slkinsey

For sure there is a distinctive flavor to oxidized ground meat. I wouldn't say that it is a bad flavor, per se, but quite distinctive. And I taste this flavor every time I have a less-than-medium cooked burger that I have not made myself with meat that I ground a few minutes previously. For lack of a better descriptor, I'd say that to me it's a certain iron-like, "bloody" flavor. For all intents and purposes, the test that Steven and I did was just how Chris Hennes proposes. The ground meat we purchased had the same fat content and was ground from the same beef that we would be grinding ourselves later in the day. This is a large, high quality, high turnover market with the beef ground and packaged on premises in full view. They likely turned over all their ground beef while we were still in the market. So, really, the difference was that the prepackaged ground beef was (1) around 5 hours post-grind as opposed to a maximum of 30 minutes post-grind when cooked; and (2) was ground in a machine that was certainly very clean, but nevertheless had been grinding meat for several hours already by the time our beef came out (meaning that a tiny percentage of even more oxidized meat was present in the preground sample). One reason Cutlets and others may feel that La Frieda Black Label is the pinnacle of preground beef is because it is very high quality, flavorful beef... and also because there is most likely no restaurant in the city that is serving hamburgers made with beef that is ground to order (okay, maybe places such as DB Bistro Moderne). So even if, say, Shake Shack is getting its beef ground daily "in house" at Blue Smoke or one of the other USHG restaurants, it is still very likely the case that a day's worth of beef is being run at six o'clock in the morning, which is plenty of time for it to develop that "preground beef flavor" Steven and I noted. So, if the presence of PGBF is a given in all samples, then it is still possible for La Frieda to differentiate itself on the basis of quality. There are also things that a producer of ground beef can do to minimize oxidation (rigorous and frequent cleaning of grinders, packing in nitrogen-flushed packaging, etc.). Finally, and with all due respect to Cutlets, et al. one has the sense that they haven't actually tried the experiment themselves (not that it matters if you're comparing restaurant-to-restaurant, since they are all likely to be using oxidized ground beef). I wonder what they might think if they were able to get La Frieda to give them the various meats he uses in his blend in whole cuts, so they could take that home, grind it themselves to order, and test it side-by-side against an end-of-the-day sample from City Burger's walk-in. I would be shocked if the ground-to-order sample didn't blow away the preground one. ETA: I am all for the idea of scientific rigor and all that, when appropriate. But honestly, the flavor difference Steven and I observed was so far from subtle as to obviate the need for double-blinding or something like that. It was shocking how much of a difference there was. So much so that, well, let me just say that I'm glad no one was around to observe the two of us giggling.

I can think of other examples where you might want the pure, unadorned and unaltered flavor of the ingredient to come out. For example, let's say you were going to make a cauliflower purée... You don't want to get any browning. You could steam it or boil it, but that might leach out a lot of the flavor and the cauliflower would be watery, needing reduction to be thick. Or, you could bag it and cook it SV. This would preserve the white color of the vegetable, prevent over/undercooking better than steaming or boiling, keep the vegetable from getting watery, etc. You'd end up with pure, snowy white, just cooked cauliflower that you could run through the Vita-Prep (my next must-have piece of equipment) into a nice thick, silk-smooth purée hat tasted of nothing but cauliflower.

I too create my stir drinks in a pint glass. And it's always at room temperature. I've never even considered using a chilled pint glass. Which is kind of funny, since I keep a couple in my freezer all the time. I guess I should try this out. FWIW, I also build my shaken drinks in room temp pint glass. Then, I add the ice, slap on the tin, then shake. Personally, I don't think there is ever a good reason to use a room temperature pint glass. See here for more information and explanation.

There's nothing magical about a spoon. In fact, a rod may be a better stirring implement.

I tried something like that once, and did not find it a particularly good method.

