slkinsey

Jack, what was your thinking behind 2 hours? I would think that 15-20 minutes would have sufficed to bring the scallops up to 55C, and it's not clear that there is any culinary benefit to going longer than the minimum time for something like scallops.

Re the Improved [spirit] Cocktail: The whole point is that you can use pretty much any base spirit (and any bitters) that you like. I rather like doing it with Louis Royer's high proof cognac, but it's also delicious with genever or just about any American whiskey you might like to use. As noted, it's especially good with higher proof spirits that you can mellow on the ice.

6 gallons is a huge stockpot, but I think most people who like to make stock would want one. It's also a great sized vessel if you have a slip-on circulating heater for sous-vide.

Florida or Floridita?

Well, $47 seems to be the going price in NYC. In consideration of the fact that $25 is the going rate for a fifth (even in the fanciest NYC liquor stores), and that $30 seems to be the breaking point for most people at which they will start thinking about seeking out a less expensive alternative, something in the range between $25 and $30 would seem like the reasonable price point for a product that the makers hope will be used in relatively large amounts as a primary spirit and not doled out in half-ounces here and there as a precious modifier. In the UK example I provided above, a fifth of Plymouth Sloe was selling at around 6% more than a fifth of Plymouth Gin. I've seen UK prices for Plymouth Sloe that are as much as 24% higher than Plymouth Gin. Similar pricing structures would put US Plymouth Sloe at somewhere between $26.50 and $31.00 -- either one of which would be acceptable and a vast improvement over $35.00 to $47.00. Clearly, however, something fishy is going on with the pricing in the NYC market, which appears to be substantially higher than anywhere else.

Dean Beck of the Cornell Hotel School, long retired, used to walk the halls every day and had an announced open door policy. Robert Beck was a dean, not a president. That was his job. Hanging out and chatting with students is not traditionally the job of a president, whose job is fundraising, overall direction, etc.

Actually cooking pasta sous vide would be a bad idea, because the pasta will continue to absorb water so long as there is water in the bag.

That's a mistake. The blended product is only 35% apple brandy (compared to 100% for the bonded product).

Apropos to this discussion, Time Out has Mystery Science Eater, in which "TONY examines the original mass-market uses of some of molecular gastronomy’s latest tricks." For example: Sodium alginate or pectin and calcium Now: spherification Then: pimentos for stuffed olives Methylcellulose Now: foams, hot foams Then: pie filling, sexual lubricants, laxitives Transglutaminase Now: meat noodles, blocks of fish, frankensteak Then: crab sticks, chicken nuggets Vacuums Now: fanch sous-vide applications such as rare short ribs, spring eggs, vacuum-infusions, etc. Then: enhanced shipping, preservation and processing properties Peristaltic pumps Now: Johnny Iuzzini's rhubarb noodles Then: open heart surgery, moving harmful industrial liquids

This has been done. I've done it, in fact. Just roll the rough very thin; put down a bit of filling (I like a mixture of ritotta and some kind of bitter green) as a "base"; leave an indentation in the filling to hold the yolk; carefully put a whole, unbroken yolk into the intentation; cover with another piece of dough and carefully seal; leave plenty of dough around the outside when you cut out the shape (you don't want to eat more than one egg yolk-filled ravolo anyway); cook it in not-quite-simmering water for 4 minutes; plate immediately, sauce with brown butter and shaved truffles if you have 'em. The dough will be cooked, and the yolk will run when you cut into the center of the raviolo.

I wouldn't call Fee's barrel aged bitters "esoteric." They stand firmly in the "Angostura alternative" camp. They are excellent, I agree.

I really feel that Plymouth's price point for their sloe gin at retail is ridiculously high. It's a great product, but for something that calls for more than the half ounces in which one uses things such as Cointreau, it's quite expensive. It's going to be hard to do much mixing with something that costs significantly more than Courvoisier VSOP. This stuff is priced at around double the price of regular Plymouth. In the UK, from what I have been able to tell, Plymouth Sloe is priced just a touch higher than their regular gin. That price has got to come way down in the US if it's ever going to catch on. Eventually, the cocktail geeks will have acquired all they want, and they'll be using it up in miserly increments because of the absurdly high price, and that will be that. It will never increase in popularity. Even some cocktailians balk at the cost of using Cointreau, and Cointreau is significantly less expensive than Plymouth Sloe. Related to that: Does anyone know how to procure sloe berries in the US?

