slkinsey
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Posts posted by slkinsey
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It's never been clearly and definitively explainec to my satisfaction just what a historical old tom gin was like. Is it as simple as sweetening a London dry gin? I have heard this supposition a number of times, but it doesn't seem as though London dry simply consists of old tom minus the sugar. I'd be interested to hear any less speculative ideas as to what the old tom gins JT and others would have been using was like.
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I assume you're speaking of either the "Pick Me Up" or "Uplift" kettles.
Looking at them on OXO site, I can see how the handles might scorch and burn if the kettle were placed over a burner that was larger than the diameter of the kettle. Not sure I'd call this a "design flaw." If you have a stove with burners that are larger or more powerful than standard residential stove burners, you should either adjust the flame or choose a different kettle design.
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the sensory evaluation doesn't seem very scientific.
I've already outlined some of the important chemical differences, and am not equipped to do double-blind studies as to the perceptual differences. Suffice it to say that they are different, which seems incontrovertible, and that beverage companies in particular find the difference in results significant enough that they are not using maltodextrin as a lower cost alternative to gum arabic. My own sensory evaluations confirm those differences. If yours do not, or if your own sensory evaluations lead you to prefer maltodextrin over gum arabic, then you should of course use maltodextrin. But I would stop short at suggesting that maltodextrin-enhanced simple syrup is functionally the same as real gomme syrup.
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If all you want it for is Old Fashioneds, and you're happy with the result, then there is no reason to usa anything else. My experience is that the viscosity obtained with maltodextrin is not quite the same as the viscosity obtained with gum arabic. The maltodextrin seems comparatively "thicker" to my palate, and not quite as "silky." YMMV, of course.
I also like gomme syrup for things like Pisco Sours that benefit from the emulsifying and foam stabilizing properties of gum Arabic. Gum Arabic also seems to have a unique effect of smoothing out cocktails and helping to integrate flavors that might otherwise have a little difficulty in playing together nicely.
Maltodextrin does many, if not all the things that gum Arabic does -- albeit perhaps not quite as well. Given the availability of gum Arabic, I don't see any compelling reason why a home mixologist wouldn't just use the real thing. I split a $20 bag of powdered gum Arabic into one batch each of white and demerara gomme syrup, and this supply has lasted me a year. That's a lot of cocktails! Perhaps if I were running a commercial operation I might decide on maltodextrin as a cost-cutting measure. But if I were going to all the trouble to make a special syrup just for Old Fashioned-type cocktails, I can't imagine that making up a few gallons of real gomme would add too much to the bottom line or create too terribly much work that I wouldn't still consider using gum Arabic. Perhaps I'd be inclined to have a real gomme syrup for special uses and include a touch of maltodextrin in my base simple.
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Maltodextrin adds body through thickening, plus some sweetness and foam stabilization.
Gum Arabic is a excellent hydrocolloid emulsifier and foam stabilizer, adds both body and viscosity, reduces surface tension, helps to prevent crystalization. Because gum Arabic is a natural gum, it consists of not one but many different molecules (arabinogalactan oligosaccharides, polysaccharides and glycoproteins) which all contribute to its effects in different ways.
It's not so much that maltodextrin doesn't do anything good. But gum Arabic is considered the gold standard of gums. If it were possible for maltodextrin to do all the things in beverages that gum Arabic does, do you think soft drink companies wouldn't go over to maltodextrin? Consider that American soft drink companies immediately switched from cane sugar to corn syrup when they determined that it represented a significant cost savings at an acceptably low reduction in overall quality.
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Maltodextrin offers some of the same benefits as gum arabic, but is considered a "low cost alternative." I personally wouldn't use maltodextrin in place of gum arabic, but one could experiment with a blend of gum arabic and maltodextrin.
Maltodextrin is a starch, not a gum.
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What I found especially interesting was that the study seemed to show that it's entirely possible to have an absolutely top quality absinthe with virtually no thujone.
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You could to the gas flush thing also using a tiny piece of dry ice:
1. Seal item together with small piece of dry ice as normal
2. Clip off small corner of the bag leaving small hole
3. Allow dry ice to melt
4. Insert open corner into FoodSaver, vacuum out CO2 and seal.
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Dunno. Someone got me three 2-sphere sets for a gift.