Unless you chill the pint glass, you'll get a colder stirred drink by using the metal tin. I usually find that by the time the drink is properly chilled, it has just about the right amount of dilution. When I chilled the pint glass, I didn't get enough dilution. Well, it was ok for me as I don't mind the drinks really stiff, however my wife and many guests don't always enjoy "the burn". I haven't tried stirring in the tin as I'm usually making a couple drinks at a time and have multiple pint glasses (brewery tours ftw) and only 1 tin. If the dilution ends up being the same and the drink colder, that would be welcome. I'll have to give it a shot side by side. one man's proper chill is another man's tepid mess. sam can certainly walk through the thermodynamics of the situation, but if you use a chilled mixing glass, you better stir for a longer period of time to get adequate dilution. your end result will be much, much colder than if using room temperature glass. so i use chilled pints at work. and they can really chill things down really quick even with not so ideal ice. so to make something with comparable dilution to normal i'd have to let it sit for a few seconds or so and dilute. well i'm primarily mixing manhattans. and i only have overholt at 80 proof. i'd like to give that more concentrated higher proof rittenhouse feel. is it appropriate to just let my drinks "cook" less. i try to do the same with 80 proof gins to increase their proof and intensity... i don't do this for every drink but there are lots of times when i want a higher proof feel... a viable technique? I've moved this over from the thread on cocktail strainers. Absolutely it makes sense to vary the amount of dilution according to the proof of your ingredients. You might want more dilution when the ingredients are high proof and less dilution when the ingredients are lower proof. This is only possible, however, if you have the ability to chill the lower proof drink sufficiently with a relatively low amount of dilution. This will depend on some combination of equipment and ice. If the mixing vessel is cold, and especially if it has a high thermal capacity, and your ice is cold, you are ahead of the game. You can further enhance your chances by using larger pieces of ice. All of these things, in different ways, can contribute to a situation where the low temperature is reached before the desired minimum dilution is reached -- meaning that you are primarily controlling dilution by stirring the drink and deciding when to strain it off the ice. If your primary task in making a stirred drink is chilling the drink, your ability to control dilution is reduced.

Unless you chill the pint glass, you'll get a colder stirred drink by using the metal tin.

No reason to use one. But some reasons to have one. For example, they ave very useful in scooping up crushed ice that's getting a little wet.

This is probably at least partially responsible for the better browning, since corn flour has more sugar than wheat flour. Have you thought of using a low gluten flour, such as Wondra, for the batter?

Sous vide is definitely the way to go with owl. I like 80C for 72 hours.

The difficulty in doing that is that the very act of pouring the vermouth out of one bottle into another will oxidize it.

It seems likely to me that this means they are doing a double-bevel, with the coarse wheel grinding it down to an 18 degree back bevel, and the find wheel putting on an edge bevel at 22 degrees. A 22 degree bevel (44 degrees included angle) is not particularly acute. Japanese knives are sharpened to a much more acute angle than that. Something like 14 degree bevels (28 degree included angle) wouldn't be unusual for the Tojiro-DP Gyutou.

Significantly harder than the Wusthof.

Sure. That's because there's a little air pocket where the void is. For this reason, I like to spatchcock chickens before I vacuum pack them for freezing. Flatter = no voids.

Astor Wines.

Har. Well, it goes to show that there's no such thing as entirely accurate quoting.

I got a whole system worked out.

I just picked up a bottle of each, but I'll have to finish a few bottles in my refrigerator before I can crack these open...

The point, I think, is that it may take ten minutes for that drink to come -- but it doesn't have to take ten minutes for the drink to come. For sure, Phil, Brian and the rest of the bar staff at D&C (not to mention Pegu, Flatiron, etc.) are fully capable of getting an order taken and a drink into the hands of a customer just as fast as any similarly busy "beer and a shot" place. Well, I've been known to have as many as 15 to 17. But those were 8 hour nights.

Not sure. It's possible I've used as much as a half ounce of Regan's (which isn't that bitter) for a two-champagne-bottle batch.

I haven't been able to get any Seville oranges, so I've been including some orange bitters. That's about it.

Good point. Where can one get some?

Say more. In reading up a bit on esters, I am sensing that they're primarily fruity. Do they provide a more yeasty, malty fruit character? I think that esters can produce lots of different aromatic sensations. Many of the most commonly understood ones are thought to be "fruity." But plenty of them aren't. That said, it could be that it's a ketone or a fusel oil or some other relatively narrow group of chemical compounds that is responsible for this sensation. I'm thinking the best way to describe "funk" in this example might be "pleasantly musky." Could be. Eh... not really. Umami is a taste, whereas we are almost definitely speaking of aroma.

Wouldn't that be the benefit of cooking SV--you can use a ton less butter. Exactly. If you use a bag -- even just a ziplock bag -- and a water bath, you can cook the ten lobster tails in less than one stick of butter.

I stand corrected. Both, it must be said, make an excellent Martini. Interesting. What is your source for this information? From what I have been able to gather from their web site, the aging process is somewhat complicated (separate aging of varietals first in gigantic barrels indoors for 8 months, then in smaller oak casks outdoors for 12 months, then another 6 months indoors, then they're blended together and aromatized) but by no means impenetrable. Regardless, I have my doubts as to whether any changes they may have made to this process were responsible for very many the differences I tasted. After the wines are blended, NP's site says that they add raspberry and lemon fruit liqueurs (!) and fortify the wine with various mistelles (partially fermented or unfermented grape juice with alcohol). The final step is infusing their botanicals for 3 weeks and resting the fortified and aromatized wine for 6 weeks before bottling. In consideration of the fact that the easily perceived differences all seem to be herbal in nature, I have to believe it would not be difficult for them to do parallel production of "old" and "new" NP starting with the same base stock of aged, blended wine.