Unless you're a real bitterphile, you can do quite nicely with Angostura (still the greatest bitters there is), Peychaud's and an orange bitters of your choosing. Most other bitters tend to fall into one of three basic categories: 1. "Angostura alternatives" with warm spices such as clove, cinnamon, allspice, etc. prevalent. Almost every bitters maker has one (Bitter Truth, Fee's, Hermes, etc.). 2. Citrus bitters such as grapefruit, lemon, etc. Fee's makes orange, grapefruit and lemon bitters; Bitter Truth makes lemon and orange bitters. 3. Ecclectic bitters such as celery, "mole," mint, peach, etc. These are frequently impossible to get, and some that are available (Fee's Mint Bitters, I'm looking at you) are unadvisable. Once you have the "big three" of Angostura, Peychaud's and orange, that's all you really need. Anything more is a luxury. You want 5 different kinds of orange bitters? I do! But you don't "need" more than one. For some of these other styles, if you find yourself enjoying bitters that much, you might consider making your own. There are the "Angostura alternatives" such as Hess House and Abbott's bitters, among others. You could make your own citrus bitters. Or whatever.

Made a good one last night, the Savoy Tango Cocktail. Half bonded applejack, half Plymouth sloe gin. Stir. Strain. Up.

I think they have a "lemon and lime" adapter kit for the machine. But you may be right about the bitterness. Still, I've got to believe there is a decent automatic machine that could do 100 liters each of lemon, lime, orange and grapefruit in less than an hour.

All that juicing sounds like a beast! Maybe next time it would make sense to rent something like one of these. Actually, I would think that most cocktail bars might find something like this a worthwhile investment.

I've had some pretty great experiences with miso butter.

Now, if we could only find ample amounts of Laird's Bonded... I just picked up two bottles down at Astor!

Interesting, although it's not clear to me that filtering with activated charcoal is actually all that widespread, and also that it may be through such small amounts of charcoal that it amounts mostly to an enhanced sediment/chill filtration. I found this interesting:

Neither the Corpse Reviver #2 (one spirit, one liqueur, one aromatized wine, one juice) nor the Negroni (one spirit, one amaro, one aromatized wine) contain two spirits in more or less equal balance. The spirit is the high-proof stuff: whiskey, rum, gin, tequila, brandy, etc.

The Vieux Carré has two spirits (rye and cognac) with equal billing, plus vermouth and herbal liqueur. And there are dozens of variations on this formula around the NYC cocktail scene. The Saratoga has whiskey and cognac as well. In particular, there seem to be a lot of cocktails around NYC bars in which Laird's bonded is blended in equal parts with another spirit, as it is a particularly felicitous combination with either whiskey or cognac. Toby's 41 Jane Does contains equal amounts of Calvados and Poire William. Of course, many tiki drinks contain combinations of different rums (not sure if that counts).

This is why you want to get an aspirator. The hand pump thing makes no sense to me. He may (probably does) have a point there. I guess the proof would be in doing side-by-side blind comparisons between unfiltered and filtered bitters. But what kind of filters? There are many different kinds of filters. A sediment filter, for example, is not the same thing as an adsorption filter like you get from activated charcoal. Indeed, I would be extremely surprised of any bourbon is filtered through activated charcoal at any point during the process, especially since this would be a kind of Lincoln County Process, which is what distinguishes bourbon from Tennessee whiskey. Rather, it is likely that bourbons such as Woodford Reserve are sediment filtered, then chilled down to a few degrees above zero and run through a filter with 40 layers of paper. This does remove some flavor (many scotch distilleries refuse to do it) but nowhere near the amount of volatile aromatics that would be removed by an adsorption filter like activated charcoal. I would be fairly shocked to learn that any spirit other than vodka is filtered through activated charcoal prior to bottling. Indeed, I would be fairly surprised to learn that any spirit other than vodka and Tennessee whiskey and the occasional rum which is having the color stripped out is filtered through charcoal at all.

This is the recipe aonis appears to be using.

It's hard for any of us to give you any advice unless you describe your process completely, including where you heard about this process and what result you hope to accomplish.

If you don't add water but continue adding sugar and ginger, eventually the alcohol content (and probably sugar content as well) will get up to a point where the yeast (and bacteria, since this is naturally fermented) are inhibited.