nathanm

I have nearly every ice cream cookbook published. There are a number of good ice cream books that include theory and principles from a professional standpoint. The best I have seen is not in English, but in Spanish. Los Secretos del Helado, by Angelo Corvitto. It is a GREAT book. I don't read Spanish all that well, but the great thing is that you don't need to because the recipes are very clearly laid out and term like brix, fat content and so forth are easy to translate. Art of Ice Cream and Sorbe by Ryon and Bellouet, menitoned in another post is pretty good too - that books is dual language French and English. I have the Marshall book, and I think that it is not that great - it is not geared toward high end ice cream. If you want to make industrial scale ice cream to compete in supermarket sales with Dreyer's or Breyer's that is one thing. Dessert Cuisine by Oriol Balaguer is also very good.

It is a great all purpose culinary fat. It is particularly good for roasted potatoes (in their various forms), or for sauteeing.

Sounds like you use a lot of vodka! From a food safety prespective this makes perfect sense - alcohol kills bacteria, fungi and other biological agents that cause spoilage and food borne illness. This is why why scientific specimens are kept in alcohol. Alcohol is a perfectly edible disinfectant - unlike say formaldahyde which is also used to preserve scientific specimens but is horribly smelling and is a carcinogen. I have used this for serving some food raw or undercooked where otherwise there may be a food safety issue. Splashing it on the surface will of course only kill surface germs. however, in many cases that is all you care about. Cooking will evaporate the alcohol when you finally go to use the products, although in most cases it will evaporate enough without heating. So, this seems like a great technique to me. Makes me wonder why it isn't used more often...

I have the mycryo book, and have read the thread. I am a bit curious about the non-chocolate uses of mycryo. As somebody mentioned, this product is made by spray-freezing coca butter. This technque solidifies the CB in a crystalline form which is supposedly helpful. I can see why this would help in tempering chocolate, because the whole point in tempering chocolate is to change CB crystal structure into a different form, and seeding it with the correct form is very valid. Here is what bothers me - using mycryo in mousses, bavarians and other non-chocolate pastry creams as a gelatin substitute involves MELTING it - that is why you heat the mixture to 60C/140F and mix it in. The special crystal structure is not going to affect rasberry puree. Now, if you melt the mycryo, what is the point of the special spray freezing and the crystal structure? Indeed the "oil slick" mentioned in previous posts describes exactly that. Put another way, I suspect that ordinary CB would work identically to mycryo when it comes to use as a gelatine substitute. I will admit that I have not tried this, but it surely stands to reason. Does anybody know?

There are several different ways to go about this, beacues there are different end results that you might want to achieve. Cold fois gras terrine is different than hot seared fois gras. So, here are the basics which you can then adapt to your own recipes. In all cases you should prep the fois gras normally (i.e. remove veins etc.) For hot seared fois gras, cut it into serving slices, and seal each slice in its own bag. Cook the slices sous vide in a bath at 141F/61C for a time given by the tables in this thread. If you want to make double sure about food safety, add 15 minutes to the time. It is unclear if that is necessary - most seared fois gras is served rare in the center without incident - but the extra 15 minutes don't really hurt. There are even many chefs who serve fois gras raw. If you want the fois gras less well done, and you still care about food safety, you could go as low as 137F/58C, but in that case use the same time given from the table for 141F, then add 112 minutes to the time for food safety. Once you remove the fois gras from the bag, you can then sear it briefly in a very hot pan (oil at smoke point) or griddle/plancha, or even with a blowtorch. You don't need to sear it, but if you want the seared look and the texture of a crust then this is necessary. The only point of searing is the crust, the fois gras is fully cooked in the bag, so I usually just do the crust on the top side. Note that there are a number of classic recipes from Alain Senderens, Joel Robuchon and others for steamed or poached fois gras and these can be adapted to sous vide very well without searing step. It is conventional (and delicious) to sear, but don't think that you have to do this. You can also cook a whole fois gras this way. Use the time in the tables for the thickest part. After cooking you can sear the outside of the whole fois gras, then slice and serve. One problem with cooking whole fois gras in sous vide is that when the bag sucks hard against the liver, it can crack it. Once it is cracked, it is easy for it to disintegrate. Poor quality fois gras can disintegrate even if you treat it correctly One way to solve this is to use a chamber style vacuum machine that has a "soft air" settting, which lets the air back into the chamber gently. If you don't have a machine like that, then be sure to separate the lobes of the foie gras, and try to have a pretty regular shape. You can also cook a fois gras terrine this way. There are three ways to do this. 1. Make the terrine (with fois gras and other ingredients) as you normally would in a mold or pan, then put the whole thing in a vacuum bag and seal it. You obviously need a bag and a vacuum machine, big enough to enclose the mold. Seal it, the cook at 141F/61C using the tables with a time based on the dimensions of the mold, then add 15 minutes. 2. Make the terrine, then roll it into a cylinder or "torchon". Usually you do this by wrapping in plastic wrap very tightly, rolling it up like a sushi roll. In fact, a bamboo sushi rolling mat (makisu) is a great although non-traditional way to shape a torchon. Take the whole torchon, plastic wrap and all, and seal it in a vacuum bag, and cook as with method 1. 3. Wrap a torchon as with method 2, then seal it in a heat shinking sous vide bag. We have not discussed this kind of bag much on the thread. It is also called a "thermo-retractable" bag. Basically this is a vacuum bag made of a plastic which shrinks when heated. Seal the torchon in the heat shink bag as you normally would, then plunge the torchon and bag BRIEFLY into a pan of boiling water. It just takes a few seconds for the bag to shrink. Remove the bag as soon as the shrinking has occured. The heat shrink bag keeps the torchon held together better than a normal vacuum bag would. However if you wrap your torchon with plastic wrap tightly it should hold together without this. For each method, after cooking time is over, plunge it into ice water bath to chill it then store in the refrigerator until cold for slicing and service. A fois gras terrine needs to chill all the way through in order to slice cleanly.

