dougal
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Posts posted by dougal
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Oiling the plastic does greatly reduce the sticking.
However, these days I put my dough into a big (big enough for room to rise) tupperware-type box.
And I've been proofing shaped loaves on (and under) floured linen (dishtowels) since noting how nicely the linen lining in my fancy bannetons worked.
The linen allows the dough surface to dry just a little, which makes for easier handling, better slashing, etc. In comparison, putting them in/under plastic produces a "sweaty" surface.
I emphasised that the fabric must be linen. Dough sticks to cotton much much much more than it does to linen!
Different people advise different flours for flouring the linen. Rye works for me. I rub it (not much of it) around and tip off what doesn't stay trapped in the cloth. I've heard good reports of rice flour. (I gather its better not to use wheat flour.)
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Does anyone use phosphate? unless the meat is very freshly killed some emulsions are pretty hard to achieve without.
Phosphate is used in many commercial sausages, because it makes it possible to 'hold' an awful lot of water. Buy water (its cheap) and sell it as sausage. Phosphate is very important to the profitability of some sausages.
Its a different game if you are only adding 1% red wine rather than 10/15% of water.
The "classic British banger" is a pretty ghastly thing. Lots of 'rusk' (think breadcrumbs), water (and phosphates), fat and a little bit of meat. The high water content accounts for the (mainly historical) tendancy to explode on frying - hence the name 'banger'.
http://www.sausagelinks.co.uk/facts_FAQs.asp?id=283#9
I'd rather know what goes into mine, and I neither need nor want phosphates, thank you.
I'm under no pressure to increase the water content of my sausages.
But I'm honestly not absolutely certain that the 'bind' is indeed an emulsion - after all, the fat is pretty much solid around water's freezing point. You certainly don't want the water-based stuff to be actually frozen solid too. The amount of mixing effort is in no way comparable to, for example, beating mayonnaise.
Certainly the mechanical cold-mixing action develops a protein stickiness (myosin), and that (rather than the fat) could well be what holds the liquid in the sausage all the way to the mouth, achieving succulence without a high (and artificially bound) water content.
Hence I prefer to talk about "the bind" rather than the emulsion. Kudos to Ruhlman and Polcyn for introducing me to that term.
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Are the clamps in the background related to charcuterie?
Those clamps are securing the (visible, shiny) base and frame of his piston stuffer.
The base usually has holes to bolt the thing down, but that's going a bit far for most people!
Clamp it and it stays still. (Same idea as with a pasta (rolling) machine.)
Then you have one hand to turn the handle, and one hand to control the skin/casing release from the stuffing horn. Such machines do make the stuffing job easier.
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It sounds more like the 'menu construction' than the recipes that has the american accent!
In the US, it might be pretty normal to have sweet pastries at breakfast time.
But that's just plain weird to us Brits. And, I'd say it was for most Europeans.
In Britain, a hotel breakfast might be expected to be centred on something like bacon and egg. (Two fried eggs might be thought strange!) Possibly accompanied by a fried/grilled sausage (black pudding even), fried tomatoes, mushrooms, maybe baked beans, a small piece of fried bread perhaps... Alternatives might be scrambled or poached or (soft) boiled eggs. Or even smoked fish like kippers or haddock. Kedgeree might be the anglo-indian heritage, but nowadays its very, very rarely seen at breakfast. As with fried liver and devilled kidneys...
But ALL this is savoury. And hopefully (mainly) cooked to order and served hot!
Offer some fruit or juice and CornFlakes/Muesli/Porridge or Yoghurt before the cooked stuff, and follow it with some toasted bread for them to butter and then spread with jam or marmalade (or even honey), and British people would feel on familiar ground.
Do give them a decent pot of hot tea or the option of some sort of coffee.
Supporting evidence : (just one example) http://www.georgianhousehotel.co.uk/full_e...h_breakfast.htm
Scones, éclairs, cream puffs and american muffins would be served at mid-afternoon "tea-time" and would be thought distinctly strange at breakfast time. Pancakes? They are desert-course things, not for breakfast! (But 'scotch pancakes' might be served at tea-time.)
