton Beach needs to engineer this product as it failed ten days after we purchased one. Please continue reading for all the details.

Our Braun coffee maker served us well for over six years. Thousands of coffee potfuls later, it failed to work one morning and we knew it was time to shop for a new one. As we strolled the aisles of our local BJ’s we realized that Braun was not a brand that they carried. Nevertheless our attention was drawn to a unique looking product, the Hamilton Beach Brew Station 12 Cup Coffee Maker, and we soon carried it off and brought it home.

What is so special about this particular product? No carafe! Yes, coffee brews within the main unit and then is released into your cup by pressing on a dispenser, much like the type you find at some coffee stores. The advantage is obvious: you can get coffee with one hand while not worrying that you will break the carafe. An excellent idea!

This particular model holds standard sized coffee filters and has an internal warming tray to keep the coffee warm. Indeed, we felt that the unit kept coffee hotter longer than most units we had owned in the past. For several days we enjoyed hot, fresh brewed coffee and we believed that we made a wise decision in purchasing the product.

Our interest in the product was short-lived, however. One of the oddest features about the unit was the double push of the on/brew button to get the unit started. Much like the double click of your computer’s mouse to open a file, users must do the same thing to the round push button located on the front of the machine. No toggling on/off switch to deal with here! Unfortunately, one recent morning the switch did not work. Sure, the light came on, but coffee was not dispensed. My wife and I redid the process at least a dozen times before we realized that the machine was not going to work. The water was in the unit, the coffee was seated properly in the filter, and the light switch came on. Still, no coffee was brewing.

In summation, the Hamilton Beach Brew Station 12 Cup Coffee Maker is an excellent idea, but the button is a bad idea. It would be better to replace the switch with something that works the first time and everytime thereafter. Fortunately for us we were able to return the item to BJ’s where we received a full cash refund. Hamilton Beach has a great idea, but their engineering leaves something to be desired.
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