paulraphael

We had some Impossible Burgers the other day at a fast food place (Bareburger) and it was interesting to compare to our experience of Beyond Burgers. I think the Impossible version tasted a bit more convincingly like a real burger. But it wasn't necessarily better. This had me thinking that simulating beef doesn't have to be the goal. I know that vegetarian places have been serving things like mushroom burgers for a while ... unfortunately I haven't tried them. But it seems like there's an almost unlimited potential for deliciousness with a mushroom burger, especially if you were to bring in some of the tastier mushroom varieties, and maybe incorporate some of the fat technology from the new hi tech burgers. These things could be an umami bomb. I'm imagining a bit of aged parmesan and shallot and sherry vinegar in the mix.

With most complex stuff (especially fermented / distilled / aged stuff) there are thousands of organic compounds present. But scientists usually find it's a relatively small number that are responsible for the sensory qualities. The trick is figuring out exactly which ones matter and which ones don't. With something like scotch, the knowledge is probably incomplete. This doesn't mean it won't be solved eventually. I don't see the labelling / regulatory barriers as being a problem. Why does it have to be called scotch? If you call it something else, you won't run afoul of the rules, and you won't piss off the purists (as much).

Breville's carved out a niche in espresso machines. By all accounts they make good espresso, and have some features missing from most prosumer e-61 machines, and do it all at a significantly lower price. But they're consumer appliance-quality machines, full of plastic, and made almost entirely with proprietary parts. If something fails and you're out of warranty, you rely on Breville's good will to get you a replacement part. It's unclear if they're available at all. The e-61 machines are generally commercial quality (designed for years of holding back heat / pressure / water / electricity) and are made almost entirely from standard industrial parts. All the valves, solenoids, tubes, heating coils, thermocouples, switches, etc. can just be bought from an industrial supply catalog. The brain boxes for the PID controls can be bought from 3rd parties, with their model-specific programming. So people keep these things running for 20 or 30 years. It's a very different value proposition. [And Rotus makes good points about the built-in grinder. That's a pretty big wild card]

There are a few sellers on Amazon. I bought this version. Also I asked Modernist Pantry if they'd consider carrying the handful of these ingredients that they don't already. They're looking into it.

$400. Isn't that half the price of PolyScience Chef?

Yeah, that's why for sorbets I've been using a refractometer. If the Brix of a berry is, say 50% higher than average, then you calculate the formula by multiplying the solids, the POD (sweetness), and the freezing point depression by 1.5. This would definitely change the balance of added sugars.

You can also cut watermelon into long pieces, freeze them, squeeze some lime over them, and enjoy natures perfect popsicles.

This. It's not just European law; it's the convention in the industry. When you see a bar labelled 70% cocoa solids, that 70% includes the cocoa butter. The remaining 30% is sugar, or maybe also a tiny bit of lecithin and vanilla. A 70% cocoa solids chocolate typically breaks down to something like 33% cocoa, 37% cocoa butter, 30% sugar. A 100% bar might be 48% cocoa, 52% cocoa butter. You usually can only get the exact breakdown if it's couverture and the company anticipates selling to pastry chefs. I find that with cocoa powder, the higher quality ones often have more cocoa butter rather than less. I wish this weren't the case ... usually the reason I use cocoa powder is to avoid the cocoa butter.

I'm a fan of the size and the build quality. Not the interface (or lack thereof) and the connected stuff. Please write a screenplay about the great North Korean sous vide hack. I'm sure everyone in this forum would show up at the box office (if no one else).

That was a typo ... should be 1.2% sucrose. But you're still right, that's very little, even with 75% berries.

I'm sure there's a range of preference regarding texture. You can adjust for more or less creaminess just by varying the amount of inulin. You shouldn't have to compensate by changing anything else. The more important fix, in my opinion, is the sweetness. I just can't taste any subtleties, or enjoy anything, when it's as sweet as a 20% or 25% sugar solution. It just grosses me out. I've tried Jo's approach of just spinning fruit puree. It's just too hard and icy for me. But at home we often take that minimalist approach even farther: we eat frozen berries, whole. It's refreshing and delicious. Just let them warm up to the point where they're soft enough to bite, and they literally melt in your mouth. It's not sorbet ... delicious, but different.