Bacon (rather salty, nowhere near as sweet as US bacon - think more like pancetta) and egg might be a cliché (reflecting a truth) but its the presence of the savoury/cooked element - and the near-total absence of sweets - that is the defining element.
The Dutch and Germans go in for cold meats and semi-hard (Edam texture) cheeses. Even hard-boiled eggs.
It was the Swiss that invented muesli...
The French might expect one croissant and a roll (or bits of a still-warm baguette) with a tiny amount of butter and some jam. They might go with something very slightly sweeter, but not often - though they might want some hot drinking chocolate as an alternative to the standard coffee.
And the mainland Europeans are likely to be more concerned about the quality of the coffee than the Brits. Or maybe the Americans...
As you go further south, I think the breakfasts condense towards bread and ever-stronger coffee!
I'd suggest offering a departure from the US sweet buffet framework, like eggs cooked to order, local yoghurt and honey, plain bread with an opportunity to toast it. If the local fruits are not of supermarket cosmetic quality, trim it, macerate or cook it and offer them as compotes that people could have on its own, with yoghurt or muesli, or even with both. Homemade jams that you can honestly claim are from local fruit ought to be well received - and don't depend on blemish-free fruit.
I'm sure that those intrepid tourists that go to Bhutan (at least the European ones) would prefer some local offerings rather than a very American eating experience!
I'd suggest asking the clients. Not necessarily "what would you like to be offered" but rather "which of the things on this list would you prefer to be offered?"...
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I think my stuffing mix was way too dry, not a nice flowing slurry -- certainly not the ideal emulsion. This explains the labored passage along the worm and the air pockets.
How viscous is a good fresh pork sausage emulsion, or batter as McGee calls it? Can you pour it?
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Slurry is not the way to go.
Its emulsion as meaning a stable, intimate mixture of fat and (water-based) liquid.
Commercial sausages usually have lots of emulsifiers and stabilisers to make this happen.
But you can get there without additives. (Though I do plan to play with a little lecithin sometime.)
Its only a tiny amount (like 1%) of (cold !!! ) liquid that need be added.
McGee isn't terribly helpful here. He talks about "emulsified sausages" (by which he means things like Frankfurters) and IIRC "sausages" where he doesn't mention any emulsion concept.
Nevertheless, getting the "bind" that "Charcuterie" stresses, really does make a positive difference to non-hot-dog-type sausages.
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... Hix Oyster & Chop House, which might be just the ticket...Mark hix's Oyster and chop house/ scotts/ st john
I knew there was a thread here somewhere... http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=115056
PS and scotts http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=98967
and of course http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=22732
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So the plan was to stuff some basic pork sausages and to get comfortable with the casings and the new Kitchen Aid stuffer attachment. ... The hardest part for me was controlling the air as the tube filled up. I eventually got the hang of it after some big bubbles and ruptures. It's easier with an assistant.
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Its really difficult to stuff sausages well using a mincer (US: grinder) with a tube stuck on the front.
Even with two people, its still 'skilled' - ie too difficult for my liking.
This is one reason why people use (and rave about) gear-driven piston stuffers.
They make it so easy, its not just fun, it becomes possible to make a really good job of it - rather than the continual salvage operation of stuffing with a mincer/grinder.
Another reason important with coarser textured sausages (and salami) is that the piston stuffer preserves the texture (definition) that the screw-feed would destroy. And if you really want to destroy texture, leave a mincing plate in place when you stuff!
A piston stuffer is a chunky thing to store, but if you are in any way serious about sausages, it'll be an early (and in the US cheap) purchase.
Oh, and see if you can get some proper sausage casings too!
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Why on earth make that assumption? ???
"Steak and Oyster Pie" is a true classic of English cooking.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_...icle3908077.eceThere were some good steaks, which came to the table naked, just so we could abuse them before they were burnt. And the star dish, a steak and oyster pie, was worth the trip on its own.AA Gill reviewing Hix Oyster & Chop House, which might be just the ticket...
... though I'm not too sure about a review that barely gets half way through before saying -
So, that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about what Mark Hix thinks about me.Many a true word, if not spoken in jest, is written in irony.
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Hey dougal, I'm curious--in yeasted breads, every time I've used iodized salt the rise has been much, much slower than if I use an un-iodized salt. Am I just unknowingly sabotaging myself, or is there a reason to use non-iodized salt for yeasted products?
