5 Straining Gadgets Tested By Design Expert

Someday I'm just gonna pop up from behind the table.

I'm Dan and I've been designing kitchen gadgets

for over 40 years.

Today I'm gonna test some straining gadgets

and see if I can find a few ways to improve them.

Help keep your fingers away from the pot.

It can flour out, probably give it a little more

of a flare at the end.

These are the products I am going to test.

Tofu press, Spina, clip strainers, pickle lifter, Teafu.

[upbeat music]

Tofu press,

its purpose and life is to squeeze all the water

out of your waterlogged piece of tofu.

If you are a tofu person, you know what I'm talking about.

It's got on the edge here some O-rings, rubber O-rings.

We've got a top piece which lays on top of the tofu.

We have an internal strainer piece

and we have this bucket to collect

the water that gets squeezed out.

Let's try it out.

So I'm gonna start out using this piece of firm tofu.

It's gonna be a little watery here to get this out

but I will do it.

Let's give it an hour and see what we got.

And we have one third of a cup.

Let's see how the tofu press compares

to using things you may already have in your kitchen.

I've got a wire rack and I have an enamel pan.

Again, this is the same firmness, it's firm tofu.

I'm gonna take this entire pan and place it on the tofu.

Probably if I was at home

I would give it an initial squeeze.

Let's put this entire rig

into the refrigerator for a bit, maybe an hour.

And let's see what we got.

This is what we got from the tofu press.

This is what we got from the things you may already have

in your kitchen, where I had a third of a cup before,

I have a third of a cup now.

So I would say this was just as effective

as the tofu press.

In terms of effectiveness,

I would give it a four out of five.

I believe this will give you some crispy tofu.

Now I'm gonna try it again with the left-handed oil test.

It helps simulate someone who may have weakness,

of course, simulate slippery hands in the kitchen.

It is a quick, quick, quick way to reveal some design

deficiencies or opportunities for improvement.

This is gonna be a bit of a difficult pull.

Can't see that but the bottom here is rounded.

So the chance of this slipping

off my fingers is pretty high.

Straining, straining, straining.

Okay, I got that one.

So I don't think we need to go any further.

I think we're gonna get the same exact result.

The bands are in place. The pressure is in place.

It was just really the process that we're looking

at with the left-handed oil test.

In terms of usability, guess what?

Let's give it a two.

I really think there's no excuse.

We're not designing this better and understanding

that it's really gonna take quite a bit

of pull in order to get this thing set up

and in place.

Two out of five. Let's talk about a redesign.

This actually does have a lot of advantage.

It's pretty concise. It actually fits in your fridge.

It's a good way to store the tofu.

All the redesign thoughts are gonna

be coming out of the design of these clips.

One obvious thing to do would be to keep the shape as it is

but extend this so that you actually have a pull ring

on here that you can stick your finger in

or that you can grab so

that you're pulling on something a lot more secure

rather than trying to get your finger

under here and having this slip.

I would also look at possibly giving it some leverage.

I think there's a way to put a mechanism

on here so that you've got a lever hanging out

here that can be pulled down into place

as you come down with the clip,

it is going to place it and apply the pressure.

Maybe hard to see,

but these O-rings actually have quite a bit of pull to them.

And you don't wanna eliminate that pull

because that is what's giving the pressure on the tofu

but that definitely could be a way to ease that operation.

It does have its faults

and I am a little concerned about people getting this home

and not being able to apply the O-rings.

Let's give it a three and a half

because using this to strain your tofu,

you may also be straining your fingers.

Spina.

[Crew] Spina. What?

[Crew] Spina. Sorry,

I'm from New Jersey.

Here we have Spina, a salad spinner strainer.

This is designed to strain and spin your fresh produce.

First step is I'm gonna fill this with some lettuce.

Let's start spinning.

Now this tub is a little small

so you can hear some banging going on.

And what we're doing here really is simulating

a New York City sized sink.

Let's see how well we did with actually drying it.

I'm gonna put it down here on this paper towel.

Still is a bit wet

but I really don't see how this would be any more

or less effective than a more traditional salad spinner.

In terms of effectiveness

I would give the Spina a five out of five.

I think it does what it does.

So what's nice about this is pushing

and getting the spinning

at a pretty good pace is rather effortless.

I'm not gonna do a left-handed oil test

because there's really no pressure involved here.

So given the fact that I'm getting this to spin

at what I perceive to be the same speed,

the same rotational speed as other salad spinners,

I think it's gonna be as effective

as any other salad spinner.

In terms of usability

I'm gonna give it a couple of demerits.

I don't like the way that it's not really clear

which side folds,

and also when it goes down, it doesn't lock that easily.

I do like the minimal aspect of this

and it does seem to work and spin pretty well.

