andrewk512

I vacuum seal round plastic containers in my chamber sealer all the time, I wouldn't do anything non-round though. The lid itself though I'm not sure, especially if you can't drill a perfect hole. Pre-de-aerating is probably a good idea if I wasn't so darn lazy. Make sure your contents are always cold before sealing. I had a spill over with a room temperature blended shrimp/koji/water mix last night which was a near disaster I will try sealing the post-processed ice cream first next time I make something, I forgot with my latest ice cream

Mango spruce tip sherbet Blank sherbet recipe from HMNIIC, for fruit puree I used 50% unsweetened pureed mango and 50% blanched and shocked spruce tips (and maybe a little bit of green coloring to 'enhance the eating experience') processed on gelato. In this book I find a 66% recipe does a healthy fill of a Creami pint, with a bit left over for margins for tasting

Did you compare the temps after processing? I wonder if the Pacojet is softer due to longer processing time warming it up more

american only

Yeah I wrote a comment that they should've tried the Lite Ice Cream function, I figure they are just looking to prove to chefs that a Pacojet is still needed in a commercial kitchen though. I could see people trying to run small kitchens with a Creami I have 5 containers. I'd be open to trying it but then what do I do with 5 pints of the same ice cream? 😛 (And I still have to fulfill my promise to spin frozen orgeat...)

Now I need to get my Pacojet savings account started back up again.... Wish they had tested the Lite Ice Cream button though

What are people's thoughts on chamber vacuuming the ice cream after processing? Or maybe even drilling a hole to attach a food saver hose attachment to the pint container for use during processing? Am I asking for trouble? I want to get rid of the air holes that make the final product difficult to smoothly quenelle

I bought the elusive and rarely sold in Canada food saver mason jar attachment for this purpose. It plugs into my polyscience machine but I find it really finnicky to attach to the mason jars Maybe I just need to try more cycles. I find the first cycle or two often creates more foam for me. For some reason I only get a satisfying result when I use a bag and have the seal function on. I find this oddly happens with pickling/compressing too (foods aren't compressing). I am using 500ml round deli style containers, trying to both de-aerate as well as quick pickle in them

I wouldn't put anything I wanted a strict temp on in the top rack anyway, the oven light emits a lot of heat (around 140F) so you risk uneven cooking ( I suppose you could turn the light off but the function to do so is annoyingly hidden)

Speculation: I think this is a non issue. I have done mixes with as low as 11% sugar (Per Se's white chocolate snow recipe; a lemon snow test) that had no issues whatsoever. These mixtures are 100% ice at temps as high as -8C. I think you are going to have palatability issues before you throw anything in there unsafe, unless you decided to make shaved ice. I think most of the issues people are having are from inappropriate textures, people are throwing crazy stuff in there on facebook and treating it almost like a blender

Yes it will, although I agree with blue dolphin that your calculations will give you a good starting point and I wouldn't bother assessing the composition of sugars I actually used a can of kesar mango pulp to make a sorbet last week. The mixture is 14% sugar based on the nutritional info. I added 50g of sucrose to 500g of pulp to make a sorbet with 23.7% sugars and an estimated serving temp of -12C. However, it actually acted a bit softer. The week before I had used an additional 10g of dextrose as I thought the recipe could accommodate it and to increase the solids percent and it was much too soft. Both results were very delicious, I just wouldn't expect immediate perfect results

They use this a lot in EMP The Next Chapter and the new French Laundry book. I have trouble getting it to work with open containers, I think mostly because my liquid to container ratio is too high and I can't do much before I risk it blowing over (happened to me more than I like to admit). Works great in a bag though, if you can spare a bag for it. I hope vacuum blenders become more mainstream in the future

Dave Arnold has been obsessing over it in his podcast the past year; from what I recall it has also been described in Modernist Cuisine/Bread but I've never read it. He is actually using it partially to get the bread more crispy as the idea is getting rid of all that moisture prevents subtle crust sogginess. I'd never seen it described elsewhere so I was shocked to see Anova mention it but they've really captured all the subtle pro secrets (like hydrating doughs) in their recipe guide. I am more interested in the crisping factor than the cooling factor as I have already had many bad experiences with putting hot things in the chamber vac.... 😛 (and I have a blast chiller) I wrote out to Anova earlier in the week on their social media but they have yet to respond. I agree with the suspicion that they are expecting people to not use the function enough to matter

Can you comment on the use of a dry pump to cool bread via evaporative cooling? How can Anova recommend this for their dry pump? Intuitively to me it seems it will wreck it

