paulraphael

Dave Arnold and co. say yes, Nathan Myrhvold and co. say no. Dave makes a good case for it and says that 90% of sous-vide cooking can be done without a vacuum, and that his food saver has been relegated to re-sealing potato chips. Nathan doesn't give a reason. I don't understand why ziplocks couldn't be used for cook-chill applications. Don't we use them to store conventionally cooked food in the fridge? Thoughts?

Mine's on the way. Can't wait. Btw, I couldn't get a peep out of anyone at Anova about new product plans. The people at Studiokitchen are using something that may be a prototype ... it looks like Anova's $900 lab circulator model but with a polished metal finish.

The good news is that for about the same money, you can get a filter that will turn it back into water.

A few years ago a bunch of British chefs were trying to bring mutton back. They felt it had been unjustly maligned. I tried to get some from my butcher at the time, but no luck.

Thanks William. I'm just going to use it for a floating top. For longer cooks where I want the sides insulated I'll probably just use a cooler. Do people still like using this stuff, or is there a better solution?

Or the equivalent? I'm looking for enough to cover some small sous vide containers. It mostly seems to be sold in bulk for insulating an attic. Also curious if anyone has found particular models of cooler (in the 20-30 quart range) to be especially good for modification as a cooking container.

It's not chlorine causing the corrosion, it's chloride ions, which are present whenever salt is in solution. And regarding Edward’s point that the process requires more heat than what’s available in the kitchen, the type of reduction reaction we’re talking about is more active at low temperatures than high ones. Which is one reason brining in the fridge is potentially more corrosive than simmering a salty stock. And it explains the conventional advice not to throw salt into cold water (although the conventional reasoning is incorrect … it’s got nothing to do with undisolved salt, which is harmless). From the metallurgical sources I’ve found, there are two practices that are more likely than all the others to cause pitting in stainless: boiling a pan dry (especially if you don’t clean it immediately after), and storing it dirty (especially carbonized food stuck to it). From The Metals Handbook: If debris of any kind is allowed to accumulate on the surfaces of stainless steel equipment, it will reduce the accessibility of oxygen to the covered areas and pits may develop in such locations because of the reduced oxygen concentration. [...] ...carbon deposits from heated organic compounds are typical examples of this source of [pitting] corrosion of stainless steels.

dcarch, I agree that manufacturers' information is often dubious. For one example, you get wild stories from cast iron pan makers on how to season their products, few of them based on science. But everything I've posted about stainless steel will be backed up by every metalurgical site you check. I promise. Salt is considered a corrosive agent to stainless steels, including the 300 series steels used in most cookware. The conditions and the relevance of this corrosivenes are what's at issue. My opinion is that it's not generally an issue in the kitchen—but that it could be if you did some things you probably shouldn't. Edited to add: Here's the most thorough explanation I've found anywhere. Aaronut's answer.

Yes, I like these products ("quats") more than other sanitizers. Especially more than chlorine bleach, which wrecks towels and sponges and clothes, smells bad, and can theoretically attack stainless steel. Weak chlorine bleach sanitizers won't harm stainless in most kitchen situations ... it evaporates too quickly. I have a friend who brews beer, though, who tried to sanitize a stainless steel keg by filling it with a weak (swimming pool strength) bleach solution. He left it overnight, and by morning the solution had eaten all the way through and flooded his basement.

That's just one of many corrosion types. They key sentence is "Halogens penetrate the passive film of stainless and allow corrosion to occur. These halogens are easily recognizable, because they end with "-ine". Fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine and astatine are some of the most active." Then if you look at the mechanism of pitting, a couple of paragraphs down, you can see how the process can take on speed. As I said earlier, I don't believe the conditions under which this will occur come up much in normal cooking. Some people here (and some manufacturers) are warning that undisolved salt sitting in the bottom of a pan on the stove will allow it ... I'm not 100% convinced, and don't plan to test it, so I can't comment. But I don't leave salt or acid solutions in contact with my cookware for long periods, and don't use chlorine on them at all. The passivation layer that keeps stainless stainless is under a micron thick and vulnerable to many chemicals, and also to physical attack (abrasion). It's capable of renewing itself, but only under certain conditions and with plenty of oxygen present.

Personally I'll probably draw the line at honey, but if you're less squeamish about creepy crawlies, what's to stop you? You might have to be careful to keep the extra-crispy ants from breaking apart.

Do you have any sources on this? Articles I've read mention nothing about impurities being a primary issue here ... just the fact that many chemicals are capable of removing the passivation layer that forms to protect all stainless steels. Did you see the article I linked above? I'm confused by the phrase "impurities of iron and other metals ...", when 300 series stainless steels are over 70% iron by composition. In steel metallurgy, the typical impurities are sulfur and phosphorus and other trace elements. These are a bigger deal in knife steels than in pots 'n pans.

There's great lamb from Pennsylvania, too. I noticed several years ago most of the better chefs in NYC getting their lamb from Jamison Farm, then a few years later from Arcadian Pastures. I had a chance to test a recipe with my butcher's New Zealand lamb, then his Colorado lamb, and then the final meal I made with lamb he special ordered from Jamison. He came to the dinner. We didn't care for the way the farm had cut the racks , but it was the best tasting lamb either of us had had. The Colorado was in 2nd place followed by the NZ. That said, the differences were nothing like what you'd notice between supermarket and boutique beef or poultry or pork.

I'd also be happy to have a couple of bags of almond flour in the freezer.

