paulraphael

I'm working on a stabilizer blend that may be the most effective and easiest to use yet. It's based on a cellulose gum ... specifically, a low-viscosity carboxymethylcellulose. You can get this stuff from Modernist Pantry or from the chef store at TIC gums. It has two properties that suggest it's in a class by itself: it's possibly the most effective hydrocolloid for suppressing ice crystal growth, and it has minimal effect on texture. This means you can use the quantity you need to prevent ice crystals without worrying much about other side effects. There aren't many ice cream ingredients you can say that about! I'm going to use it in concert with locust bean gum, which suppresses ice crystals but also contributes to the body (especially the chewiness) to the frozen state, and lambda carrageenan, which mostly contributes to the creaminess and mouthfeel to the melted state. These ingredients can be adjusted independently of each other, to fine tune the qualities. That's what's so unusual with this blend. If you make ice cream with a lot of egg custard, or prefer a thin, Philly-style texture, skip the carrageenan. If you like your ice cream soft and yielding, skip the LBG. If you like chewy, New England-style ice cream, use more LBG (or add a bit of guar gum). I think in a high-end recipe like mine (15% butterfat, 40% total solids) the total amount of all these stabilizers will be about 0.3%. Quite a bit lower than what you typically see in commercial ice cream. I'm waiting for my CMC to show up and will experiment as soon as it gets here.

Also ... I followed the instructions and allowed the Anova to stabilize for 15 minutes. Totally different story now. My thermocouple now registered just 0.3°C lower, and my remote thermometer registered 0.5°C higher. Just did it at one temperature, but the results are way different from yesterday when I didn't wait to stabilize. The circulator may be fine. I'm still interested in the basal thermometer though, as insurance.

I'm loving the price of the basal thermometer. The high accuracy digital ones are tempting, but the good ones cost more than the circulator itself ... seems a bit overboard. Since the temperature range of the basal thermometer is so narrow, it forces one to assume any error from the circulator is linear. How safe an assumption is this?

Also, is it possible that accuracy could be off if the probes need cleaning? I hardly ever do anything besides rinse the thing.

Any way to do this without a lab-grade thermometer? I've been getting suspicious lately ... my medium-rare burgers look medium, and I've noticed in a few threads that my temperature recommendations are 1 or 2 degrees C lower than everyone else's (and it's not because I'm advocating for anything unusually bloody). Today I tested my Anova One against a Taylor thermocouple thermometer and a Polder remote probe thermistor thermometer. These are both probably one or two orders of magnitude less precise than the Anova ... at least when the Anova's calibrated right. In my tests, the external thermometers mostly agreed with one another, and gave readings 1 to 1.5°C lower than the Anova. Thoughts on what to do? I'd be tempted to send back to the factory, assuming their out-of-warranty repair charges are reasonable. But I have some big stuff I need to cook real soon.

That's a cool setup. I wonder how it would do with a steel plate on the bottom as well as the top. The higher conductivity might give as much heat transfer as a stone that's 100-200° hotter. Sadly I gave up on trying to make awesome pizza at home. Never had access to anything but a home oven, and in the middle of my efforts a couple of the best pizza shops in NYC opened up within walking distance.

I like to cook as soon as possible after grinding. One of the benefits of grinding your own meat is the freshness. There's so much surface exposed to air that meat oxidizes quickly after being ground. It goes from red to gray and gets that not-so-fresh smell. Packaging for sour-vide helps, but you really can't evacuate all the air from the bag ... the meat's now full of air. And you pretty much have to use water displacement. A vacuum machine will squash the burger and make it tough.

I always look for mint ice cream to be white. Green just screams food coloring. Maybe if you're blending the herbs in you'll get some color. Then it would make sense to fix the enzymes first with heat. But as I mentioned earlier, it's much easier to get good results with an infusion that lets you remove the leaves at the right time.

It was probably an infusion, since there was no hint of green, but I'll probably never know for sure. I believe infusion is a better method than blending in the leaves. Herbs are like tea; there's always going to be an ideal range of times/temperatures for getting the best flavors. If you go beyond this, you end up extracting things you don't want ... typically bitter or grassy / vegetal flavors. The trouble with blending the herbs is that there's no way to separate the infusion from the rest of the ice cream making process. The herbs will infuse hot for whatever time and temperature you choose for cooking and pasteurization, and will infuse cold for as long as the mix ages. If you infuse beforehand, you have precise control over the infusion, and then can pick times and temperatures of the rest of the process based on other concerns.