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I have done this a number of times. For example, for Thanksgiving I made a turkey ballotine that consisted of turkey breast filled with a turkey mousse with foie gras and black truffles. To do this, I pounded out a large turkey breast to uniform thickness, put a line of turkey mousse down the middle and used plastic wrap to roll the whole thing up like a sushi roll. I then twisted the ends of the plastic wrap to tighten the whole thing up as much as possible, and then sealed the plastic-wrapped "turkey log" in a vacuum bag. I made similar "logs" of bacon-wrapped cornbread dressing and braised dark meat with Savoy cabbage wrapped in turkey skin -- all using plastic wrap to help form and hold the logs in place. These were all cooked sv to 60C.
Here is an image of me cutting slices of turkey ballotine:
And here is a closeup image of slices of the three different elements on the plate:
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Interesting criteria, George. But it strikes me that, following your criteria, the most important Cobbler of all wouldn't qualify. I wonder it using Embury as a starting-off point makes much sense, considering that the Cobbler had long passed its heyday and been largely forgotten by the time Embury was writing (and, of course, Embury could be a bit iconoclastic).
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The PDT/D&C combination is a good recommendation, because it's easy to experience two different styles of cocktailery and two different bars (albeit both of the "small/boutique variety") without traveling more than a few blocks. There are also plenty of good and interesting places nearby to eat at a wide variety of pricepoints.
PDT and D&C are getting a lot of attention right now, and deservedly so (and also due to the fact that many of us at eG have friends who bartend there). But I would like to add my voice to Mayur and Nathan in pointing out that there are some very good and interesting things happening at both Pegu Club and Flatiron Lounge these days -- so much so that I have been meaning to make some new posts about the goings on at both of these establishments. I think both establishments went through a bit of a lull when the talent they had helped develop moved forward into other opportunities (PTD and D&C noteworthily among them). Identifying and nurturing talent, and offering chances for expression, exploration and growth is especially important in maintaining vitality and quality -- especially at larger bars such as we have in Flatiron Lounge and Pegu Club. Not for nothing are Audrey Saunders and Julie Reiner known as two of the most important figures in NYC cocktails and the cocktail revival in general. Another "next generation" of cocktailian bartenders is very much coming into its own at both Flatiron and Pegu, and I've had brilliant drinks at both places recently. If you really want an interesting drink, try Erin's "Kill Devil" at Pegu: white rhum agricole, Green Chartreuse, demerara syrup, bitters and, if you're there on a night when the bar isn't slammed, a burning disk of lime peel floating on the drink. Beware, though! It goes down silky-smooth, but it's very boozy.
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Provocachic, what you should do is figure out the equivalent dry weight of your gum arabic and proceed from there.
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The well-known alcoholic beverage Pastis becomes turbid when mixed with water due to the poor solubility of trans-anethol, the anise-flavored component of Pastis in the water solution formed. This destabilization appears as the formation of micrometer-sized droplets that only very slowly grow in size, thus expanding the life of the anise-flavored beverage. The slow growth has been attributed to an extremely low interfacial tension of the droplets. Fitting experimental droplet growth rates to an Ostwald ripening model, interfacial tensions were deduced in the past. Direct determination of the interfacial tensions was not yet reported on these systems. We have measured the interfacial tensions and used these data to predict droplet growth rates using an Ostwald ripening model and a model for creaming of the droplets. The interfacial tension was measured to be about 11 mN/m for a 30/70 w/w % ethanol/water mixture, and it decreases slightly to a value of 1.4 mN/m in the case of a 70/30 w/w % ethanol/water mixture. These values are not as low as those deduced in the past. The theoretical predictions for both the Ostwald ripening rates and the creaming rates, using the directly measured interfacial tensions, are found to contradict with the experimental results on Ostwald ripening and creaming. While the experiments on Ostwald ripening show an increase in stability with increasing ethanol concentration, the results based on our interfacial tension measurements in combination with the same Ostwald ripening model show a decrease in stability with an increase in ethanol concentration. Further research is needed to understand fully which parameters play a role in both droplet growth and the stability of these three-component emulsions to elucidate the current discrepancy between model and experiment. This could be useful for a better control of "spontaneous emulsification" processes.
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So, I was just made aware of some new (to me) absinthe-related research.
