Montreal

humm.. Now you got me thinking... I after a week some of my bag seems to have lost their seal, when in reality it might be Contamination even in my dry stuff such as tea, brown sugar etc... Could it be that ll my bags were contaminated when i got them?

Thanks for your prompt reply. Freezing will be my next experiment, it is going to be interesting to see if the bag let's air in or liquid as it is in the bath. Tks again

Rain .....on mercer street

From a few days to a few weeks

I have smoked all purpose flours to make smoked french baguette. I am still working on it as i find that i end up with surface smoked only. I have been using a polyscience smoking gun to do the job. If anyone of you have suggestions on this it would be great

I indeed own a MVS31 As for the calibration i will check with the rep and see what he has to say. As i think that might have 2 different issue here. When after few days i loose my seal on brown sugar, i dont think thay this has something to do with bacteria. However I agree that something is growing in my bag and create balooning. However i cannot pinpoint why it is happening so randomly. I buy my meat fresh, subdivided in portion and use exclusvely small bags 7 by 9 to cook I then cook SV what i need and refregirate the rest, i rarely freeze my meat... Are you saying that it should be going from freezer to my SV bath directly from the freezer and allow more cookimg time. I could easily do this, as have some high desity tape and a thermocouple to check my internal temperature if need be. I have cooked SV Foie gras from fozen and from fresh, both with amazing results. However, i lost a good batch from storing the remaiming fresh foie gras in the fridge for future use...May be i should have frozen it.

I am actually surprise as i always thought that the mv31 was considered the top of the line and i believe a fair amount of people on e gullet are using that machine as well. Any one out there with a mv 31 ?

The foie gras was unfrozen and was packed sous vide waitibg to be cooked sous vide and then air got in....

I am using 3 mill bags unles the manufacturer made a mistake at the sources as i also own standard bag for packaging and i cannot tell the difference between both type . The confusing part is that i have air in both type of bags... For cooking and for packaging

Any one might have any idea why I am having this problem. Here is what happen. About 2 to 3 bags out of 10 end up with air inside. I have sealed cheese... 2 weeks later some tiny air pocket form inside. About 25% of the time only. I droped 12 bags of baby pork ribs for 24 hours... They were all good. I droped a second batch of 8 bags, 1 of them inflated like a baloon. I had the same experience with a corn on the cub that was sealed SV prior to cooked, the bag swelled like a baloon in the fridge. At first it was just a little bit of air, but then a got curious and left in the fridge to see how far it would go... It did swell like a balloom, litterally. A few months a go a dis some veal cheeks for 36 hours and when i opened the bag the smell was awfull, like rotting meat. As a rule of thum I alway trow away any bag that shows sign of air inflitration. However having to scrap foie gras is a bit frustrating and costly. I spoke and met with the rep, he looked at the seal of each bag and could not figure out what is going on. It also happen with dry stuff such a brown sugar or even tea. Hope to get some answer on this one as i am intrigue on what is going on. Tks in advance for your input Dan

Truffle are indeed expansive but are worth the money. I make my own black truffle oil by infusing black truffle in grape seed oil. The infusion last about 2 months

White truffle oil has to be chemically flavored as the actual white truffle goes at 7,500 dollars per kilo. You can find the black and white truffle in montreal at the atwater market. I shop exclusively at Chez Louis at the atwater market. They have black year round and white in season. Beware that some market would sell you the truffle from china that has no Taste and barely smell anything. This is why a reliable supplier is a must.

Wow, you all confuse me right now. I have bake bread for a few years now with a no knead technique as i always used wet dought. A- why would i want to seal my dough when the surrounding environment is packed of yeast in the air? To me that is what makes a bread unique to each baker. having. A bread rise in a Sv environment is like having a kid Growing up in a sterile environment... He will end up with no personality, and caracter unless, i could inject some kind of flavor in my bag that would utimately and systematically be measurable as a result B- Frozen dough, after first rise would always deliver sub par bread as oppose to freeze it after partially baking it( say 2/3) of the time. C- excuse my ignorance, but if someone could explain to me how in the world a bread would expand( release the co2), in a closed environment such as a sv bag or submerge container. D- As i am writting this, i still feel that i am missing something here. maybe someone would care to take me step by step on how you would let raise you dough in a sv technique. Thank you in advance for your reply and my appologies for my lack of visualising how this can be done Dan