The time to reach 130F/54.4C is short - it depends on the thickness, and the time is in the tables, just look it up. Typically in sous vide you use a cooking temperature (of the water bath or combi-oven) which is the same temperature as the final core temp you want to achieve. So, to cook to an internal temp of 130F/54.4C I would use a water bath at 131F/55C. So, if the chops are 25mm / 1 inch thick, it should take about 42 minutes to cook. If they are 50mm / 2 inches thick it should take 2.5 hours. At that point they are done. Since the cooking temperature is basically at, or only slightly above the core temperature you can leave the food in the water bath or combi oven for longer without it overcooking. The primary reason to do this is if you want the meat more tender. This is explained elsewhere in the thread in more detail. If you wanted to tenderize the venison you could add 8-12 hours to the times above. The reason that the time is so long is that the chemical reactions that help tenderize the meat are very slow at 131F/55C. Most likely, farm raised vension, and that particular cut, do not need extra time.

With conventional roasting there is a reason to keep things like a rack of lamb or venison together - because roasting works better with a larger piece of meat (having to do with surface to volume ratio). However, with sous vide you can cook a large piece or a small piece equally well. The only problem is cooking time. Most sous vide chefs cut food into individual serving portions first, then season, bag, seal and cook. It is almost better to do this. Elsewhere in this thread are the time / temperature tables. If you cut your venison into individual chops the cooking time will drop. The rule of thumb is that half as thick takes one quarter the amount of time. So, if you have a 3 inch diameter loin on the rack of venison, and you cut it into 1.5" thick chops, cooking time will go down by a factor of 4. What matters is the distance to the center - with a 3" thick cylinder, the radius is 1.5". With a 1.5" thick chop the distance to the center is 0.75". The thickness to cut the chops depends on the spacing of the bones on your rack, and also how you want the food to appear on the plate. So, if I were cooking the venison, I would cut into chops. I would be very careful with the juniper berries (as discussed above), probably grinding them and just putting a pinch into each bag. Also, boil off the alcohol for any liquid put in the bag. I would cook it at 131F / 54.4C. Use the times from the tables depending on the thickness of the chops. If the venison is tough, then you can add some time to the charts - from 8 to 12 hours. Howver it sounds like your venison isn't very tough. Some people like venison even more rare than this, in which case you could do 122F/50C. Then right before service I would sear the outside with a blowtorch, or broiler, or pan on the stove with smoking hot oil. As discussed above, running a torch over the frenched bones makes them look nice.

