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Can you expand or point me to a resource on this? I tried poking around in my books and online, but didn't see too much on the differences in flavor they impart. I thought both gave the same flavor, but were used with varying ingredients depending on the necessity of heat.

I have the 18.5" WSM and have found it fairly hard to maintain lower temperatures, especially for cold smoking. Have you had any luck? Right now I have a couple techniques which are kind of successful. I can keep the smoker from 120-180 by adding 5-10 hot charcoal at a time and monitoring. The problem with this method is getting wood smoking too. I am also experimenting with an A-MAZE-N-Smoker (no personal affiliation) to add smoke at lower temperatures and cold smoke. I've only used it once and was having trouble at first, but after a quick chat with the company's owner I think the problems have been ironed out. I will hopefully get to cold smoke again soon and test it out for a longer time. I don't have Modernist Cuisine yet, but I did cold smoke a short rib for pastrami rack yesterday. My brine was based off of the recipe in Charcuterie. After brining I gave it about 5-6 hours cold smoke and it came out smokey, but not hugely so (This was my first experiment with the a-maze-n-smoker I mentioned above). So there wasn't smoke going the whole time, but I think if it had been smoking the whole time 5 hours would be perfect. Right now they are sitting in my sous vide rig at 137 degrees F, the temperature I guess would work. They will be ready tomorrow around noon.

If you are following up the smoking with a 48 hour sous vide, why couldn't you cold smoke the pastrami? Is there no curing salt in the brine?

Just an update: The leg has been smoked, cut up and is ready to go. It turned out pretty well, but was a pain in the butt because I don't have equipment large enough to really work with a primal this large. Final pictures: Full story posted on my blog here.

Boiled. The pasta still has a primary base of wheat flour, the roasted potato flour gives it a very nutty potato chip like flavor. Although, the sheeted version would make great fried ravioli, maybe a play on sour cream and onion with a green onion-ricotta mixture.

Cool! That looks awesome. (And so do the photos on your title page!) What extruder do you have? A. Thanks so much. I do the cooking and plating, but not the photography. My partner takes care of that. The extruder is the KitchenAid KPEXTA attachment.

Extruded potato chip pasta was a success. I used roasted potato flour, instead of flakes, and cut back significantly on the liquid ingredients using a mixture of beer and eggs rather than just eggs. You can read more about what I did here.

Thanks for pointers. I will definitely keep them in mind the next time I try. Now I need to make time to read the article.

I recently took pineapple core and tossed it into my pressure cooker with some unsweetened coconut flakes and a little water. I had it at high pressure for about 30 minutes it made a nice lightly flavored pina-colada stock. I made a few beverages with the resulting liquid and spherified the rest.

Here is a grilled cheese picture. We are having a late dinner so I made a small snack. For the shot, I made the grilled cheese then separated the bread for the shot, to get a close up of the cheese. Tasted great, but not quite the texture I'm shooting for. Does anyone have any ideas? It certainly looks like LoftyNotions version would be closer to the texture I'm looking for, but maybe a little too gooey. I think next time I will try using the same amount of sodium citrate, but cut out the kappa carrageenan and drop the iota carrageenan down to 2% compared to the less than half a percent in the posted mac and cheese recipe.