I've been working on sorbets since last summer, with what seemed like a humble goal: make them edible. The truth is, I'd never had good sorbet, even when made by the world's best pastry chefs. It's always been at least a little icy. It's always had a short texture. There's never been any creaminess. And it's always been mind-blowingly, pancreas-killingly, tooth-achingly sweet. I don't know how people eat it. These flaws are there for structural reasons. It's really hard to make a true sorbet with decent body and adequate freezing point depression without sweetness levels that could kill a bee. And it's hard to do creaminess without ... cream. I still have work to do on watery fruits (watermelon) and very acidic ones (lemon). But for berries and pulpy fruits, this problem is solved. It requires a good number of unconventional ingredients, but if you like to wear your lab coat in the kitchen, and you have access to really good fruit, I think it's worth it. The basic formula: 75% fruit, 25% science. Strawberry recipe, with some explanation, here.

The simple fact that the unit won't work unless paired to an account should be cause to boycott it. This means, fundamentally, that you bought it but you don't own it. Buying something like this is a declaration of absolute trust, not just in the company's leadership, but in all future leaders, regardless of what happens economically or who acquires them. This argument is laid out pretty well by Wired, in reference to Microsoft's recent eBook atrocities: https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-ebook-apocalypse-drm/ For what its worth, I like Breville, and aside from the mandatory connectedness issue, I like the looks of the Joule. But I would never buy it.

If you get sick of cinnamon (I did) try cardamom. It works anywhere cinnamon works, and I find it doesn't overwhelm apple flavors as much. Also herbs can be a natural match for fruits. They can complement without hiding anything. Try apples with basil. Or thyme. Peaches and basil are also nice. The over-reliance on lemon with fruits drives me a bit nuts. One problem is that unless you live in central California or southern France, the fruit you get will usually have been picked before it's perfectly mature, and will already be tart.

@Btbyrd, my mind is a little blown that the ChefSteps recipe isn't full of typos. 100g of fructose in that formula would give the equivalent sweetness of 30% sugar, before even accounting for the sugar in the berries! and 50g of bitters? That's like 500 cocktails worth ... This isn't a prank?

Yeah, it's important to find food-grade dry ice. I've wished for a stronger carbonation effect (champagne sorbet was an application for this). I've found the carbonation disappears pretty quickly.

I haven't had the best luck with strawberries this season either. I've used Driscols (first from Mexico, then California) and then ones from the local farmer's market (mostly New Jersey and Long Island). The local berries haven't been better than the Californian, but to be fair I haven't tried in the last two weeks. I've measured the berries with a brix hydrometer at 8 to 9 (which translates to fair-to-middling). These have still made some pretty good strawberry ice creams and sorbets. I've come up with formulas that use a ton of fruit ... 40% in the ice cream, 75% in the sorbet. I compensate for the lower brix readings with some added sugar, but still go for lower sweetness than commercial ice cream. The biggest issue is that the bitter background flavor you sometimes get from less sweet strawberries is pretty pronounced. Not enough that I find it unpleasant, but it definitely gets your attention.

We've been eating Beyond Burgers every couple of weeks or so, and I have to admit they're pretty good. I'd say they taste better than the average burger at a an average burger joint (which is a pretty low bar). They're nowhere near as good as the burgers I make when trying to make a great burger ... which involves sourcing three different cuts of beef, grinding them shortly before cooking, and weighing the seasonings with a milligram scale. But they're much easier than that, and cheaper (price is coming down monthly), and no steer was harmed in the making of dinner. We're not eating these to stop climate change, exactly. We're doing it to get used to the changes that will be forced by climate change, or by any real response to it. I hate to break it to you, but we're going to be eating bugs, people. I have climate scientists among my friends, and all say that the disaster we're embroiled in is being massively underreported. We've got eleven years to create a carbon-neutral civilization ... that or we'll be depending on miracles. A few of us privileged folks turning vegan or driving Priuses or signing internet petitions isn't going to change much (people have been at it for decades now). If you really want to save the world, you have to force the hand of governments. I just joined Extinction Rebellion to throw some of my resources at the problem. I'd suggest doing the same, or finding another direct-action organization with a good track record. Also, worcestershire sauce is a nice addition to the fake beef.