My guess is that your tequilla is too liquidy and my understanding you need a syrup consistency. However, i like the calcium concentration explanation better as it is mesurable. My explanation is pure speculation. I did the baileys and khalua right from the text book , i have a picture of the results on my ipad but do not know how to incorporate this in the tread. Equal part of alginate to baileys, say 50 ml of each and then drop it in the calcium... Weather using a seringe to make caviar like drop of a spoon to have nice round drop they were both perfect. I got cut up in food shopping all afternoon, i will report on maple syrup as soon as i have a chance. Dan

Okay, i will report back later today with results Tks Dan

I have mixed an equal part of alginate to maple syrup and before even thinking to create a mixture ready for the calcium, they coagulate into a gel. However when i am doing it with baileys and khalua i have no problem. I read somewhere about the ph of my liquid to be mixed with the alginate, but i am not sure that i understand and how to midify that ph if need be. Tks for your reply

No particular reason beside that my daughter owns a gun and I did not know any other way. I will definately read your recommendation as I still think that smoked foie GRAS could be outstanding. Thanks for the link Dan

Question on spherification. I was successful with baileys as well as with kahlua, however I also tried with maple syrup and the mix was coagulating into gelatin before I drop any of the mix in my bowl and create magic. Anyone knows if their is a rule of thumb that I should know? For some reason the medium with alchool worked very well and the one that is water based (in this case maple syrup) would not work. Tks in advance for your help

Unsuccessful results, I smoked the foie GRAS with 2 different aroma and then SV and cooked. Could not tell the difference after being torched. Ho well not all test can be successful.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I will actually try both; SV before and cook as I love the texture of the foie GRAS cooked SV, but I also like the idea of smoking my salt and the season the foie gras with it. The fleur de sel on the foie gras after SV and torch makes it magic,now I am curious about smoking the salt as I could also add smoked salt to my and see the results. On separate note, I will also try to smoke my salt and use in my French baguette dough as I am making my bread, that could make it very interested as i tried to smoke my dough between each rise without any real success. I will keep youmposted on this one.

As foie gras is on it's own league, I hope that I will not insult the foie GRAS purist by my question. Would anyone would have tried to cold smoke foie GRAS with a polyscience smoke gun. The fois GRAS sv is so amazing, I am wondering if it could not be even wilder if smoked. Would I smoke it before vacum sealing or after ?. I would Think that I would have a bigger effect if i do after. As I think that a sweet twist might be interesting, I was thinking to smoke it with pumpkin tea or some maple tea . Anyone out there have dared to try that ? Tks Dan

Interesting point. So far, I have to admit that most use has been limited to create some kind of illegal or short live product by deconstrcuting / seperating / extracting from one food and re adding it up to( something else) to create something more powerfull or more pronounce. I am looking into creating essence from different ether in order to add aroma rather than taste or texture to some of the food. For example.. Can I somehow create( in liquid form ) the smell of fresh loaf of bread and add this to a SV bag while I cook a steak so that when you eat your steak you have the impression of having a fresh loaf of bread right beside you when in fact it does not really exist anywhere but in your imagination because of the aroma that was added to your steak. Okay, okay... I am probably getting carried away, but I believe that looking into my dream is the only way to be ultimately challenge to progress. If if ever get there, I will let you know

I have now a shoulder pork roast in the 59.5 C bath for the last 27 hours. The temp in the center has been at 59.5 c for several hours. The amount of callogen transforming is incredible.. It seem that the piece is actually melting. Is there a rule on how many hours I should let it sit at that temp ? It seems to be a consensus on ribs at 48 hours Tks in advance for your help

Thank you so much this is exactly what I was looking for

I understand that a Rotary Evaporator can distill. Anyone out there can give me some concrete example on how a Rotary Evaporator can be used creatively in a kitchen. It is a lot of money and I would love to have some example of what you might have accomplish with this that makes your experience worth it. Sometimes just the fact that we can create something impossible to duplicate any other way is the trigger point. Anyone out there that have one and is willing to share their experience Tks