My ingredients arrived a little early, so I tried my hand at making a constructed cheese using some of the advice I got from @jcgastrophysics on twitter (user Jethro on eG?). Per his instructions I used 2% sodium citrate, 3% iota carrageenan, 1% kappa carrageenan. I decided on a 2:1 ratio of cheese to liquid based on other (sodium citrate only) recipes I have read. The end result is the recipe below: 60g of tomato-beer stock (slice tomatoes and some homebrew APA pressure cooked for 20 minutes at 15psi, natural release) 3.6g sodium citrate 5.4 grams iota carrageenan 1.8g kappa carrageenan 5.2g salt 120g Bergblumen Kase, grated I added the stock, salts and carrageenans to a sauce pan and put them on the heat. Right away they formed a thick roux-like paste. I whisked and whisked on low heat until there were no dry ingredients left and as grainy. I added the cheese and switch to a silicon spatula. While still on low heat (about 150 degrees F) I kept mixing and watched the mixture turn from a grainy mess to a smooth dough like consistency. A little longer and it started to become stringy, but wasn't runny. I think the large quantities of carrageenans gelled it much thicker. Once it looked very smooth and I couldn't detect any grain when tasting I formed a large clump of it and spread it out on a silicon baking sheet, then I put it in the fridge to cool it. A couple notes: 1) The cheese was easily workable right out of the saucepan, while still warm. I could have cut it into any shape I wanted easily. It wasn't gooey at all. Almost like a very soft dough. 2) The tomato-beer stock flavor is very subtle, but present. Water could probably be used to impart no flavor to the cheese. 3) I could detect no off flavors from the 'modernist' ingredients. 4) Depending on application and the cheese used this recipe might have too much salt. Alone the cheese is a touch too salty, melted on bread it is balanced perfectly. 5) When cool the cheese has a slightly grainy texture if rubbed between the tongue and roof of mouth, this goes away when warmed. 6) It has decent stretch and is much softer/gooey when melted then it was before, but not not to the extent that American cheese is, it doesn't have that unctuous gooeyness. I will try to get better pictures up ASAP. I'll probably make the grilled cheese sandwiches tomorrow for dinner so hopefully tomorrow evening. If one wanted to make a more gooey cheese, I'd guess either cutting back on the carrageenans or using more liquid is the way to go? Any thoughts? Pictures: Chilled and cut a couple thin slices: Rolled the slices into a ball to show texture and consistency: Quickly melted and stretch (I did this in a microwave, and had it go a few seconds too long):

Jet City Gastrophysics put up a post involving a constructed cheese slice today using a recipe from Modernist Cuisine. No recipe, just a list of ingredients, but they are very different from what we have been talking about. Sodium citrate, sodium phosphate, cheese and whey protein. I wish they discussed the quantities and process a little more, but this might be useful. http://jetcitygastrophysics.com/2011/04/22/modernist-cuisine-at-home-ham-and-cheese-omelet/

Thanks for the dimensions. Now I'm off to build a shelf that will fit these monsters!

I have one pound of iota on its way (expected Monday) which is far more than I could use in a year. I am skeptical of its shelf life being so short because it seems most shelf life/expiration estimates are very conservative. I would gladly split it up and send some over at my cost which will probably be about $7-8 for 50 grams in a zip top bag (I have a scale accurate to a tenth of a gram). I'm not interest in making any money, just getting ingredients in more people's hands and not wasting ingredients that could potentially go bad. If you need I have some spare sodium citrate as well, although that is far more accessible and inexpensive than iota. If anyone is interested, you can shoot me a pm. Edited for grammar.

Can anyone verify the size of the acrylic book case? I'm fairly certain the set won't fit on my bookshelf, so I am hoping to build a home for them before my set arrives.

Is any liquid suitable for a sodium citrate emulsion? I made a tomato-beer stock tonight that I want to use as the liquid base for grilled cheese sandwiches as soon as my iota comes in the mail. Since I don't have Modernist Cuisine yet, I am trying to figure out the best proportions to use. Based on what I have read I have a guess recipe for a cheese that will be solid enough to cut into slices when frozen. Can anyone with more knowledge of the methods in Modernist Cuisine or this technique comment? 150g Tomato-Beer Stock 4.5g Sodium citrate 5g salt 1.25g iota carrageenan 200g Bergblumen Kase 100g Parmesan Reggiano

I want to try and make an extruded pasta variant of the potato chip pasta recipe in the book, but am not exactly sure where to turn for potato flakes. The local grocery store only has flavored instant mashed potatoes, I couldn't find any plain potato flakes in the store. Does anyone know if potato flour is a reasonable substitute? Alternatively, has anyone made their own potato flakes? Worst case I figured I could mash some potatoes with no added ingredients and then dehydrate.