I agree the powdery texture is a function of having the mixture too cold. The respin is heating it up in a sense. The device does not really effectively scrape fully to the sides so when you respin and the outsides have warmed up a bit you are stirring in underprocessed icy ice cream base which accounts for the off texture. Uncooked bases with high cream content seem to turn waxy/buttery when overprocessed. Was there a lot of cream in your recipe? ------------ I haven't had time for too much cooking lately but did end making a really excellent raspberry sorbet, along with the usual white chocolate snow recipe from Under Pressure. Both paired really nicely together! I have stopped using stabilizer in recipes I plan to serve same day (somewhat because I am having issues with my stabilizer and can't be bothered to buy more yet) Raspberry sorbet 500g raspberry puree (measured after blending and straining out the seeds) 130g sucrose 10g glucose powder Blend then freeze. Process on lite White chocolate snow adapted from Under Pressure 35g white chocolate 22g cacao butter 134g water 44g heavy cream 13g sucrose Bring cream and water to boil, stir in the sugar. Add white chocolate and cacao butter to melt. It's best to thoroughly chill this and then blend it up before freezing it because if you just chuck the hot mixture in the freezer it'll separate a lot (it'll still make snow when separated, it's just not as snowy). I fill the pint half full because the snow generates a lot of air and I process it on sorbet to not heat it up too much. I highly recommend chilling the plates when serving this one cause otherwise it quickly becomes white chocolate soup

Wow, another game changer by Anova! Looks beautiful too. I'd get this if I didn't already have the polyscience chamber vac. I think at that price point a dry pump is fully sufficient. I do wish I had chosen an oil pump to take things to the next level, but one of the barriers for me when buying was the /perceived/ technical challenges of managing an oil pump (of course I now see how easy things are). I think the convenience will be a good marketing point to many hobbyists and the type of people who buy Anova products. Edit: they seem to suggest and actually recommend cooling bread with the dry pump?? This was one of the reasons I wanted an oil pump, I thought it would wreck a dry pump from the moisture. Does anyone know the technicalities of this? Was I mistaken or maybe Anova has some sort of special adaptation to enable this?

what's your recipe? I could give it a shot I use the serious eats one and from what I recall it is not solid at freezer temps

Amazing deal! I'm jealous I didn't even think of searching for that... Alberta is a bit far anyway though There's a lot of knock offs these days sold as "ice cream roll makers" but even those are 400 CAD. Might be an avenue to look into if you ever need parts

Have you had a chance to try it out and compare it to the PacoJet?

It was still too gummy, flavor was great though. I am thinking the acid is creating invert syrup when boiled with the sugar so it was throwing off all my calculations. One day I will try it again White chocolate sorbet looks delicious! I am glad there were no texture issues. In the EMP cookbook they suggest that if you let white chocolate bases chill thoroughly before freezing that you get graininess. Maybe the processing technique of the Creami prevents that

Playing around with different flavors and textures 1) Coca cola sorbet - great flavor, dense ice cream like texture, but I don't think I can disentangle the sensation of carbonation from the flavor of cola, it kept feeling like something was missing because the carbonation was gone 2) Sour citrus & quinine sorbet - I used the Morgenthaler tonic syrup recipe to make this sorbet, had a really nice punchy balance of sour and bitter, but turned out a bit gummy due to some of the additives probably, I'm gonna see how it fares when it hardens up in the freezer

I had to roll the polyscience in its box up the stairs to my apartment when I first got it cause I could barely lift it 😛 Interesting to know about the bread, maybe I'm not missing much then

Seconding the recommendation for an oil pump. I bought the Polyscience oil-free chamber sealer a few years back. I knew oil was a bit better but was intimidated by the process. I am very happy with my machine but Dave Arnold recently posted about a rapid bread cooling technique where he throws his fresh baked loaf in the vacuum sealer and forces evaporative cooling, apparently leaving an extremely crisp crust. I imagine this would totally destroy my oil-free machine (as opposed to the oil machine where you can just remove all the excess water from the oil) so I haven't been able to attempt it

Pear sorbet 430g cooked pears (I mixed diced pears with a bit of ascorbic acid and a touch of water and softened in a pot, about 10% reduction in weight after cooking) 66g sugar 56g glucose powder 1.64g cremodan 64 citric and malic acid to taste (about 1g total) Blended then strained, frozen, and processed on lite. Made a great full textured sorbet! Next time I think I'd cook the pears in a bit of white wine I did a black sesame ice cream earlier this week adapting the pistachio recipe in the Frozen Desserts book too. Flavor was really nice but I had some separation during freezing. The top portion was a bit darker and icier while the lower portion creamier but lighter. Have noticed this with a few different preparations, unfortunately I'm not entirely sure how to prevent it. I saw someone recommended mixing their base partway through freezing but the timing of that seems pretty impractical to me.

Co2 carbonating rig. Various small herbs and spices that might be hard to find elsewhere - particularly roots like angelica. Hops are fun to try cooking with. Champagne yeast for making alcohols that are then turned into vinegars. Lactobacillus culture to kickstart lacto ferments. Brewers maltodextrin is a half decent replacement for nzorbit