Carlton

So I've decided i'm in the market for a chamber sealer, my foodsaver just isn't cutting it anymore. Is everyone here still happy with their VP112? The only negative I've read is that the dry piston that is in the VP112 and VP210 will give out faster when being used with liquids than the oil pump in the VP215, but I figure that probably is still after years of home use. I know the VP112 can't use retort bags but the manual does say it works with the 4 mil bags which would be a little thicker at least. Obviously price is a consideration, I can't spend a couple thousand but do you think the larger units like the VP210 or VP215 would be worth getting over the Vp112? Quality Matters has them all on sale right now and the VP215 is especially cheap. I'm not really concerned about size or weight, I won't be traveling with it and I can lift 90 pounds enough to get it off the counter and into a cabinet. For those with the VP112 what would you estimate is the largest size chunk of meat you could put in? I know a section of tenderloin would be no problem but what about a section of a rib roast? p.s. Chris A, I know we've both been enjoying the MC Pastrami lately. I've resorted to doing my brine in a large cambro container because I'm doing batches of 3kg+ at a time, it's much easier than trying to seal that much liquid (especially with a food saver). I don't know how much effect of the brine I'm losing by not having it vacuumed but it seems to taste the same. I'm getting so many requests for pastrami now my poor little SousVide Supreme can't keep up.

From their PR release "The realities of running a restaurant are very difficult, more so with multiple locations in multiple cities. After a careful review of the business model and the performance of the restaurants, we have decided that our best opportunity for Soul Daddy’s success is to focus our efforts on establishing a solid footing in one location, building the brand, and developing the operations from there. We have decided to close our restaurants at Hollywood and Highland in Los Angeles and the South Street Seaport in New York, effective June 14, and focus on developing the best restaurant we can at the Mall of America restaurant in Bloomington, Minnesota. While it has certainly been a difficult decision, we believe this is the best approach as we work towards ongoing success for Soul Daddy." I was going to go back to the LA location pretty soon to give it a second chance. Oh well.

Chris, I'm planning on doing the pulled pork in a couple days. I know the recipe doesn't call for any kind of rub prior to smoking but do you think it would benefit from it? Also I know when doing pork butt/shoulder strictly on a smoker you're supposed to spray it routinely to keep it moist. I was thinking about doing that to mine to help prevent any sort of dryness.

I heard the investment was $10 million, enough to start with 20 stores. The article I read the other day was much much less friendly to the idea. Michael Mina is consulting on the menu. There is a lot going into this concept but I really can't see myself even wanting to spend $5 on a grilled cheese sandwich. I've been very happy with the mobile ordering app from Chipotle. I can order from my iPhone and just have to walk in and pick it up, it's already paid for. I'm pretty sure Starbucks is using QR codes for ordering so this isn't that new or groundbreaking. The worst experience I've had with tech integration at a restaurant was uWink. Took us like 20 minutes to figure out how to order even after having it explained two or three times. I just hope they decide to have dipping sauces for the sandwiches or Bobby Flay might have a heart attack.

Two questions on a couple of the ingredients in the book for the MC team or anyone who can help. Is all Polysorbate 80 / Tween 80 the same, or is there one that is specifically food grade? Most of the ones I'm finding online mention using in hair care products. Is Glucose Syrup DE 40 roughly the same thing as Corn Syrup DE 42 which seems to be more common and easy to find?

I just picked up the 6 rack Bradley digital smoker. I went for the 6 rack because I wanted the extra space and took advantage of the 20% off from Amazon this month. From everything I've learned about the Bradley, if you don't need the extra room, just get the original cheap one and an Auber PID, don't waste your money on the digital because it can fluctuate +/- 20F. Eventually I plan to get one to replace the digital thermostat but it seems to be more important for things like sausages and less so for the items I plan on doing. Bradley sells a cold smoke adapter or you can find plenty of DIY instructions online. I haven't smoked anything yet but I was running some temp tests the other day. With the machine inside and the oven off, the temp was reading at a fairly stable 128 with the top vent open and 146 with the vent closed. this was after being on for about 40 minutes. I am going to repeat this test a few times just to double check but that gives you a good idea how much heat the actual smoker puts off without the oven's heating element.

Butcher Packer also sells the sodium erythorbate along with Bacto-ferm and insta cure 1&2. Not sure why they dont have fermento. Chris, do you know if there is a generic for the Fermento they might have? Otherwise I'm looking at Sausagemaker for that.

I really want to make the Pistachio Gelato but I'm having trouble finding a reliable source for the Polysorbate 80 (Tween 80). I have locust bean gum already, lambda carrageenen should be easy enough and glycerol monostearate seems to be common in bodybuilding so that can probably be found fairly easy too.

Forgot to check at my local Costco until today, turns out it came in yesterday and is already sold out. They're hoping to get more in tuesday and at $13.99lb I hope they do.

