Event log

Today is monday. I have been wirting during the weekend.

Today Brad talked about the grading system in Canada and we reviewed the beef grading system.
Then we watched a demo of Brad cutting a cattle. Supprisingly it is a Priminum. There is a lot marbling there.
This afternoon, we continue to watch the demo of cutting. But there were two hanging methods there. We compared the two methods and their effect on the tenderness of the muscles. Actually I cannot tell most of them the difference, but some pieces I can tell which is more tender than the other.
The we did the cleanning again.

Event log

This morning, we moved to a new classroom and Brad talked about cooking method on meat, which I am not interested in. Then we went to make some jerkys. I love jerkys, but they are too expensive. I was thinking it could be a good idea to run a meat processing plant (start up) making jerkys. With not too much investment, not too many equipments (mixer/grinder, smoke house, vacuum packagin machine and it’s done).

In the afternoon, he talked a lot about the ingredients and meat to make a formula. One interesting thing is to keep the moisture/protein ratio equals 4:1. I asked him where the number comes from and he said well, it is all from real practice. If the number is higher than 4:1, the sausage would be too wet. If the number is lower than 4:1, it could be too dry.
At noon, Brad showed us the pH of the Salami sausage we just made yesterday and the pH went down to 4.8 which is good. The degree*hour is lower than 550, so we are good. Then he will let the sausage being at 33 oC for another week and we can taste it next week, before we leave.

Event log

Today we were talking about the fermented sausage production.

We actually never learnt anything about making fermented sausage. So this is new to me.
One thing new to me is the degree*hour, there is certain limit on the degree*hour of making the fermented sausage.
Others like the hurdles used in making fermented sausage are common sense.
I am surprised that the fermented sausage needs to be cooked. If it is not cooked, it needs to be tested.
Later in the morning, we went to make some fermented sausage.
In the afternoon, we learnt something about postmotem tenderness. There are some ways to make the beef muscle more tender. Then we went to stuff some sausages (We tasted later of the day, ok, but too much oil/fat coming out just after cooking).
After class, we also took some time going to a local brewery on campus. We tasted some types of beer and I decided to buy some when we going back to Saskatoon.

Event log

In the morning, Brad talked about curing. There are several ways of curing, rub, soak brine, single needle, multiple needles and artelery curing. The calculation of the curing system is horrible. The pick up percentage is not included. The salt in FS cure (5% nitrite) is not included. OMG. The nitrite calculation is simplified and I don’t know if it is legal.

Then we went to look at different curing methods. Rub, soak and brine, multiple needles and so on.
In the afternoon, Brad talked about smoke house management. One thing I noticed is Brad even used diluted liquid smoke in some sausage/ham curing. This makes sense because the smoking in smoke house can only penetrate certain deep of the sausage/ham.
Then we put the cured ham into net and then we actually clean the processing area again.

Event log

In the morning, Brad talked about the ingredients, including binders, extenders, and others.

Soy flour contains so high protein.

Then we made some bacon using tumbler without pumping brines or injecting brines, just tumble for certain time.
We also made some grinded some cooked liver, skin and liver something and don’t what we are going to do with them.
Then we made some blood pudding by mixing all the ingredients and… blood… together.
We incased the liver thing and blood thing into cases.
In the afternoon, Brad talked about something about casing. One interesting thing is way to store natural casing using 1:1 weight salt, just soak the casing a little bit and mix it with salt. Rinse the casing before use.
We then hang the bacon on the racks and sent them into the smoke house.
The processing area is not cold at all, it may be around 10-15 oC.

Event log

Had breakfast at 7:00 am at the cafeterial.