So let's give it a 3.5 just slightly on the positive side.

Let's talk redesign.

Oh, not easy thing to trace.

I'm gonna assume that the pitch

of the spiral is pretty well worked

out to make this easy to spin

but also to get some velocity with spinning.

So I don't have any complaints with that.

I'm gonna say something that may sound a little

frivolous or not too important

but I would change these hole patterns

to something a little more graphic,

a little more interesting.

I think it would be nice just to give it

a little bit of more identity.

What I would change though

is the way that this locks.

There is this thumb piece here which I will draw.

And there's a very tiny ledge here.

And I would think seriously

about maybe even putting an indent here

so you can really pull this up

but just give it a little more purchase area

for your fingers

so you can actually get a better grip

on this and you can close it up a bit better.

Aside from that,

there is this kind of curious grid pattern here.

I would do something just to ensure

that this part is easier to clean.

And this has a bit of a secretive function here.

When you pull this out,

it's very typical to see a graphic here,

but there's a little lock unlock symbol here.

It's not really clear that this function even exists.

So I would do something here to make the graphic

a little more visible just so that people realize

that that's a thing that is possible to do.

So in terms of a buy rating for Spina,

I would give it a three.

There are some things that I like about it.

I think it's not a bad thing to buy.

I think it's okay.

I am just not overly excited about it.

Clip strainers.

I have in front of me a set of clip-on pot strainers

that allow you to boil different types

of food all at once.

This really gives the one pot meal a whole new meaning.

Let's see how effective they are.

Well, let's load up the baskets.

I've got three sizes of baskets here.

They say a watched pot never boils.

And since you're all watching this

you're really slowing things down.

Look away.

Don't watch, come back in a minute.

[beeping]

So one thing to watch in order for these baskets to work,

the pot needs to be filled pretty high with water.

And I'm a little concerned

that if it starts boiling rapidly,

it's gonna start spilling over the sides.

Think the pasta below at the bottom

of the basket may be a little more well done

than the ones at top.

So I realize you may not actually be making

broccoli pasta and a hard boiled egg in the same session,

but we are doing this in the interest of science.

It seems a little softer than it should be,

but let's cut it in half and see what we have.

Yeah, it's a bit underdone.

I'm not sure if that's

because it was only partially submerged or not.

So we're gonna try this again,

this time using the itsy bitsy spider.

We're using significantly less water.

And I have no question

that everything is getting cooked evenly.

Everything has submerged.

[upbeat music]

I think we're pretty good.

I actually do have quite a bit more pasta

than I did previously.

The size of the basket limited me

to the amount of pasta I was able to fit.

It is peeling better.

It previously was underdone.

Having the egg completely submerged helped a lot.

It is done.

I feel successful and I am ready for my

pasta, broccoli, and egg dinner, no sauce, no nothing.

Just pasta, vegetables, and egg, yum.

In terms of effectiveness on a scale of one to five,

I've gotta give it a one.

It created more problems than they solved.

So usually I would do the left-handed oil test

to check their usability.

However there's not a whole lot

of physical interaction with these.

So we will skip the oil.

For usability, I would give it, let's do two out of five.

Roll around the egg or move the broccoli around.

You gotta watch the water level,

make sure it doesn't boil over,

yet you still have to make sure the water is deep

enough so that you submerge the food,

that just causes a little more issues than it solves.

Let's talk about a redesign.

Now there are a couple of things that I think

need some significant improvement here.

One thing I would suggest is make these deeper.

I would also think about if there was a way to

put some metal feet on here because at least

the metal would be touching the bottom of the pot

and you wouldn't have to be concerned about

melting or getting the bottom here too hot.

I would also just think about ways to make it

a little more secure to lift them up.

You got a part here that's touching the pot.

Maybe even do a thing like that.

And I think that will help keep your fingers

away from the pot.

We could still have this metal piece here to

keep the heat away from the plastic part

so that when you pick it up,

you're just kind of really nested in your fingers.

I would make sure this fully strains

and what I'm thinking is

that the slots go right around the bottom.

It would be kind of fun to work out some shapes to do that.

Give this thing a little bit of character.

I don't know if that means little S shapes or something.

Like I said, eliminate any chance

for water to pool up in here.

It's not a super sophisticated item.

I just think it could use some design help.

I bet you're wondering, hey,

should I run out now and buy these?

No. I would give them a one out of five.

It's kind of interesting

when you see a product that can be replaced by nothing.

So I guess don't put all your eggs

in one basket with these gadgets.

Pickle lifter.

I have in front of me the pickle lifter

and it is designed to lift your pickles.

No more pickled fingers.

Let's load this baby up.

Kosher dill, the world's best pickle.

We're in New York.

So I have to say that.