Thirteen samples of authentic absinthe dating from the preban era (i.e., prior to 1915) were analyzed for parameters that were hypothesized as contributing to the toxicity of the spirit, including naturally occurring herbal essences (thujone, pinocamphone, fenchone), methanol, higher alcohols, copper, and antimony. The total thujone content of preban absinthe was found to range between 0.5 and 48.3 mg/L, with an average concentration of 25.4 20.3 mg/L and a median concentration of 33.3 mg/L. The authors conclude that the thujone concentration of preban absinthe was generally overestimated in the past. The analysis of postban (1915–1988) and modern commercial absinthes (2003–2006) showed that the encompassed thujone ranges of all absinthes are quite similar, disproving the supposition that a fundamental difference exists between preban and modern absinthes manufactured according to historical recipes. Analyses of pinocamphone, fenchone, base spirits, copper, and antimony were inconspicuous. All things considered, nothing besides ethanol was found in the absinthes that was able to explain the syndrome “absinthism”.According to the article (login required) in Chemical & Engineering News which first brought this paper to my attention, this is the first study to look this closely at multiple preban, postban and modern examples via gas chromatography/mass spectrometry for the convulsants thujone (from wormwood), pinocamphone (from hyssop) and fenchone (from fennel) as well as methanol, other alcohols, and acetaldehyde. The authors also used atomic absorption spectroscopy to evaluate copper content and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to evaluate antimony content. The paper has an excellent chart giving thujone, pinocamphone and fenchone results from their tests for all the samples.
It's interesting to see that there are wide variations in thujone content even among samples from the same maker during the same period -- most likely, the authors felt, due to variability at the time of original distillation and bottling (regional and seasonal variations, herb chemotype, drying conditions, adjustments of recipes, etc.). They also point out that some of the preban makers of highest repute (Dechanet and Berger) had some of the lowest thujone levels measured, despite having all the organoleptic properties that are desirable in the highest quality absinthe. The authors say that they did not find "any evidentiary or investigative support for . . . the proposition that thujone content changes in the bottle, as a result of aging or other factors." Similar results were foind with respect to pinocamphone and fenchone.
There is also a nice chart showing the results for methanol, acetalaldehyde, 1-propanol, 2-/3-methyl-1-butanol, isobutyl alcohol, ethyl acetate and copper. The preban examples "exhibited a very clean base spirit" and "obviously were manufactured using highly rectified alcohol." Only two preban Edouard Pernod samples exceeded the EU's maximum methanol concentrations for neutral alcohol, but the authors point out that these were made with wine spirit which has a higher legal limit than neutral alcohol. The only abnormally high methanol concentration was a bootleg Swiss example from 1953. The authors conclude that "this study did not reveal so much as one sample of preban absinthe that would be in jeopardy as a result of the quality of its base spirit."
Copper and antimony are two other toxins that are commonly supposed to be present in preban absinthe as adulterants, the former to contribute a green color and the latter to simluate the "louche effect" (both on the cheap compared to using herbs). Results showed that both were inconspicuous or unmeasurable in all samples.
The authors do concede that the bottles which were most likely to be saved were of the highest quality from the most reputable manufacturers, as opposed to "those dubious and short-lived marques, usually of Parisian origin, that represented the cheapest, most likely adulterated examples" which were often sold only in cask. They note that "the theoretical likelihood that some of these cheaper products contained significant concentrations of methanol, copper, antimony and/or other likely impurities and adulterants cannot be excluded, although it must be emphasized that no such samples have been discovered thus far."
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Okay, so I just got off the phone with my father (this is he, if anyone is curious as to his qualifications). He says:
1. When the air is removed from a sous vide bag and the bag is subsequently exposed to normal atmospheric pressure, the contents of the bag are also under normal atmospheric pressure. This is because, for purposes of our consideration, the bag is infinitely flexible, and it deforms by reducing in size until the interior of the bag is at the same pressure as the exterior of the bag.
2. The only way to achieve lower pressure is with a rigid container.
3. There would be no significant difference as to oxidation reactions between a steak sealed in a bag using a FoodSaver and a steak sealed in a bag with a powerful chamber machine. The difference in the amount of oxygen available for reaction in the two examples is negligible, considering that the steak already contains oxygen.
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Even the smallest size (55 mm) requires a very large cube of ice (55 mm = >2 inches). So it's not clear that this is any more practical than using spherical molds, considering that one is unlikely to have ready access to cubed ice on the order of 2 to 3.5 inches in size.
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Mike: Do you agree that putting these questions to a heavily credentialed (member of the National Academy of Sciences, etc.) physical chemist should settle these questions?
I think this is important for more than deciding "who is right" on this question. First and foremost, it should clarify some material questions as to these cooking techniques. Second, it will allow us to move on to more important and stimulating discussions in this thread.
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Hi Mike. Thanks for posting the quotes from Roca. I can see how some of that stuff may be confusing.
Some quick thoughts below...