Bloating due to gases from biological growth would only occur if the bacteria have time to grow. They can't grow while cooking if the temperature is 130F/54.4C or above. Biological bloating would occur if you stored the food too long after cooking - in a fridge or at room temp. So, I think that your bags are not getting hard enough suction. What happens is that it seems to be enough, but then when you heat the bag the residual air expands. Alcohol is another possibility. It boils at 175F/78.3C, so as you approach that temperature the alcohol will turn to vapor (gas) and the bag will puff up. At the boilng point you can expect a lot of that, but even below the boiling point you'll get some vapor. In general, I try NOT to do sous vide with alcohol in the bag. Many chefs (like Thomas Keller) don't like to marinate food in alcohol and will boil wine marinades in an open pan prior to using them to get the alcohol out. Traditional braising recipes usually do not call for that, but it doesn't matter much because a few minutes into the cooking and the alcohol is all gone. However in sous vide there is no place for it to go. If you get the bag cold - say putting the bloated bag in ice water, does it shrink? The main harm in bag bloating in sous vide is that if you use them in a water bath the bags float and then the food does not cook evenly. In a steam oven or combi bloat really does not matter. In addition, it takes longer for the food to reach temperature because the air in the bag does not conduct heat as well as water would against a tightly sealed bag. However it will still work.

Wow, that is a pretty expensive piece of glass. Which size oven, and what model? I have two of the Combi Plus CPC-61E. I am thinking about upgrading to the new SCC-61E. It is ashame that there isn't more information about Rational ovens. There is quite a bit you can do with programming etc. The documentation only scratches the surface. The trouble is Rational does not seem to have a bulletin board on its site, and I don't think there are enough people on eGullet that have them.

I have a pair of these ovens for several years, and I know some other people who have them but I have not heard of this. The innermost glass is hinged and unclips from the door so you can clean it. I assume that this is the piece you mean, rather than the outer glass that is part of the door. I believe it is made of tempered glass. When tempered glass breaks it always shatters into tiny pieces. When you say deep cleaning, do you mean with the self-cleaning program, or by hand? My guess, and only that, is that the glass was banged or damaged at one point and that lead to a problem where it finally let go. I have had that happen with tempered glass before in other contexts - all of sudden, with little or no provocation it shatters. It should be easy to fix - because the glass is hinged it is is easy to replace. Nathan

I was a bit surprised because I ate there recently and would not have thought that. But maybe so... At CityZen, also in DC, it is quite easy to believe, but Citronelle is more classic.

The cutoff wire is for roll bags, or for using heat shrink bags. You could use either one for sous vide. However it is not particularly useful. Meanwhile having double seals can be useful to keep the bag shut. So, I had the option, I'd go for the dual seals.

I'm curious about temperatures and read back to your posts and tables. I have an immersion unit that can be operated by a computer. I can log water temps and contro the temp using some profiles if needed. What I can't do at the moment is log the temp of the item sous vide. I would like to do some experiments and correlate the bath temps with internal temps. I'm curious about your technique with closed cell foam. How does this work exacly? Is this the stuff that has a sticky side? Do you just punch a hole in the bag before vacuum packing and then stick a piece of foam tape over the hole and seal the bag? I've found a food temperature data logging probe what looks perfect for what I would like to do, but the solution is around $400. See the data logger. The advantage here would be I could seal the probe in the bag and fetch it later. The probe logs data at defined intervals within the unit so you can hook it back up to the computer and correlate the temp data. What I'm curious about is how temp curves effect the cooking time. I wonder if starting with a cold bath then bringing up to temperature can effect the results in some way. I also wonder if starting at a higher temp and letting the temp drop to the desired temp is avantageous. Any thoughts? ← I have many data loggers, but not that particular one. Data loggers are great for some tasks, but they tend not to have great temperature probes, and as you point out they are expensive. You want a probe small enough to get to the exact place you want it - in the center of the food typically. I use thin needle probe from thermoworks These probes are great. You can the use the probe with either a digital thermometer or with a data logging unit for a PC (which is what I do). To use a probe with sous vide you first seal the food in the bag normally. Then you cut a piece of closed cell foam weatherstripping tape - just a piece 1/2 inch (1 cm) long will do. Yes, the weatherstripping is sticky on one side. You stick that to the bag, then insert the needle probe through the center of the foam tape and into the food. Now you can put the whole thing into a water bath, or steam oven or cook it however. The bag will not lose vacuum unless you pull out the probe. Ramping the temperature in the water bath will slow down the rate at which heat is conducted into the food. The fastest way to heat the food up is to use a bath at a temperature higher than the final core temperature (but I recommend not much higher). If you start with the water cold, then you'll get much slower heating. It's not clear why you need to have a slower cooking time. If you want to hold the meat at a particular temperature (to allow enzymes to tenderize the meat) then raise to another temperature, then having a specific ramp might make sense. One thing to consider if you are using a water bath is that the most laboratory water baths and circulators have pretty low wattage (1000W for most, up to 2000W for others) is not all that high so it can take a while to ramp up from cold.