This kind of thing is always interesting. If they succeed, that's interesting. If they fail, so is that. Whatever they learn along the way is guaranteed to be interesting. The fact that we know so little about what's in most fermented+distilled+aged foods is fascinating in and of itself. I like that there's mystery there. That doesn't mean I'm opposed to attempts at solving the mysteries, or finding more efficient ways to duplicate results. On another note, when I saw the photo attached to the Economist article, I thought it was going to be about something else: vacuum distillation. This, I'm convinced, will be a new frontier. When it takes off, we will taste whiskeys and brandies with flavors like we've never experienced.

I'm just suggesting that you can get the exact same results with simpler, faster, more predictable methods. I understand that people like these recipes, but this doesn't confirm the analysis of why the recipes give the results that they do. Nor does it confirm that the given method is the only way (or the most efficient way) to achieve those results. With very high-fat, high solids recipes that include lots of egg yolk, you really don't need any special processing to get Ruben-esque textures. You've got very little water to control, and tons of stabilization and emulsification from egg proteins. If you like this style of ice cream, almost anything you do will give technically good results.

What stabilizer are you using?

That's just about increasing the solids content of the ice cream. Doing it by evaporation is a really inefficient, roundabout, imprecise way to do it. Every time I read about that approach I do a bit of a face-palm. It's much simpler and more precise to just add more skim milk powder. The granular texture doesn't sound like overcooked custard to me. That gives more of a pieces-of-scrambled-eggs texture. Graininess can be lactose or whey coming out of solution and making crystals. This isn't too common in homemade ice cream and I'm not sure what would cause it for you. And stabilizers actually work to prevent these problems. Did you post your recipe?

You can do much better than Haagen Dazs chocolate! I promise. Unless 23&Me says you have a genetically determined proclivity for very mild milk chocolate.

I keep coming back to the press pot. It's out of fashion right now in the specialty coffee world ... everyone's all about pour-overs, which just don't excite me as much. The current obsession is with a "clean cup." But I like the sink-your-teeth-into-it full-bodied cup from the press. It doesn't taste unclean to me. I strongly recommend that anyone trying to dial in their recipe should use a scale. Just like with everything else in the kitchen. Think in terms of ratios / percentages. And use a thermometer. Water temperature matters. And of course a decent burr grinder. I don't think you need a great grinder, as you do for espresso. The tech support guy at Baratza reused to upsell me when my 10 year-old burr grinder died. He said that for coarse grinds, my ancient entry-level grinder would be as good as their higher end ones, so he just sold me the $5 replacement part. I agree with Mitch that the goal is well-balanced coffee. When people say they it "strong," I think it's an image thing. When coffee is too strong, the result isn't something bolder or more aggrandizing. You get some more bitterness, and counterintuitively, many of the subtler aromas and fruit flavors get masked. It ends being a flatter, less flavorful cup. It's best to brew a correctly balanced pot of coffee. Then, if your preference is for something weaker, add some water. Sometimes just a little bit will make all the difference ... almost like dribbling water into scotch.

The only question I have is how to guarantee the cocoa butter goes into an emulsion with the water. The proportions are way off from a ganache, and even with a ganache it takes some care to guarantee it won't separate. I'd be surprised if the emulsifying power of the milk proteins would be enough. Maybe a small amount of lecithin would help. There's plenty of good quality milk powder available, at least in the US. Organic Valley is decent; Now brand is excellent. You have to keep it fresh, because it takes on stale flavors. I keep mine sealed up in the freezer. Just make sure it's 100% skim milk. I doubt any subtle differences (like between low temperature and high temperature spray drying) would be detectable through the chocolate.