As to the stuff on Page 76: I believe Roca must be talking about cooking food in a rigid container rather than a flexible container. As I and others have mentioned, it is possible to go under 14.7 psi in a rigid container -- it's just not possible in a container as flexible as a bag, because the container deforms until there is pressure equilibrium.
As to the stuff on Page 84: Roca is correct that removing most of the oxygen can have an important effect. However, we should understand that even if we remove all the air from the bag, we have not removed all the oxygen from the cooking environment -- there is still oxygen in the meat itself. So the question is not whether we have removed all of the oxygen, because this is impossible. The question is how much oxygen we have removed. When we are considering vacuum machines of different strengths, there is a question as to whether the difference in the oxygen removed is large enough to make a significant difference on a chemical basis. My strong suspicion is that, so long as the vacuum machine is reasonably strong (say >25" Hg), there is not going to be a significant difference. More on this later.
As to the stuff on Page 85: No one disagrees that sous vide bags support the ingredient's structure, help to exert equal pressure over the entire surface of the ingredient, help to prevent drying due to moisture loss (also significantly due to cooking at lower temperatures) and help to prevent aroma/flavor loss due to volatization.
The question is how strong the vacuum machine has to be in order to accomplish these things. Certainly, a stronger machine may create a situation in which the bag material presses against the food more evenly, but this doesn't necessarily argue for a zillion dollar machine. As I have pointed out, I've been able to compress and support salmon steaks rolled up into a "salmon fillet mignon" very well with a run of the mill FoodSaver. For sure there are likely some effects that would be done better with a stronger machine (e.g., an extremely delicate food that does not want to cohere).
Please take note: As you can see in the passages you quoted, when Roca talks about pressure, he is talking about the bag pressing on the food inside. This directly contradicts your earlier assertions that the contents of the bag are under less-than-normal pressure. Indeed, physics tells us that the bag is pressing inwards on the food with exactly the same force that is being applied externally on the bag. In this case, it is 14.7 psi when the bag is not in the water bath (normal atmospheric pressure), and slightly more than 14.7 psi when the bag is in the water bath (where pressure is higher due to the weight of the water).
As to the "highlighted in gray" material on Page 85: This is true if the food is inside a rigid container. If it is in a bag, it is not true.
I have a proposal: Let's come up with a series of questions about pressure and oxidation reactions as they apply to sous vide cooking. We'll agree on a list of questions, and I will send them to this guy, who I hope we can agree has a level of expertise that should provide for a definitive resolution to these questions. He is familiar with sous vide cooking, having had several examples prepared by me.
Here are a few questions I propose:
1. A piece of steak is sealed inside an impermeable flexible plastic bag in a zero-atmosphere environment. The bag is exposed to normal atmospheric pressure, and the bag deforms to tightly cover the meat. Is the meat now under (1) normal atmospheric pressure; or (2) less than normal atmospheric pressure?
2. Let's suppose that the bag is sealed inside an environment that is somewhat less than zero-atmosphere. Let's say that the machine is capable of 25" Hg, so there is a tiny bit of air left inside the bag. Is this difference likely to have any significant effect as to oxidation reactions when the food is cooked at 60C?
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The addition of Benedictine makes it a Bobby Burns.
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I believe that Michel Bras is generally held to be the creator.
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Mike, we're happy to have you share your experiences, and especially for you to share whatever you may have gleaned from books. But when you're making statements that are based on, e.g., Juan Roca's book -- especially statements which a reasonably informed person might hold to be incorrect from a scientific standpoint -- perhaps it would help to give context to your assertions if you would post the passages on which your assertions are based. This way other participants here can have some basis either to understand or critique your basis for making those assertions.
The deal about pressure inside the bag once the bag has been sealed and collapsed, I believe must be based on a simple misunderstanding on your part. Perhaps this based on something you read in one of these books -- we have no way of knowing if you don't post the basis of your assertions and simply continue to assert that you are correct and everyone else is wrong.
My own academic background is not as important in this case as the academic background of the parents who raised me. Both are chemists and my father is a noted physical chemist (member of the National Academy, festscrift edition of the Journal of Physical Chemistry, etc.) So not only did I literally grow up hearing about many of these basic principles (and really, the stuff we're discussing here is quite elementary) but I have a good basis for educating myself as to the topics that interest me and, perhaps most importantly, can count any number of famous scientists among family friends I could potentially ask to explain these things. My experience, however, is that things like this are at a basic-enough level that a simple query to a parent for support of my understanding or further explanation is sufficient.