I've never heard of any such effect. {Which doesn't mean that it doesn't or couldn't exist.}
But are you, I wonder, weighing the salt or using a measuring spoon?
For sure, the more (weight of) salt, the slower the yeast should raise the dough.
Now, most iodised salts are fine grain, while the coarser salts are usually not iodised.
And because there's more airspace in a spoonful of coarse salt, there's actually less salt in that spoon.
Therefore a dough containing x spoonfuls of coarse (and incidentally non-iodised) salt will indeed rise faster than one containing the same number of spoonfuls of fine (and incidentally iodised) salt.
But that is because of the differing quantities of salt, not iodine.
Using weight measurements would solve that baking problem (and many others!
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If the oven is new, the temp shouldn't be too far off, but an oven thermometer will confirm. Do you happen to know the make?
I think that if one knows exactly what one is doing, but only with a specific (gas) oven, the point is not to produce a specific numeric temperature, but to produce a familiar temperature, albeit in the different oven.
If one adjusts to get the same reading on the same thermometer, then, regardless of accuracy of calibration (of any of the things), one is coming as close as possible to reproducing known conditions.
All that is being relied upon is the consistency of the thermometer. Same reading for the same temperature on different days.
Of course there's more potential variations, like different thermal mass and heating power (causing a different response to the oven chill on loading the bird), potentially different amounts of radiant heat and different air circulations (free space, fan{?}, ...) leading to differences in evenness and unevenness of cooking, and there's probably an oven humidity difference as well.
But reproducing a familiar oven temperature should go most of the way to curbing excessive variation, shouldn't it?
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I'd be interested to find out how WHO determined that 150mcg/day of iodine was necessary for an adult, as few human populations in history would have had access to that much, but I can't access the papers which would tell me that.
Better than that, you might prefer the US National Academy of Sciences reasoning. They set "Estimated Average Requirements" (from radioactive tracer studies) and then derive their RDA advice from that. (It seems that iodine throughput depends on metabolic level - 'energy' - and so to ensure that 98% of the population is covered, they set the recommendation 40% up on the average requirement, then round it off - getting the same 150 micrograms/day for adults.)
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10026&page=274
Notably however, the average US intake does seem to be sufficient to meet the RDA. (And way higher than here in Western Europe.)
However, I'm (still) not aware of the extent of the variation within the USA, and the extremes concealed within that average. Perhaps that might account for the US using much higher levels of salt iodisation than here in Europe?
Yes, a starch solution is indeed an extremely sensitive (but harmless) detector of iodine! (And vice versa)...it was a huge mistake to use it to layer my Potatoes Anna-- it had turned them an unappealing blue-gray.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine_test
And boiled potato is the classic example of this effect...
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1. Ditto on the oven thermometer. Considering your past experience, it sounds like there's a problem. This should go without saying, but since we are not acquainted, I'll say it: the thermometer is the only authority. Once the oven is on and has supposedly come up to temperature, don't worry about it if there's a significant difference between the control on the oven, and the thermometer. In fact, you might even consider using it in your own oven for awhile before you leave, so that you are confident it's right.
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Added emphasis.
You want to see what the (portable) oven thermometer says that your home oven is really at when you use your chosen knob setting.
Then, when off-site, set the knob on the other oven so that the oven thermometer reads the same as it did when you were back at home.
Regardless of what that oven's knob scale says.
Here we're talking about a cheap thermometer to measure the temperature in the oven. Not in the meat (though one of those wouldn't hurt as a secondary thing).
Also beware a big turkey finding itself too close to electric elements. Lots of silver foil should be on hand to protect any bits that look like burning.
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Oh, sorry!
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It also occured to me that the sides of the canister would freeze much quicker than the middle - and would probably need to be scraped every once in a while in between stirrings... ...
Ice cream makers don't actually stir the mix so much as continually scrape the base and sides - the gap between bowl and "dasher" is critically small - and important I believe in controlling the final texture. The other function of the dasher is to incorporate air into the freezing mix. "Overrun."
My Gaggia machine's dasher rotates at maybe 10 rpm. Can your drill really go that slow?