I'm gonna remove a pickle and let's watch the magic begin.

Here is my pickle lifter.

I am going to start to eject the pickles.

And I think once I'm at this point,

I would now remove the pickle.

Whoa.

That worked fine.

When we're down to just one or two pickles,

would it behave any differently?

No. They're lifting out just as easily.

I think the thing you don't wanna do is you

don't wanna lift this too high.

Otherwise you'll have pickle on the table.

And there you have it.

It was not that amazing.

Let's compare the pickle lifter

to things you may already have in your kitchen.

One of them could be be a jar of pickles and some tongs.

Let's say you want a pickle.

This jar screws open.

Tongs go in, pickle comes out.

That seemed to work okay.

Having all your friends over

and we're gonna have some pickles,

you may actually be the pickle lifter.

That seemed to work too.

I don't see any advantage of this device when compared

to pulling a pickle out of a jar.

So effectiveness, nada.

So normally I would challenge myself

by making my non-dominant hand slippery

and trying this again.

I don't think it's gonna be that difficult

right-handed or left-handed.

That's not its problem.

It's problem is why?

For usability, I would rate this one out of five.

Why take it out

of a glass jar to put it into a piece of plastic?

Let's talk about a redesign.

I would design this so

that it starts out life a little bit wider.

So it really will grab that pickle.

This lifter on this piece,

you can see there are little indents

so that it fits in that direction.

However, it does not fit

in that direction for absolutely no reason.

So of course, when you lift this up,

your pickles are just gonna fall on the table.

I wonder if this could be rethought to strain your pickles

but also as it comes out,

whether it can flower out

in the same way that a vegetable steamer will flower out.

And in that way it becomes a pickle presenter.

Have a little bouquet of pickles,

that would still drain into your container.

Makes you wanna have a pickle party, doesn't it?

In terms of a buy rating

I would give the pickle lifter a nothing.

Sorry, you did nothing to elevate

my pickle snacking experience.

Teafu,

its purpose in life is to scoop and steep tea and a flash.

So let's see how effective it is.

There is a push latch here that allows me

to release it to spring open.

I push it. It seems to open.

I am going to fill half of this with tea.

Now I'm gonna push this closed again.

I'm gonna shake off a couple

of tea leaves that clung to the outside, and time to infuse.

One of the main selling points

of the Teafu is that you're able to squeeze

the tea leaves for faster brewing.

However, I'm not sure squeezing tea leaves is a good idea.

You may have your own thoughts about that.

But I do have some expertise.

I drink nothing but tea at home.

Squeezing a tea leaf

or squeezing tea bags tends to get a little more acidic

or a little more bitter

and I'm not gonna squeeze the tea leaves tight.

I'm just gonna squeeze it enough to see

if I can the water flowing.

with the size of the holes in here,

I'm not sure stirring it is

really getting a good water flow through there.

So possibly it needs to be pumped.

The other thing I'm noticing is

when I go in here to squeeze it,

I'm getting some rather sharp points into my palm.

That's what it's designed to do.

So I'll go with the flow here

and I'm gonna stand it up and I am ready to drink the tea.

That's good.

It's a little weaker than I would want it.

I think maybe I didn't put in enough tea leaves,

but that's not any fault of the Teafu.

In terms of effectiveness,

I rate the Teafu four out five because how could it fail?

All it needs to do is get some water flowing

through the tea leaves.

I'm not gonna bother trying this with a slippery

left hand because there's really nothing about this

that's gonna slip.

I will say though that whether you're using this

with your dominant or nondominant hand,

it's a little curious that if you are gonna squeeze this

or even if you're gonna pump it a little bit

so that you get the water flowing,

the plastic part which feels a little better

is down in a spot where it's gonna make it more difficult.

I would give it a three out of five.

And the reason is I'm not thrilled about the fact

that you can't see the tea leaves.

Once they're in there and close it up,

there's not a really good way to gauge how full it is.

Let's talk about a redesign

and I am going to start with the feet

and I'll tell you why, because I am still feeling it,

the pinching that I got from those feet into my hand.

If the reason for this to exist is so

that I could squeeze it,

then I would create a shape here

that is a little friendly

to your hand and palm when squeezing it.

So I would make this round, not pointed.

I would also increase this hole size

to make sure that there is circulation.

I would give this a one

because I don't think I would recommend

that anybody rushes out to buy this.

I think it needs some evolution before

it's really at a point where it's gonna be

a super cool little device.

Here's the realty, don't buy this.

Once again,

I think people are designing things where they

don't actually spend enough time in the kitchen.

I think some of these just miss completely

and a couple of these are near misses.

Don't think anything is coming home with me.

Well maybe Spina because it's kind of fun to play with.

Is it real or is it a dream?

[dramatic music]