- Mar 6, 2006
- 6,490
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Price on Amazon is ~$50 http://www.amazon.com/Casa-Maria-Natural-Mortar-Pestle/dp/B00CSSE3KA
Costco has them listed for $15, but currently on sale with $3 off to make it $12.
These are really nice, large, and with a polished exterior. Never seen anything like this so cheap, even the "normal" $15 seems crazy low for this. The only problem I noticed is some serious inconsistency in the manufacturing.
There seems to be some rough cutting for the basic shape, and then a grinding step to flatten out the jagged wavy sawtooth marks from the cutting. Both inside and outside. Then the final polish for the exterior to make it nice and smooth and shiny. Anyway, the problem is I noticed the demo unit seemed to have missed the grinding step inside, the bowl still had the rough cutting saw marks. I checked a few other units and it seemed the grinding step was missed inside and/or on the bottom of many units.
The one I chose had a pretty nice looking stone and the inside was ground correctly, but the bottom still had the rough cutting. I have a picture of this, to give you an idea what that may look like (even these rough cuts varied in texture between units though).
I took these pictures after my initial "seasoning" of it:
My seasoning consisted of about 2x 25 minute grinds of basic white rice. Grinding on the bottom of the bowl, and then resting it on it's side and grinding along the inside edges as I rotated it. I added a few drops of olive/coconut oil mix to the second batch and made sure it was evenly spread over the bottom and sides all the way to the lip.
I washed/rinsed with hot water after each of these grinds, and as a final step after letting it mostly air dry I ground some salt into a fine powder and made sure it got thoroughly rubbed all over inside and out. I may still do another run or two before using it for food, but after these initial steps it was much cleaner and had a deeper color inside.
Costco has them listed for $15, but currently on sale with $3 off to make it $12.
These are really nice, large, and with a polished exterior. Never seen anything like this so cheap, even the "normal" $15 seems crazy low for this. The only problem I noticed is some serious inconsistency in the manufacturing.
There seems to be some rough cutting for the basic shape, and then a grinding step to flatten out the jagged wavy sawtooth marks from the cutting. Both inside and outside. Then the final polish for the exterior to make it nice and smooth and shiny. Anyway, the problem is I noticed the demo unit seemed to have missed the grinding step inside, the bowl still had the rough cutting saw marks. I checked a few other units and it seemed the grinding step was missed inside and/or on the bottom of many units.
The one I chose had a pretty nice looking stone and the inside was ground correctly, but the bottom still had the rough cutting. I have a picture of this, to give you an idea what that may look like (even these rough cuts varied in texture between units though).
I took these pictures after my initial "seasoning" of it:
My seasoning consisted of about 2x 25 minute grinds of basic white rice. Grinding on the bottom of the bowl, and then resting it on it's side and grinding along the inside edges as I rotated it. I added a few drops of olive/coconut oil mix to the second batch and made sure it was evenly spread over the bottom and sides all the way to the lip.
I washed/rinsed with hot water after each of these grinds, and as a final step after letting it mostly air dry I ground some salt into a fine powder and made sure it got thoroughly rubbed all over inside and out. I may still do another run or two before using it for food, but after these initial steps it was much cleaner and had a deeper color inside.
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