Incidentally, if one uses the Gaggia as a bowl-within-a-bowl, alcohol is used between the bowls as a non-freezing, conformal (liquid!) thermal link between the inner bowl and the freezer coils.
If you already have a chest freezer and a stand mixer (like a KitchenAid), then the simplest thing would be to get the mixer "ice cream maker attachment". This is a bowl that gets frozen and an appropriate paddle acting as a dasher.
If you store the bowl in your freezer, you can pack flexible bags of stuff like peas inside and around it - so the amount of wasted space it takes is minimal, and its always chilled ready to use.
But if your freezer has built-in shelves, check very carefully that there is enough shelf-to-shelf height to take the freezeable bowl.
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I'm always surprised by advice to leave a thermostatically-controlled oven's door open...
What happens is that the oven effectively tries to heat the whole room to the set temperature, making for much more heat in at least some areas of the oven! (I learned this many, many years ago. The image of a melted, rather than dried, pair of ski goggles haunts me still!)
Gas ovens are rather well vented - to let the co2 (and water vapour) from the flames escape.
So don't worry about how the fruit's moisture will get out with the door closed!
Put the fruit on a rack or mesh so the air can flow all round it.
Stuff dries faster the thinner it is cut - but it takes up much more rack space!
I dry mushrooms rather than fruit, btw. I think the water content might be similar though.
If the oven will give you 35/40C, you are very lucky. It should do nicely.
However, I suspect that exposure to very high humidity after drying might be a problem.
Two thoughts that occur to me for countering that humidity are using vacuum (Foodsaver-style) packing, or alternatively storing the dried fruit buried in sugar...
My mushrooms just go into a super clean, totally dry (oven dried!), lidded jamjar.
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Well, people can be as scientific as they like. I'm describing a casual tasting by which someone can decide which salt flavor he/she would prefer to add in food.
To clarify and summarise my suggestions - (esp considering the thread's title)
- for salt at the table, (where it might go into the mouth as crystals, whose shape and size would then influence perceived taste), use whatever you like. But in any case, go easy on it. Most people eat too much salt for their own good.
- but for salt in the kitchen, (where it is unlikely, except in a very few specific cases, to reach the plate in its original crystal form), it makes healthy sense to use iodised salt as your 'general purpose' salt. You won't be able to tell the difference by tasting the dishes. And the kitchen salt usage is likely to be much greater than the usage at table, so the bulk of the salt used/consumed would be the more healthy, iodised salt.
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I never buy iodized salt. Frankly, the fact that it exists at all is pretty much a holdover from half a century ago, when Americans didn't eat seafood.
If you have sushi once a month, you're pretty much getting your full RDA of iodine. So there's no real point in buying it ... and the iodine taste will harm some dishes.
I'd be interested to see any factual support for the opinion that once-a-month seafood (not Lugol's Iodine or any other form) is an appropriate substitute for the recommended daily intake.
My understanding is that normal body iodine throughput is fairly rapid (much faster than a monthly cycle).
Thus it would be the daily intake that was more important than the monthly one.
This is shown up in the case of radioactive release, where one of the palliative treatments is, I believe, iodine tablets. Taking these minimises the body's uptake of radioactive iodine, which would be (more dangerously) concentrated in the thyroid.
http://www.ehpt.nhs.uk/ASP/publications/satblio.htm {From the UK National Health Service "NHS"}Stable iodine tablets have been shown to reduce the predicted amount of radioactive iodine taken up by the thyroid gland by 50% even when tablets are taken 5 hours after exposure.The World Health Organisation has noted Iodine Deficiency Disorders even in large cities, in coastal areas, and in developed countries...
In the past, the likely occurrence of IDD in a given region was regarded asbeing signalled by certain geographical characteristics. These include mountain
ranges and alluvial plains, particularly at high altitude and at considerable
distance from the sea. This occurrence is confirmed by a high prevalence of
goitre in the resident population.
However, the greater availability of urinary iodine estimation and other methods
for assessing iodine deficiency has demonstrated that IDD can and do occur
in many areas where none of these conditions are met. Indeed, significant
iodine deficiency has been found:
where the prevalence of goitre, as based on palpation, is normal;
in coastal areas;
in large cities;
in highly developed countries; and
where IDD have been considered to have been eliminated, either by prophylactic programmes or general dietary changes.