I'm not sure. Hopefully someone who has MC can answer this question? I believe the fondu recipe in Ideas would be a good starting point. I think they use slightly more liquid to cheese for the recipe than the MC mac and cheese recipe so it might be less thick. They also use no carrageenan, but don't talk about storage.

I am trying to tackle this topic as well. There is a discussion of cheese emulsification in Ideas in Food where they mention that both sodium citrate and sodium phosphate are commonly used melting salts in contemporary processed cheese - I believe they say that citric acid was used in the past. They recommend 1-2% of sodium citrate by weight of the cheese sauce. I don't recall if their discussion directly speaks to gelling the newly made sauce as is done with the composed cheese slices or mac and cheese in Modernist Cuisine, but from my spotty online research I am still not sure if carrageenan is necessary unless freezer based storage is planned. Many seemingly successful recipes forgo the use of carrageenan, instead cooling the cheese mixture until it can be handled and using it right away (see Heston Blumenthal's processed cheese recipe or this recipe). I believe iota carrageenan stabilizes the emulsion at freezer temperatures - which probably makes the cheese easier to work with because of the gooey nature of processed cheese.

Thanks for the info. I am obviously at a disadvantage since I haven't had the opportunity to see the books yet. As I anxiously wait for my copies to arrive does anyone remember why the Modernist Cuisine authors include the carrageenans in the cheese recipes? If I understand their use carrageenans are used for gelling, but I have seen numerous recipes (Blumenthal's and this one, for example) that just use sodium citrate as the emulsifier. I was under the impression that the carrageenan allowed for freezing without the risk of breaking the emulsification, but it seems like there is more than that going on?

I made the Mac & Cheese with nothing but kappa, and it ended up being runny even at fridge temp, but I think other people have reported the same results with iota. It froze just fine - I used about a third immediately, then the rest a couple weeks later. There was no separation or anything like that, if that's what you were thinking. It was fine after being frozen, just runny, like those jars of icky cheez whiz kinda stuff they sell by the chips in the grocery store. Tasted great, though! Does the reconstructed/processed cheese from the burger recipe use the same technique as the mac and cheese? My understanding is that the reconstructed cheese should be solid enough to roll out and cut into slices. I'm not concerned with it separating. I am more concerned with an inability to work with the cheese once I emulsify it because it is too gooey to form into slices for grilled cheese sandwiches.

I think I have answered my own question. the iota carrageenan stabalizes the emulsion created by the cheese, liquid and sodium citrate so the mixture be frozen and stored. If used right away I don't believe the iota is necessary, even in the mac and cheese. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

My copy hasn't arrived yet (slated for a July arrival according to Barnes and Noble), but I have a really good Bergblumen sitting in the fridge that I wanted to turn into a delicious grilled cheese. I've read about the reconstructed cheese slices and want to try that out, but have read mixed stories online different variants and was hoping for some clarification. Heston Blumenthal has a reconstructed cheese recipe using sherry, some spices, cheese and sodium citrate, but no gelling such as iota carrageenan. I believe I have read that he recommends 500ml of infused sherry to 850g of cheese. Is the Modernist Cuisine recipe similar or does the authors suggest add a gelling agent to the liquid prior to adding the cheese and chilling (as in the mac and cheese recipe)? I have read about some people having trouble with Blumenthal's reconstructed cheese not setting properly which is the primary reason why I ask.

I just got around to testing my replacement cooker today. It seems better than the first and I'm probably being over vigilante, but at pressure there is a very subtle hiss and occasionally vapor is visible on the steam guard. According to Kuhn, this is normal operation. Below are two pictures, showing the pressure settings I used when testing for any hiss - it was present in both. Also linked is an out of focus video, but you can hear the hiss in it and see the wisp of vapor I am talking about (around 4-5 seconds on). I am under the impression that the first photo is the proper setting for pressure, but I tried both. So am I being crazy or is this normal?

We had some tacos al pastor tonight with refried beans and an avocado sauce. Inspired by a trip to Fonda San Miguel in Austin a few months back. Quite a few firsts for me in this meal. This was the first time I made refried beans and corn tortillas, both were a hit! The tortillas are about four inches in diameter to get an idea of the taco size.