FastTalkingHighTrousers

When I tried the reverse spheres I wasn't using glucolactate (calcium lactate gluconate?). I was mixing the wine with calcium chloride and then into a 5% alginate bath. Is this my problem ... aside from stupidity?

So I've created sodium alginate/calcium chloride spheres every which way using a bunch of different ingredients. I am by NO means an expert on the subject ... proven by the fact that I can't for the life of me sphere-a-mitize white wine (or red for that matter). I've gone the reverse-sphere route and that doesn't seem to work. I've also tried adding sodium citrate into the mix due to the acidity of the wine, and that doesn't help either. The spheres never set. They just end up as loose gloppy grossness. I'm wondering if anyone out there has tried to do this. If successfully so ... what might I be doing wrong? Thanks very much in advance for any imparted wisdom

Good luck! I look forward to reading about your dinner

I appreciate the work being done at Pateria de Sousa and Schiltz Goose Farms. They are able to create a great product without employing the force feeding technique. Neither product could be considered foie gras, IMO. Natural gorging prior to migration will produce a liver only a little more than twice the size of a noraml one. A nice lobe of foie is 5-10 times larger. I think Schiltz even calls their product "natural fatty goose liver". They peg it as a "foie alternative". I have had it before. It's quite tasty ... but foie gras, it is not. If you are sqeamish abou the force feeding issue, you should try the product from Schiltz. You should also take a tour of the Hudson Valley FG farm as I did last year. It's an amazing place and you'll see no cruelty or any animals in obvious distress. To see that you should take a tour of any commercial chicken farm.

That's exactly right. Using this method of clarifying with a reduced stock has too much gelatin to be able to get a usable yield. You'll be left with 2T of consomme and a giant brick of jelly. With a jus there's obviously much less gelatin so you get much more yield out of the consomme. ← Gotcha. Is the result clear? ← Crystal clear! I wish I had a better camera ... I'd upload some pics.

That's exactly right. Using this method of clarifying with a reduced stock has too much gelatin to be able to get a usable yield. You'll be left with 2T of consomme and a giant brick of jelly. With a jus there's obviously much less gelatin so you get much more yield out of the consomme.

Traditionally you would make Jus with whole chicken carcasses with some meat still on the bones, roast the bones and veg and cook the jus for much less time than you would cook a stock (about 2 hours). You end up with a jus with much less gelatin but with the color of a reduced stock. Perfect for gelatin filtration.

I usually use this technique for making consomme using chicken jus, not chicken stock. If you make a nice jus it should be more flavorful, colorful and have less natural gelatin in it than stock. The fact that is has less gelatin is great because it increases your yeild using the gelatin clarification method. I make my jus and put it directly in the freezer. When it's frozen through I hang it in my walk in from a 100 micron super bag for 2 days. The resulting consomme is crystal clear and super flavorful with a much greater yield than hen I use stock. Good luck!

You could have situation where the fat (what little there is but still fat) went rancid. It happens pretty commonly with cured meats. Hate to toss deliciousness, but I wouldn't eat it.

Great thread, everyone! Thanks for all the info. Does anyone know if the Bradley briquettes come in wholesale packages? I.e. more than the 120ct. boxes? Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Scott, something that greatly impressed me was the overall 'strategic' organisation of the book. As such, the 'fresh sausage' section is a sort of side-step before returning to the overall progression with dried sausage. The book starts with simple salting. And Gravadlax is a great starting point. (Even if it plainly isn't meat!) Rather than treating the book as a mere "recipe book", I'd suggest that its well worthwhile to read the book (from the start), but skipping over the recipe detail - just see what's happening. See how the technique relates and pick up *why* things are being done, then *how* to do stuff, rather than starting with the detail of exactly *what* should be done for any specific recipe. After you've been through a chapter, you'll have a better idea as to which recipes you feel like tackling. (And which ones need even more kit or infrastructure!) Invest a few (less than 20?) dollars in a small digital scale with an accuracy and sensitivity of less than 1 gramme, source some curing ("pink") salt, and off you go! (Meanwhile, you'll have cured and eaten the Gravadlax... ) ← Thanks for the advice. I already have a scale so I just need to score some curing salt. I attached a picture of some of our chorizo. The picture doesn't do it justice as it's actually much more red. Also, nevermind the crappy beer in the picture, but we were in the north woods of Wisconsin making this sausage and bad beer is madatory. You'll also notice that we were using a dedicated grinder with a stuffing attachment. We thought this might work better at stuffing that the KA, but I can attest that it is not any better. We all vowed that we would not do this again until we have a proper piston stuffer. ← ^^^ Crappy beer??? That looks like The Champagne, to me! Where'd you get it in the old school cans? The chorizo looks tasty, too!

This is a great technique. I use it at home pretty much every Sunday for breakfast. I use 2/3 peanut oil to 1/3 duck fat. Then I reserve the fat to emulsify into a duck fat bloody mary ... kidding ... or am I? In the restaurant I use the twice-fried technique using aged russets that I soak overnight to leach out excess starch. It's my preferred technique but it's not very practical for home use.