One of the benefits of a cleaner like barkeeper's friend is that its oxalic acid re-passivates stainless steel. This means that if a corrosion process has begun (which means the protective, passive layer of oxides has been broken down), the cleaner will restore the protection to its original state. Some other kinds of cleaners, like ones with strong abrasives, chlorine bleach, or ferrous metals (steel wool) will make things worse.

It also corrodes in a marine environment. Stainless hardware on ships needs less maintenance than regular steel, but it needs maintenance. And there are situations in a marine environment where stainless steel is specifically not allowed, because it's especially vulnerable.

The difference is that people brine things for periods of many days. Pitting is a progressive process ... it starts with surface oxidation that protects stainless steel breaking down, so the chlorides can get to the base metal. This takes a lot more time than it takes to make pasta.

Tons of financier batter. You can freeze it for a pretty long time. It can make everything from traditional financiers to cupcakes to full-size cakes. You can scoop it or pipe it. Also handy if you've been accumulating egg whites in the freezer. And if you like seriously delicious things.

I’m a fan of machines and a fan of not cultivating too much dependence on them. I like the idea of having the manual skills needed to make good food in a minimalist setting. But I’ve also grown to appreciate what machines can do. Sometimes they’re time and labor savers. Stand mixers are a huge example. Some tasks are daunting without a mixer but trivially easy with one. In other cases, machines make whole new things possible. I don’t care how good you are with an over or a skillet; you can’t get the results that are possible (and trivially easy) with an immersion circulator. You can’t make the kinds of purees and emulsions that are possible with a high speed blender. You can’t make the best stocks without a non-venting pressure cooker. There are categories of machines still uncommon in kitchens that extend our capabilities even farther. Homegenizers, ultrasonic baths, rotary evaporators, combi-ovens, centrifuges. If these sound out of place, it’s only because they’re still unfamiliar. Not many decades ago, ovens with thermostats were a new-fangled gizmo. Electricity itself isn’t much over a century old. We use tools every day, and I think it’s fallacious to see a stainless steel pan as somehow less “technological” than an ultrasonic homogenizer. It took civilization 10,000 years to invent one, and 10,100 years to invent the other. The difference only seems great because we’re here at the precise time when one seems old and the other seems new.

Table salt is definitely corrosive, even to the highest grades of stainless used in cookware. It's just that normal cooking doesn't present the kinds of conditions where this will happen. I'm not totally convinced that throwing salt into a pot of cold water will cause pitting. Maybe if the salt sits for a really long time before dissolving completely? I'm not going to test it. My stainless lined pans that are over 10 years old have a couple of little pits here and there, but these could just as easily be from someone jamming a fork into them when I wasn't looking. The most important rule of thumb is not to use the pan as a storage container in the fridge, especially for anything acidic. And definitely don't brine anything in it. If you need a pan surface that's completely inert, it's hard to beat enamel. My enameled iron dutch oven is the only piece of cookware that goes from stove to fridge.

It's called galvanic corrosion. It's real, but shouldn't come up too often with cookware. Edward's experiment is explained in the wiki article ... scroll down to "lasagne cell." There are other ways salt can attack stainless stell (anyone who's rock climbed on sea cliffs knows about chloride stress corossion). The most likely issue for cookware is if salt or a strong salt solution is left in contact with the pan for a long time. This won't happen in cooking, but needless to say, don't brine a turkey in a stainless stock pot. And clean your pans well after use. Several of the acids present in food (including citric, acetic, etc.) can similarly pit the 300 series stainless steels used in cookware. But these also need a lot of time. It won't happen unless you're careless. The most corrosive thing in the kitchen for these metals is chlorine bleach. I don't use it around stainless steel at all. I scrub pans with BKF (oxalic acid = good for stainless), and sanitize with quaternary ammonium.

I prefer freezer bowl machines over lower powered compressor machines. The most important thing is speed of freezing. I don't like the spinning process to take more than 20 minutes. 10 to 15 is even better. The longer it goes, the coarser the texture. There are compressor machines that can work that fast, but they're expensive. Until I have the budget and the space for one, I'll use the freezer bowl for my stand mixer. The quality it excellent. The drawback, of course, is it can only do one batch in a 24 hour period. This can be a real issue. Even if you get a second bowl, you have to have room in the freezer for it.

You can do everything by hand, one way or another. Just keep in mind that bakers a century ago were built like iron workers. If you stick to recipes that don't require creaming room temperature butter, or whipping foams, then mixing things by hand ranges from easy to moderate. A stand mixer definitely makes things easier and more fun. It's like having an assistant that can do the dumb, heavy lifting while I'm doing something else.

The simple way is to go by appearance. The best way is to go by drawing temperature, and to tune your recipes so that they freeze to a firm, dryish texture at that temperature. The research I've seen suggests the ideal drawing temperature is about -5°C, or 23.5°F. Just stick a thermometer into the ice cream when it starts to look right, and turn off the machine when you hit the right temp. If you do it this way, you'll minimize ice crystal size and all your recipes will be equally scopable at the ideal serving temperature of -12 to -14C.

The Peterson book is excellent, but I think of it as a modern Julia Child ... it's rooted in classical French, but liberally updated both for the realities of home cooking and for contemporary tastes, ingredients, and techniques. At the very least I think you should have a copy of Escoffier's Guide Culinaire. Almost everything is conveyed in a kind of shorthand, so it reads more like someone's notes than like a textbook. But the scope is encyclopedic. It can answer all your questions about what a particular term means, or what ingredients were traditionally used in a certain dish. Classical French is an autocratic cuisine, and Escoffier was the 20th Century autocrat, so it's maybe the one cooking tradition where there's such thing as a definitive answer. Larousse Gastronomique is also a good reference. Both of these can be grabbed for pennies on ebay.