Jo has all the best toys.

You're right, "arbitrary" isn't exactly right ... what I mean is that the guidelines are based on estimates, based on probabilities that involve very high standard deviations. Not just in what bacterial load will make someone sick, but in what bacterial load a piece of food will carry before cooking. I think it's helpful to consider both variables ... and it would be great if we had better tools for estimating them.

My favorite flavors are herbal, but mint is low on that list just since it's the most familiar. Herbs like thyme and sage and basil make incredibly delicious ice cream, and even though it's not a new idea, these flavors still surprise people. If you're lucky enough to have an herb garden these are especially rewarding to make. Thyme ice cream is special for me. In 1990 I had just finished my 2 year stint at an ice cream shop in Colorado. Like every other mom 'n pop shop, we thought we made the best ice cream in the world, and weren't shy about letting you know. After leaving that job, I took a trip to Paris and got taken to dinner at Taillevent—back then it was one of the best restaurants in France and had had 3 Michelin stars longer than anyone. One of the dessert courses was thyme ice cream, made by pastry chef Gilles Bajolle. One bite, and I was like, "Oh. So I guess we didn't make the best ice cream in the world. I guess I've never had good ice cream." Anyway, I don't know if that would still rank among the best I've had, but it made an impression. I think of it whenever I make a batch of my own, which is quite a few times each summer.

Cast iron retains heat a long time because of its thermal mass. This is the specific heat multiplied by the mass. Aluminum has a much higher specific heat than iron, but also has a much lower density, and in clad pans like these, is usually much thinner. The result is that iron will usually be the thermal mass champion. Which is either good or bad. If you want to sear a big piece of meat it's good; if you want temperature control it's bad. Iron has poor conductivity, so even fairly thin aluminum will generally give you more even browning on the stove. Disk-bottom pans are a different story. The aluminum disk can be thick enough to have a very high thermal mass, and be good for searing; potentially even better than iron. Heating will be exceptionally even. Responsiveness will be slow, but generally better than iron. I like iron for browning big chunks of things where I don't need any control and don't need to worry about the color of the pan drippings. It also excels in the oven for maintaining even temperatures of a braise. Thin clad aluminum like AC is great for high control and general purpose stovetop use. Their 10" fry pan is great for quick sautées. I don't have any of their saucepans, but can tell they'd perform very well.

There are enzymes in leaves responsible for turning them brown (and possibly dulling the flavor). When you temper the mint with the yolks, you're killing the enzyme before it can do any harm. Another approach is to make sure whatever liquid you add the herbs to is hot enough from the start. I believe if you plunge the herbs into 180°F liquid, this will deactivate most browning enzymes. It may vary from herb to herb. To be absolutely sure, you can do what mixologists do and plunge the herbs into boiling water for 15 seconds. They will stay green no matter what after that.

I'd like to see more investigations along these lines. It makes perfect sense. The simplified instructions we get give the impression that if you don't reach the magical pasteurization time, yer gonna die. When in fact the pathogens have been reduced, unless you're using unusually low cooking temperatures; just not to the somewhat arbitrary 6D level. And 6D IS somewhat arbitrary. Consider that this standard about the reduction from the pre-existing pathogen levels on the uncooked food. But we never know what those pre-existing levels are. It's quite possible that they vary by orders of magnitude, depending on source, age, storage conditions, and god-knows-what.

I don't really dislike mint ice cream made with extract. That super-mentholly flavor can be refreshing, and it's what I grew up with. It's just no match for the flavor of infused mint. And I don't know why this is the case. An extract is an infusion. Maybe some of the volatile compounds are less soluble in alcohol than the menthol is. I'm surprised your friend couldn't get the mint out of the mix. I chifonade the leaves pretty finely; they all get caught by a strainer.