In recognition of the much wider occurrence of IDD than previously thought,
certain countries have come to regard the whole country as being at risk of
iodine deficiency and therefore the entire population as a target for IDD control
by iodized salt.
http://www.who.int/entity/nutrition/public...iminination.pdf
Quotation from "Page 9" (page 25 of the PDF)
And from the same document, at "Page 8" (24 of the PDF) they list what those "disorders" might be -
Table 1: The spectrum of the Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDD)FETUS
Abortions
Stillbirths
Congenital anomalies
Increased perinatal mortality
Increased infant mortality
Neurological cretinism: mental deficiency, deaf mutism, spastic Diplegia squint
Myxoedematous cretinism: mental deficiency, dwarfism, hypothyroidism
Psychomotor defects
NEONATE
Neonatal hypothyroidism
CHILD & ADOLESCENT
Retarded mental and physical development
ADULT
Goitre and its complications
Iodine-induced hyperthyroidism (IIH)
ALL AGES
Goitre
Hypothyroidism
Impaired mental function
Increased susceptibility to nuclear radiation
Quite apart from the multiple effects on the unborn, the really significant aspect overall of iodine deficiency seems to be mental impairment. (Bottom of page 24 of the PDF)
... of much greater publichealth importance are the more subtle degrees of brain damage and reduced
cognitive capacity which affect the entire population. As a result, the mental
ability of ostensibly normal children and adults living in areas of iodine deficiency
is reduced compared to what it would otherwise be.
So its official, a deficiency of iodine makes one more stupid than one would be otherwise.
As the WHO say at "page 20" (page 36 of the PDF)
Ensuring the required daily intake of iodine to maintain normal brain functionis as important as the provision of clean water.
So, if it helps, try to think of iodised salt as a "brain tonic"...
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Prof of European History at Cornell.
But the author of at least five books on bread...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5082300291.html
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Bread-Back-Cont...y/dp/0822338335
PS Absolutely agreed that everyone's entitled to an opinion. But some people do have bigger opinions than others, it seems.
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... how about doing a comparative salt tasting... ?
Just a pinch on the tongue, then a drink of water before the next tasting. ...
I never bother with iodized salt, since I eat seafood regularly, and that should supply sufficient iodine. Seaweed, yogurt, milk, and eggs are also sources of iodine.
Wooooa there!
If you are going to eat salt crystals - as the solid crystals - then the shape and size of those crystals influences your perception at least as much as minority mineralisations, additives or fortifications. (I'd say much more so.) Size and shape varies the speed of dissolving on the tongue, which makes the taste 'strong' (fast) or 'gentle' (slow) - even with the identical weight of "pinch".
But eating salt as crystals is only a tiny fraction of typical salt consumption.
If you are using your salt in solution, taste-test it in solution.
Weigh out a measure of salt - big enough to do accurately. Say 10g.
Dissolve it in a quantity of water. Say 100g. Using warm water helps.
Stir it again - after you think its dissolved.
And then dilute the solution again, making it up to an accurately measured (and well mixed) 1000g. With cold water.
So we are at about 1%. Salty tasting, but not enough to make you wince!
Do exactly the same with all your samples. Label them A, B, C, etc.
Let them come to the same temperature.
Then get three or more other people to taste-test them without knowing which is which. (Ideally the test should be administered by someone who doesn't know which is which.)
If you want to do the tasting, you must get someone else to prepare the samples.
The taster mustn't know which is which! Blind tasting requires absence of prejudicial info more than a blindfold!
Wherever in the world you are, if you eat seaweed, you shouldn't be short of iodine!
I'm far from sure the same can be universally said for fish.
And I think that the amount of iodine in eggs and milk products will vary depending on what the beasts are eating.
It is because of wide variations in the iodine intake in the national diet of different countries that the level of salt iodisation varies between those countries.
My expectation would be that the amount of supplementation needed should also vary considerably between US states. (However I don't believe the standard level does.) And I understand that standard US iodisation levels are among the highest in the world (due to the national diet having been assessed as being particularly deficient in iodine).