I found this article that mentions April of 2010 as the start of the new ban http://www.kobe-beef-store.com/blog/general/kobe-beef-banned-april-21-2010/ I really wish they could come up with some laws regarding labeling of beef in this country. If it's not from Hyogo it shouldn't say Kobe at all. I'm sick of seeing places selling kobe steaks or restaurants selling kobe burgers that are all just american wagyu. I would bet that most places that sell imported beef are just selling normal Japanese Wagyu and not actual Kobe also. I had the pleasure of eating the most amazing Kobe steak once when I was in Osaka and nothing I've eaten here has ever come close.

Don't forget to scale everything, including the water...that's going to be a lot of brine. Or recalculate everything with respect to a new quantity of water so you don't have to use quite so much. The way to do that is to calculate all the % as they list them with respect to the weight of meat+water (instead of WRT just the meat). Then use those % in your formula with the amount of water you choose to use...just make sure they are covered. My calculations were roughly 7.15kg water, 240g salt, 48g cure based off the weight of the meat being 100%. I picked up a large food storage container for this, double checked with the supply store it would be safe for bringing. I didn't want to try and seal 22 pounds in a bag.

Dinner tonight was... Corn Bread (5-76) Mac and Cheese (3-387) Spare Ribs with Memphis Rub (5-68,78) Baby Back Ribs with the KC Rub and KC Sauce (5-68) For dessert I made a recipe from the King Arthur website that I've been wanting to do for a while, the Chocolate Mint Torte. I had thought about doing the Deep Fried Custard but didn't want to mess with frying today. I performed my first experiment with spherification, I attempted to make the melon caviar (4-189) using watermelon juice. I got a vaccu-pette so forming the spheres was easy enough. The end result was kind of a flop though. I think because watermelon juice itself isn't super flavorful, it might not lend itself well to the technique. The small caviar did feel slimy and were small enough that it was hard to bite through them without them squirming around. Next I tried making larger spheres using a tablespoon measure, a few came out roughly round. These were better but everyone felt they were just kind of eh. As far as the successes, The mac and cheese was very well received as was to be expected with all the rave reviews here. I used a 3 year old smoked gouda and a sharp white cheddar. The smokiness was a nice little addition, as was the bacon I added into one bowl just to test out. If you want to know how to make the best mac and cheese even better... use smoked cheese and add bacon. Oh man. The corn bread came out amazing. With all the discussion over oven temp I just kinda winged it. After cooking the corn, I pureed it in my Blendtec. I didn't even need to use a sieve, it came out so smooth. I used small loaf pans to give everyone their own. I think the small size made it easy for the core to hit the target temp, In fact it heated up too fast. I started it at 350F and after about 10-15 minutes it was a little over 190F so I lowered the temp and then just let it crisp up a little bit. The corn bread was more popular than the mac and cheese, people wanted more to take home. I did make one change and that was to use shortening instead of lard, not sure how much that might've changed the final outcome. I originally couldn't decide if I wanted to do spare ribs or baby back so I made both, about 3.5lbs each. The spare ribs got the recipe treatment with the Memphis rub and came out really good. The baby back ribs I just cooked sous vide with the spare ribs, applying the same basic recipe and used the Kansas City rub on them, then made the Kansas City sauce for the table. Both sets of ribs were obviously 'fall off the bone' tender. It took some work to get all 7lbs into the SVS. Next up is batch two of pastrami. I'll be doing about 7 pounds this time. That should give me a week to figure out what my next modernist meal will be.

We load piecemeal but our dishwasher is fairly spacious and we've come up with a specific loading plan so all our dishes and glasses fit in a certain way. The only thing that ever changes it is when we have large pieces that don't get used much that need a spot. This leaves room in the sink for mixing bowls, measuring cups, cutting boards and everything else that gets used every other day and needs more frequent cleaning.

My Gong Bao Chicken came out good. I sliced the ginger and garlic as thin as I could, couldn't have gotten much thinner even with a razor blade. Didn't bother me at all in the final product. Overall I liked it, I scaled back the pepper a little bit and it was still hot enough for my liking.

Aw you beat me by a day. I'm making this for dinner tomorrow night, I will be doing the full 12 hour marinade though. Thanks for the heads up on the garlic and ginger, i will try mincing instead.

I will check my local farmers market next time I get the chance and write down some comparisons. The last few times I've been to the original farmer's market in Hollywood I've noticed some things cheaper, some things more expensive. I remember the dragonfruit was a ridiculous $8 each while you can pick it up even at Albertsons for $4 each. Granted that location is more of a tourist spot than actual market. I found really good prime boneless short ribs there a couple weeks ago for $4.99lb which I think was pretty good considering Costco sells choice for $5.99lb.