Arrive the Animal Science Building at 8:00 and met Brad.
Introduced to each other. Brad, Dave, Shelly and others.
Brad talked about the plan of our training. Basiclly we are going to make a lot of meat products throughout two week training and the last day is for meat cutting.
Brad firstly talked about meat ?
Then talked about ingredients added into meat products, starting from salt, water, phosphate, nitrite….
One thing I noticed is the phosphate. Because we were taught that adding phosphate can increase the pH of the system and then can increase the water holding capacity and so on. But Brad remineded me that the pull out of the muscle that the movement of myosin and actin needs ATP and the phosphate cause the pull out movement of the myosin and actin. So adding phosphate can somehow pull out the myosin and actin and make more water held.
The other thing is nitrite, the limit of nitrite in Canada is 200 ppm while the limit of nitrate in Canada is 200 ppm also. Can we use them together? The answer is yes. We can put them together. When? When we need a very long time of curing, such as Salami. The nitrate can be reduced to nitrite by microbes through the very long curing time.
In the morning, we looked at how to make potato sausage, basically Brad put pork meat (80/20 I guess) into the grinder, put ingredients in it, put potatoes in it. Mix (using the mixing function of the grinder) them for ~20 min. Then grind them out (using 1/8 inch – 3/8 inch plate, I am not sure the exact size). Stuff into 10 cm -15 cm diameter plastic case. Freeze them (Not sure he wanted to be blast frozen or just froze them at -30 oC).
Then we did the washing and cleaning. Rinse everything using hot water, put detergent on everything, rinse again, put disinfactants on everything, rinse the last time.
To sum up, I need to ask more questions when I don’t understand what Brad is talking.

Event log

Darshica and I left at arount 10:00, take the flight to Calgary first.

The flight was on time.
Arrrive at Calgary.
The second flight was not on time. There was a mechanical problem, so we changed another flight.
It departed at around 4:00pm and we arrived at Edmonton at around 5:00pm.
Lisa picked us up and we headed to Olds.
After about two hours, we arrived at Olds and moved into the Frank Grisdale Hall.
Lisa took us to Subway and bought dinner and she left.

Red alert 3: Uprising 游戏体验

红色警戒3：起义是EA推出的一款即时战略类游戏，是红色警戒3的首部独立资料片。所谓的独立意味着你不需要安装红色警戒3的原版游戏，就可以享受资料片带来的游戏体验。总体来说，红色警戒3是一款良心之作。虽然它有很多缺点，比如说战役内容太少，每个国家只有4个战役可玩。而且不支持联网对战，只能跟电脑打。但是考虑到它庞大的指挥官挑战模式，以及比上一代更多的可选单位，这些缺点也不值得一提了。

就像所有不喜欢又很喜欢红色警戒系列的玩家来说，红警饱受诟病的一点就是它的不平衡性。不平衡性是相较暴雪的星际争霸或魔兽争霸等平衡性极为出色的游戏来说的。这么多年过去了，这么多代红警游戏的推出，不平衡性与其说是一种缺点，倒不如说是红警系列游戏的一种特点了。反观本作，不平衡依然体现的淋漓尽致，比如说日本的建筑物没有基地建造限制，可以随意开矿，可以将炮塔建到对方基地旁边，来一次Tower Rush。比如说各种超级武器的出现，如盟军的光棱坦克，日本的Wave Force坦克，苏联的天启自不必说，各个国家的超级武器简直如同bug一样的存在，只要顶住了敌人的进攻，迅速攀科技发展出超级武器，基本上对方在一瞬间就能崩溃。但是我们在讨论平衡性的时候，发现这种平衡性差的游戏反而适合作为单机游戏。有多少人玩红警是跟人对战的，恐怕更多的是开1V7的电脑吧。炸毁桥梁后，只要建足够的高射炮顶住对方的空军，攒一队基洛夫，7家就能顺次灭掉。我们恐怕只是在玩的是一种爽快感，一种在智商上碾压电脑的快感。

如果EA想让红色警戒系列成为对战类的游戏，一些必要的设定就需要更改，比如这些超级武器可以取消了，超级单位的杀伤性可以减低了，防御性也可以减低了。恐怕单位的火力伤害类型和护甲类型也需要有新的调整。但这样以调整，就又像极了星际争霸，还是我们从小就玩的红色警戒吗？但是我们也可以看到平衡性方面的改变，比如说开矿终于不是在基地四周漫无目的的了，终于迎来了星际争霸一样固定位置矿场的概念。水里面也可以建造建筑了，这给了海战新的启发。从红警３开始，国家数量骤降为３，每个国家保留了应有的特色，也是为平衡性而作出的考虑，值得称道。总之，这款资料片是不错的续作。期待红色警戒４的推出。