For US readers, is there a state-by-state breakdown of iodine deficiency?
So iodised salt should be less important there...The Iodine State: South Carolina has been referred to as "The Iodine State" because of the large percentages of iodine found in the vegetation growing in the state.My guess would be that seaweed-eating was not equally distributed across all communities, in all US states... Averages can mask enormous variations.
Personally, I can't taste detect unpleasant tastes in UK iodised salt.
Having now only half my thyroid, I do hope people won't object to my strenuous advice to use (more or less) iodised salt in cooking where it should inconspicuously do nothing but good.
However, if anyone wanted to serve a 'fancy' salt at table (like Maldon flakes, for example), then I don't see the harm - as long as its (appropriately) iodised that's used in the kitchen.
Unless you eat plenty seaweed, of course!
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The more cream, the creamier the cheese. I shouldn't worry about your bacterial starter not liking cream!
Texture aside, its a matter of making 'cottage cheese' (from skimmed milk) or 'cream cheese' from a particularly creamy 'milk'. Or wherever in between you choose. Proper fridge cold (4C) doesn't tend to "destroy" bacteria. (It doesn't sterilise stuff.) But it does slow them right down. You may have a warm bit of the fridge that sits at 6C or higher. That'll allow more activity. But a cool 10/12C is probably a sensible balance. Different temperatures will give different balances of activity between different bacteria. And so different flavour balances.
As I understand it, you are
- preparing a starter (from dried powder?) to some degree of 'sharpness'
- 'scalding' some milk (90C for 10 minutes) to give your bacteria a clear run.
- cooling the milk to room temp (ish) about 22C
- mixing in the starter
- leaving it for 24 hours at about 22C
- then mixing in some prepared rennet, and expecting coagulation in an hour and a half. (My "VegeRen" {from Tesco, Sainsbury, Waitrose, etc, usually found with the cake decorating stuff} wants to see 32C and have a longer static rest than that for a clean break) You gave it 3 hours before scooping the curds into moulds. (Maybe you salted the curds at this point.)
- allowing 24 hours draining at room temperature
- unmoulding
- and then another 24 hours in the fridge before eating.
It depends on the starter, but for a mild cheese many recipes specify essentially zero delay between mixing in the starter and rennet.
IMHO making that particular delay 24 hours at room temp (instead of a couple of minutes) is likely to make for a 'strong' (sharp?) flavoured cheese. Especially when followed by 24 hours draining, also at room temp.
Something to be aware of is that the material can be tasted at any point during the process.
Indeed that may be a useful guide.
Just as with cooking, tasting as you go does make sense.
For hard (pressed and matured) cheeses, an 'iron' for taking a core sample (like the pros) would be really nice to have... /sigh/
The manipulation of time and temperature is just to get you to the point where someone has decided that the taste (and texture) for that route are at their most pleasant.
Because its DIY, you can play with the variables to take you to where you think is most pleasant.
But please don't think that you must follow every stage of your recipe exactly!
Sure, its no bad thing to scald the milk first.
And very likely to have it cooled down (like to 40C or below) before adding your starter.
To get good coagulation, follow your rennet instructions, and remember that it needs to sit totally undisturbed to coagulate properly.
Beyond that, you can do whatever you please. Different routes will give you cottage cheese, quark, philly, mozzarella, cheddar, stilton or even 'vieux puant' styles. And the differences are really more of degree, variation rather than, er, a chalk and cheese difference.
Aside from to the pregnant, the elderly, infirm, infants, etc, your cheese should be as safe as any home cooking. At any stage in the process. See what variations make the end result "better" in your eyes - and more importantly, mouth!
However, as always, you can't really learn (or replicate) unless you control the variation.
And its simplest to, as far as possible, only play with one variable at a time!
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Personally, I've no idea about that specific rice cooker.
But 1500 watts does seem like massive overkill - which might explain the problem.
I'm a trifle concerned by some references to 'electronic control'.
Ideally you want a totally dumb water heater. (Just like most espresso machines!)
So that the PID controller can do its job of dealing with perturbations without interference.
If the cooker is trying to think for itself, you are just going to be fighting it.
Are there two models, the 36U and the 360? Or is it a common typo across the 'net?