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As long as the bag is exposed to atmospheric pressure, the pressure is the same inside and outside the bag. If the bag is exposed to atmospheric pressure, the contents are at atmospheric pressure. It is that simple. If you were dealing with a rigid container, the inside and outside would be at different pressures. But that isn't the case.
May we entertain the idea that cellular structures (along with veins and capillaries) of proteins and vegetation, are semi rigid (elastic)?
That would only be germane to this fork of the discussion if one were somehow able to lower the pressure inside the cells, veins and capillaries only, such that the walls of the cells, veins and capillaries represented the boundary between higher pressure on the outside and lower pressure on the inside without collapsing.
As others have pointed out, the only way to have the food under less than 14.7 PSI is to put the food inside a rigid container and lower the pressure inside the container. In this case, following your idea that the cellular structures (along with veins and capillaries) of proteins and vegetation are semi rigid and thus somehow able to maintain pressure disequilibrium, the pressure inside these cells and inside these veins and capillaries would be higher than the pressure inside the chamber.
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There are effects that are possible only with machines that can pull high inches of mercury. But they're not the effects that you're generally talking about. Having a super-strong vacuum machine is really not so important once you're actually cooking the food in the water bath. Rather, the interesting things that a strong machine are things like pressure "cooking" tender greens, compressing vegetables and fruits, sucking the air out of certain vegetables and fruits so that they "vacuum infuse" a liquid once the pressure is released, etc.
1. To remove oxygen, and as such to prevent change in color, tast, smell, texture and taste caused by oxygenation.This can be important for long cooking times. However, the bar is significantly lower than "total vacuum." Semipro bag sealers such as these can pull 28 inches of mercury, which is more than enough if you're concerned about oxidation. Air is only around 20% oxygen by volume. I wouldn't recommend cooking short ribs for 48 hours inside of a ziplock bag. But even a cheap FoodSaver whould be able to reduce the air in the bag to less than 3 to 5 cubic centimeters (this is a worst-case scenario). That's simply not enough oxygen to make a huge difference.
2. To preserve shape of a "substrate" inside a SV bag - pressure INSIDE the bag is approaching zero, pressure ON the bag is full atmospheric pressure.Mike, you still misunderstand. So long as the bag is able to shrink to the point at which the inside of the bag and the outside of the bag are at pressure equilibrium (which will happen 100% of the time under normal conditions), the pressure inside the bag is normal atmospheric pressure. In actuality, once it goes into the water bath, the contents of the bag are under slightly higher than normal atmospheric pressure due to the weight of the water above the bag.
As for preserving the shape of the food that is bring cooked, it is necessary to pull a reasonably strong vacuum before the bag is sealed, but nothing beyond the capabilities of a FoodSaver. Before I got my current semiprofessional bag sealer, I was able to do things like deboning and rolling up salmon steaks into a puck-shaped "salmon fillet mignon" -- and never had any difficulties with anything keeping its shape.
3. To prevent evaporation/loss, and as such product shrinkage - important because boiling point of water is lower under vacuum/near vacuum conditions.This statement reflects several misunderstandings on your part.
First, as I explained at a level I think would be understandable to a seventh-graded, the contents of the bag are not under lower pressure once the bag collapses. This happens instantly when the chamber is opened, or simultaneously with the air being evacuated from the bag when it is an edge-sealer machine.
Second, as a result of the fact that the contents of the bag are not under less than 14.7 pounds per square inch of pressure ("normal" sea-level atmospheric pressure). But, let's say that it is under less than 14.7 PSI. How low do you suppose the pressure would have to be in order for the boiling point of water to be lowered to a temperature that would be significant to us? For the most part, we're cooking in the neighborhood of 60C. Water boils at 60.8C when it is at 3 PSI. Simple physics suggests that there is no way a steak inside of a collapsed bag and submerged under several inches of water is anywhere near as low as 3 PSI.
Third, evaporation is not a significant issue when one is cooking in a closed bag significantly under the boiling point of water. Other factors, such as water loss due to contraction of muscle fibers, etc. are the primary reasons for water loss in sous vide cooking.
MxMo XXVII--Rum
in Spirits & Cocktails
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Isn't La República de Cabo Verde a Macaronesian archipelago off the West side of Africa?
Armazem Vieira Esmeralda comes from Florianópolis, the capital city of the State of Santa Catarina in Southern Brazil. Specifically, from the barrio of Saco dos Limões on the island of Santa Catarina -- which is about as much of an island as Long Island.