BTW, I think the recommendation to mix infusion and extract is just an economizing measure. 36g of min leaves, for example, is a crap-ton of leaves. It's enough to pretty much clearcut the little mint plant in my garden. So Imagine a teaspoon or 2 of extract could keep the mint use a bit more reasonable. But I don't think the flavor will be as good. I made mint ice cream with extract when I worked at an ice cream shop years ago. It was very high quality peppermint extract (nothing in it but mint and alcohol) but still tasted like 100% menthol. None of the delicate, floral flavors of the mint plant.

In my experience infusions always taste better than extracts, usually drastically so. Peppermint extract, for example, tastes like mouthwash. A well executed infusion of mint leaves tastes three-dimensional and delicious. I infuse into a solution of milk and sugar (both from the recipe) since sugar syrup is an excellent solvent for aromatic compounds. There isn't a lot of published research on infusion times/temperatures, so I've been experimenting. Currently I heat the milk/sugars to 82°C. I'm working on ways to keep milk proteins from curdling, but if they do, it doesn't seem to hurt the final result. Herbs with big, delicate leaves (mint, basil, sage, etc.) I infuse for 5 minutes, with a large quantity of leaves. Tougher, stemmier herbs (thyme, rosemary) I infuse for 15 minutes with a smaller quantity. Per 1000g mix I use the following quantities: Basil 28g Mint 36g Sage 18g Sorrel 18g Thyme 8g Rosemary 12g This is all a work in progress, but I promise all of it will taste way better than extracts.

0.5g / 1000g! Please don't try 5 ...

If you put enough xanthan gum in anything to taste it, the texture will have gotten unbearable long before that point. It's a great ingredient in ice cream. If you overdo it, you can get too chewy a texture in the frozen state, and a slimy / jiggly texture in the molten state. I try to keep it under 0.5g per 1000g ice cream mix. At this level, it helps with ice crystals and with body, but there are no ill effects. It works exceptionally well in conjunction with other stabilizing ingredients. For years I used it with gelatin, which I found to be a great combination. Now I use it with other gums. It works synergistically with guar, locust bean gum, carrageenans, and some others ... which means that if you use them in combination, you get a stronger effect than you'd expect based on how they work separately. This lets you use very small quantities, and balance the effects of each to your liking..

If the meat is low on fat I add some. Butter works well; partially freeze, cut into chunks and add to grinder with the meat. I've also had the best luck grinding meat just once, using the 1/8" disk on the KA attachment. Minimal handling and compression keeps the texture nice. I presalt if cooking conventionally (sprinkle salt and pepper on the meat right before grinding) but add the salt in the form of a compound butter if cooking sous-vide. This prevents the texture from getting tough and sausage-like. Burgers done this way are delicate but don't fall apart. I weigh seasonings and use this formula: 0.7% salt 0.2% black pepper 0.01% cayenne pepper (optional. should not be an identifiable flavor)

Even the thickest AC stuff is going to perform very differently from cast iron. Think of thin AC as a sports car, thick AC as a truck, and cast iron as an ocean liner. Thick AC is still probably much thinner than typical disk-bottom aluminum pans. It's just going to be a bit more even than the thinner version, will store a bit more energy for searing, and will be a bit less responsive. Whether or not these changes are an improvement depends entirely on how you're using it.

The number of layers is pure marketing. The only things that count are the materials, and the relative thicknesses of the conducting layer and outer layers. It's possible that this new line has thicker conducting layers ... this would make it better for some applications, worse for others. Unfortunately Allclad has never been open about the thickness of their conducting layers. Someone would have to saw a pan in half and measure. Barring that you'd have to compare subjectively, which is harder than you might think. These differences are often more subtle than most cooks acknowledge. Lots of other variables in the kitchen are likely to make a bigger difference and throw off a casual comparison.

Something to consider if you don't see the value in a dedicated IR thermometer ... there are some cool products that combine a thermocouple probe and an IR thermometer in one. I have an older model of this Taylor. It's worked flawlessly for 6 or 7 years. The IR part is definitely low-end, but works for simple stuff

I picked up a pretty nice 1.5" thick heritage breed loin chop yesterday, and SV'd 2 hours at 59°C, then seared on a hot pan. It was very good, but next time I'm going to drop to 58.5°C. Good pork loin meat seems dry and overdone to me when it loses all its pink.