I found a pdf manual for the 360, and it mentioned rapid rice spoilage if the thing was even briefly switched off and on again during 'keep warm' (4th para, page 7). Which sounded to me like very unhelpful behaviour if being bossed by a PID controller.
Maybe you'll need to contact Fresh Meals Solutions in Toronto.
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... The rice cooker took a rather circuitous route to me courtesy of UPS, so it did not arrive until this afternoon, a few days later than scheduled. In the interim I decided to pick up a smaller rice cooker ... I have yet to use the 20 cup Tiger, which has 4.5 times the water volume of the smaller "10 cup" Rival model I purchased earlier.
The little Rival rice cooker, rated at 400 watts, will hold about 700 ml of water when full. ...
My question is this: I haven't read any posts here or elsewhere about using a very small volume rice cooker for sous vide if one is preparing a very small quantity of food. I am single and cook for myself most of the time, although I do enjoy entertaining as well.
As long as one is surrounding the food to be cooked in enough mass of water that the controller can maintain a stable temperature, and there is several times more water surrounding the plastic vacuumed pouch, is there any reason why a smallish rice cooker (or other device) cannot be used for sous viding rather than using a large cooker such as the Tiger rice cooker I have also purchased? ...
EDIT: The inside liner of the small Rival rice cooker (model # RC101) indicates the pot holds 1.0 liter, however I measured the capacity by pouring water in with a measuring cup. Surprisingly, it holds 2 liters with the water level nowhere near the rim (e.g. a usable level). I'm thinking about buying a second controller and another rice cooker intermediate in size between the two I have, which will give the possibility of cooking ... without wasting too much energy in the process.
First off, "Welcome to eGullet" !
Regarding using a "very small" water bath.
1/ You'll chill the water more (and change the level more) when you put your bagged food in.
-- this will matter greatly for "non-equilibrium" sv cooking. (Typically this is implied by a time given as a short and precise number of minutes.) I wonder if this might have contributed to your first effort being "undercooked"?
2/ Because of the temperature drop, you are going to depend on the PID controller to get it back to temperature asap, yet _without_ significant temperature overshoot. My guess is that the less the thermal mass (ie the less water), then the less the temperature response will be 'deadened' - and so, absent the PID, the more 'overshoot' would be likely. The smaller the vessel, the more important it is that the PID controller be correctly (particularly accurately) setup.
3/ The more "crowded" the waterbath, the less good will be the natural heat circulation. So the more crowded, the more uneven the heat in the bath. So the more important it becomes to both do something about helping the temperature even out, and keeping the temperature probe (the measurement position) in the most representative position. People have said an aquarium bubbler makes a cheap and simple stirrer. You might tie your probe to a bamboo skewer so as to locate the sensor at a specific depth in the pot. Things like cake-racks and trivets can be employed to keep your bags from touching the bottom of the pot. And sieves can be refashioned to help keep them submerged! A tiny bit of work on the pot lid should allow it to sit flat, seal pretty well, yet let the probe wire emerge (and the bubbler/circulator enter).
Regarding different baths and PIDs.
You can simulate a smaller bath by only partially filling a big one.
Unless you want to use the things at the same time (maybe at different temperatures), there's no need for a second PID or for a third, mid-size bath.
However, when using the same PID with different baths (or the same bath&heater filled to different levels) you will need different optimised P, I and D settings for each configuration.
You may want to experiment with a (borrowed, hired) laboratory accurate thermometer to check the temperature accuracy of your probe setup.
And then spend some time experimenting to get good settings for P, I and D for the various configurations you may be using.
I'd suggest some bagged water as many time re-usable dummy loads. (Hint: bag as ice cubes, then thaw!) If you are thinking of cooking 2x 100g pieces of fish, make a couple of 100g water bags. Not perfect, but close enough, surely!
The PID does two things for you. It keeps the waterbath temperature stable over the long term. Thats not so hard really for a simple, but high precision on/off thermostat and a 'large' bath with excellent circulation.
However where the PID really earns its keep is in its short-term response to temperature transients. Like putting in a quantity of fish that is 20% of the water mass, and 50C different in temperature - 'tuning' the PID to get the bath quickly back to temperature, without significant overshoot, is possible with a PID; it should be much faster, and with much less overshoot than a 'bang-bang' controller.
