Victor Lin

Thanks. I've been having trouble getting perfect consistency in my yogurt drinks. It's 95% smooth and homogeneous, but sometimes there are small clumps in the yogurt. I wonder if this is because I just let it sit during fermentation? Do industrial yogurt makers constantly swirl the mixture around during the 12 hours it's fermenting and then maybe pass it under pressure through a sieve or something to make sure the mixture is 100% smooth?

I want to make some traditional Asian-style yogurt. Unlike Western-style yogurt, Asians drink their yogurt, usually from a straw, so obviously the consistency is a lot thinner compared to Western-style yogurts, but it's not so thin that it's watery, like Yakult. I've already made many gallons of yogurt using a small cup of store-bought yogurt from the Chinese grocery store, but my home made yogurt lacks consistency. I noticed on the ingredients list of the store-bought yogurt that it contains milk, probiotics, and pectin. So this is where I want some help. Right now I pour cold milk into the starter culture and put the entire thing in a warm water bath for 10+ hours. If I leave it at room temperature it still works, it'll just take much longer. Afterwards I add white sugar to taste. Does pectin only activate its gelling capabilities at boiling temperatures, or will it still provide some gelling at warm temperatures, like 35C? If it only activates at boiling temperatures, I would need to: - boil a small cup of milk - add pectin to the milk - pour boiled milk in with the rest of the gallon of cold milk (would pouring pectin-laced milk into that much cold milk cause it to form gelled lumps immediately?) - make sure milk is warm or cooler (boiling would kill the probiotics) - add the starter culture - wait for yogurt Does this sound about right? Also, how much pectin would I need for a gallon of milk if the purpose is NOT to gel anything? Like a teaspoon for an entire gallon?

Hmmm... so say that I get a whole chicken or chuck roast and cook it at 55C for 24 hours. Would this result in a juicy breast but completely denatured collagen? Also, myoglobin that's responsible for the red bloody color won't disappear until around 76C, so it appears that getting a whole chicken where the breast is juicy (55C), the collagen is denatured (55C for hours and hours), and the redness of the myoglobin to disappear (76C) doesn't seem to be possible?

I have the Anova and I have a bit of a conundrum. I want my meats to be both juicy and for the collagen to melt in your mouth. Meat that is dry (in my opinion) has the sensation of sucking moisture away from your tongue, so that's how I judge dryness. I've tried whole chickens and a large chuck roast but I can't seem to get it right. - The chuck roast I did at 66C for 28 hours (this is LTLT right?). The collagen was not melty AND the meat was overcooked and dry. In order to make the meat not feel dry I have to slice the meat and dip it back in the juices first before eating. And yes, I let it rest. - The whole chicken I did at 73C for 3 hours. The collagen was breaking down nicely but the breast was dry. - Another whole chicken I did at 66C for 2 hours. The collagen wasn't broken down at all and was unpleasantly crunchy. The breast was good. There were areas of redness and while I understand that the meat is totally pasteurised, the visuals of red chicken meat are not appetising. I'm beginning to think that what I want is not actually possible. For collagen to break down into something gooey, the temp needs to be in the high 60s to 70s and it requires a long time. Unfortunately this necessarily-long time dries out the meat, so the only option is to create a sauce with the juices to make the meat not so dry. For a chicken, at least I can separate the white meat from the dark meat and cook them separately, but I can't really do that for a chuck roast. Any advice?