I've lived just outside Los Angeles my whole life so In-n-out has always been readily available to me and I've never tired of it. It may be that it has become comfort food for me, but I also don't go in expecting a gourmet meal. $5 gets me a burger, fries and a soda and it's always worth the $5. Yeah they have a secret menu but it's not like hot dogs and steaks, it's just various takes on the normal menu items people have come up with over the years that got popular and adopted company wide. I highly recommend the Neopolitan shake. The french fries are probably the most inconsistent item there, they will be soft one day and crispy the next. I'm glad my friends in Texas will get to share the love now. I hope they open locations in Austin in time for SXSW next year. I had heard Whataburger was good but went there last time and wasn't impressed. The Habit isn't bad, we have one in town but I rarely go. The Counter on the other hand is one of my favorite burgers. It's a build your own style place. When you walk in they hand you a clipboard and you can select your protein, beef, chicken, turkey and veggie. They make their own veggie burgers and I'm not sure what turkey they use but it is always more juicy than most turkey burgers i've had. You can get 1/3lb 2/3lb or a 1 pound burger, all are after cooked weight. You can choose from about 15 different cheeses, 15 sauces, 20 regular toppings (4 included) , 12 premium toppings (like bacon, ham, fried egg etc $1 each). Every month they have a special list of local ingredients you can substitute like bison, mozzarella, pretzel buns. The fries are good, the sweet potato fries better. It's become a challenge among friends to eat the one pounder. My first friend who tried failed miserably and suffered months of teasing after. I had to finally try it myself to back up said teasing. I prepared as much as I could for it and went in with that same friend. We split an order of fries and fried pickles and then polished off our burgers in under 10 minutes. I figured the longer I took the more full I would get so I just kept going. I actually ate at the Counter outside of Dublin once when I was over there as I was in the UK for a couple weeks and craving a good burger which I was having a lot of trouble finding.

Just finished the Strawberry Milkshake (2-473) I halved the recipe because I was just testing it out and was going to be drinking it all myself. I used my blendtec to powder the small amount of dry ice and it worked great for that. Will it blend, yes it will, but put a towel over the lid though so the powder doesnt come out the top. Presentation wise it's a great effect, mine didn't bubble over the top. I put it in fairly tall glasses but I would estimate it gained about 35% volume. The end result wasn't as cold as I expected or would have liked. That could have been something I did wrong or maybe just how it is. It was cold, but still too runny for how I would prefer a milkshake to be. The taste was good, not as sweet as I thought it would be with as much fructose added and it has a little bit of fuzz left over in it from the CO2. I will most likely try it again for a dinner with guests but I need to figure out how to make it colder, maybe leaving the mixture in the freezer a bit before adding it to the dry ice. The recipe does leave leftover puree so I'm thinking of using it to make strawberry fruit leather.

Pastrami is done and I'm slicing it now. I think it's time to go get more meat and start another batch, this stuff is for sure as great as everyone has been saying. Anyone try the strawberry milkshake yet? I'm planning on doing it tomorrow night. The strawberries are getting frozen tonight and I just need to pick up the whey powder and dry ice.

My pastrami is in the sous vide bath for dinner Friday also. I was really concerned over the amount of juniper berries going into the pastrami too until I noticed you only needed 50g of rub and then I added up the 290g of ingredients and realized it wasn't so bad. It's led me to look through more recipes and most call for more quantity than you really need. The strawberry milkshake recipe which I'm hoping to make next week makes 1.2kg of strawberry milk, but only calls for 800 to be dispersed among four glasses while you have enough for six. My carrageenan and sodium citrate come in the mail tomorrow so up next on my list is the corn bread, mac and cheese, and baby back ribs with an as yet undetermined bbq sauce from the book. Does anyone have a favorite sauce yet that they have made?

Real quick first impressions cause I have to turn my phone in before the movie. Walking in you could swear you're at Chipotle. Same setup though large family style tables. Oh and the have a sauce station with a hot sauce, BBQ, and molasses mustard. The corn bread waffles are decent but pretty small, like a 3-4 biter. Pork was ok, a little cold when I got it, the bun was light but dry. The staff was really nice and helpful welcoming you in and explaining the dishes but you could tell they are getting the bugs worked out still.

$4.95 for a pulled pork sandwich and $1 for a waffle or biscuits? Not too bad. I know what I'll be trying crowd permitting. It is a shame that there are no wings, the original concept is basically gone.

I will check out the H&H location sometime between 5-6 tonight. Hopefully it won't be too crowded. If you're there look for me, I'll be dressed pretty nice, I'm going to the Thor premiere afterwards. I'm really curious to see how much the concept changed between taping the show and now. I heard they redid the whole menu to make everything healthier. I still find it odd that the judges were so surprised by the original concept like it was something original. The Hollywood location is within walking distance of Roscoe's which is pretty renowned for their fried chicken and waffles.

I'm actually going to be at Hollywood and Highland on Monday for an event, I will have to swing by and check the winner out.

They opened a location near me maybe 6 months ago, maybe a little more. I ran over to see what all the fuss was about. The first thing I noticed when walking in which has nothing to do with the food was "Wow I'm glad I don't have a peanut allergy!" As far as the food goes, I felt the burger, while cooked well done, at least wasn't dried out. The bacon option was very welcome, every burger needs bacon. The bun was fairly useless though, the whole burger being wrapped up so tightly in foil left it soggy and collapsed. The fries were really good but could have been crispier. The small serving was way too much to eat by myself. Burger, fries and soda came to just over $10, too much for a fast food burger meal. I went back once more a month or so later to give them another chance and haven't been back since.