Hence, I think tuning your controller response (for different bath configurations) to give rapid response without overshoot (by waterbag experiments) is likely to be even more important, the smaller your waterbath (because the transients are likely to be larger).
You should be able to record the best settings for different configs and re-enter the appropriate settings whenever you use a specific configuration.
It sounds to me that it would be hard to justify buying more kit on the basis of energy saving.
The amount of energy used is pretty tiny.
Although your small pot is rated at 400 watts, that's maximum, flat out, when bringing rice to the boil, and it won't be using anything like that to just maintain a low simmer temperature.
However, improving the insulation of the rice cooker might make a measurable difference to energy consumption.
But remember that changing the insulation is going to change the ideal P, I and D settings, even if everything else remains the same.
Improving the insulation is also going to slow the temperature "fall-off" after an overshoot. So, increasing the risk of overcooking on the overshoot.
The better insulated the pot, as with the smaller the pot, the more critical the PID settings become. IIRC there was something in Auber's application notes discouraging use of an insulated pot, quite possibly for this very reason.
This also suggests that the 'room temperature' should be constant-ish for a specific PID/pot/settings configuration, as great differences (15C?) would noticeably affect the rate of heat loss from the pot, just like changing its insulation.
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My last batch had a slightly sour taste, i follwed the instructions exactly, the temperatures for setting (room temp) were observed and i sterilised everything thoroughly, does anyone have any suggestions what may be going wrong. I used vegetable rennet and a thick full cream Jersey milk.
I'll start by disclaiming expertise.
My (limited) understanding is that the flavour primarily arises from the bacterial action on the milk (ie milk, starter and cheese-environment conditions dependent.)
The rennet shouldn't be making any contribution to the taste. It needs a pretentious (or extraordinarily skilled) cheese buff to claim that, through all the other possible variations, they can discern the type of rennet used.
Given a standardised starter and standardised milk supply, the thing that can change is the environment for the bacterial beasties. At slightly warm temperatures, they get much more active. But they don't like it too hot. And they are slowed down by fridge chilling.
But your culture is likely going to be a mixture of bugs, and individual types will react differently at any given temperature.
So by controlling the time and temperature for
- the initial innoculation
- the curd setting
- the draining (I get the impression you had 24 hours at "room temperature")
- and the maturing (24 hours in the fridge)
you can play tunes with the activity of the different bugs in the culture and the way they respond to the various temperature conditions.
And the different bugs will likely also be differently affected by salt, acidity, etc.
When you get to pressing the cheeses and maturing them for longer, you have another whole slew of variables to play with (or try valliantly to control), such as curd texture, dryness after pressing, maturing temperature, humidity and even airspeed. And that's before you start washing the things in lotions and potions, or innoculating them with additional 'blue-ing' cultures...
So many variables!
My suggestions for a "less sour" taste would be to reduce the time or temperature between adding the culture and adding the rennet. And you might want to find a cooler spot to leave it while it drains.
The reason for the sanitisation precautions is more about producing a nice cheese from your starter's bugs rather than a random cheese from whatever is floating around.
Its pretty unlikely that you'd ever harm a healthy person with even the foulest home-made cheese. (Infants, invalids, pregnant, etc - as usual, be prudent.) Whether you'd get anyone to try it is the significant safety barrier!
I've used a big spoonful of "live" (organic) yoghurt as a starter. Simple, cheap, and easy for a quick soft cheese. Makes a bland wensleydale-ish matured cheese.
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... I'd thought that citric acid and ascorbic acid were the same thing. I guess so far I've only used it in things where modifying the pH mattered and not other properties. ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascorbic_acid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid
I've no idea how Citric (or any other acids) might deal with Chloramine.
Sausage stuffers - what to look for?
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted
The NT and Grizzly 5lb stuffers are, AFAIK, the same thing. Amazon (US) have been a competitive source of the Grizzly-attributed item.
Even at around double the price (here in the UK) its well worthwhile.
I've got a couple of parallel stainless tubes ("horns") to replace the tapered plastic ones supplied. A good upgrade, I think.