Vacuum sealers are a big topic if you really get into it. Here are the basics. First, there are two kinds of machines - edge sealers and chamber machines. Edge sealers grab the edge of the plastic pouch or bag, suck the air out, and then seal it. The bag sits outsides the machine. Chamber machines are much larger because you put the bag completely inside a vacuum chamber in the machine. The edge sealers include the inexpensive consumer machines like Tilia Food Saver, Rival and a couple others. There are also a couple of more expensive commercial grade edge sealing machines. Edge seal machines are problematic for sous vide because they tend to suck liquid up into the machine. Nevertheless they are cheap, so a lot of people use them. A good trick for an edge sealing machine is to freeze the liquid into an ice cube so that it can't get sucked out. As discussed in this thread, a lot of people use edge sealing machines for sous vide because they are widely available and affordable. Chamber machines are the best way to go for professional results - liquids work fine in them. In fact, I store stock by vacuum sealing it in pouches, then freezing. Chamber machines draw a lower vacuum, have stronger pumps, and are all around a lot more versatile. However, they are also much bigger, heavier and more expensive. Like is like that. Chamber machines have an interesting tradeoff. The bigger the chamber, the larger the food you can seal. However the flip side is that big chambers take a while to suck the air from, so they can be slower. Typical machines will have a "cycle time" of between 20 seconds and a minute or two. Of course, manufacturers tend to be very optimistic when they quote cycle times - for example by quoting a cycle time with very large things in the chamber (which thus has less air and is faster to pump out). As the size of the chamber gets bigger you can of course get a bigger vacuum pump. Look carefully at any machine you use and make sure that it has a cycle time that is acceptable. If you seal a large number of single serving pouches this can be an issue. One approach to getting throughput is to have a dual chamber machine - these let you fill one chamber while the other chamber is being sucked empty. Dual chamber machines are very large and probably only make sense if you are really high volume. A simpler way to get higher throughput is to choose a machine with a long enough sealing bar that you can do two bags simultaneously. This gets you twice the I typically use a bag that is about 7 x 10 inches. My chamber machine has a 10.5 inch sealing bar so I can only do one at a time. If I got a machine with a 16 inch sealing bar I could do 2 at a time, doubling the throughput. Some machines have an option to have dual bars, at either end of the chamber. In that case you seal one, or even two bags on each bar. American made machines tend to be very basic and lack a lot of the features found in European machines. The most famous brand is Cryovac, and many chefs think that they make vacuum sealing machines. Well, they don't make small ones. Cryovac primarily sells huge systems for factory scale meat processing. Cryovac does resell the Koch line of smaller machines for chefs see here, or from Koch directly. The Koch machines are very sturdy but they are primitive compared to the better European machines. Ary Corporation has two US made machines that are entry level chamber machines - the SVP-10 and SVP-15. I have the latter. The difference between the 10 and 15 is that the 15 has an oil based vacuum pump, which needs to be regularly serviced, but is more powerful than the pump in the SVP-10 which never needs maintenance. If you want the cheapest chamber machine one of these is probably the way to go - they are pretty widely available and are about $1200 to $1500 (see for example here). Here is another low priced chamber machine, which has a few advanced features. Koch machines are more like $2500 and up. A good medium sized table top vacuum machine is $3000 to $4000. That sounds expensive (and is) but if you do a lot of sous vide cooking then you have to consider that this in effect replaces a lot of expensive pots and pans. It is also very useful for food storage. One interesting thing is that Busch, a German company, makes the vacuum pumps used in most machines, regardless of whether the machine itself is assembled in the US or elsewhere. They seem to be the market leader. SVP uses Italian vacuum pumps in the SVP-15. One feature that you may see advertised on machines is "gas flush". This is a system where you connect the machine to a nitrogen tank (which is inexpensive) and it blows the chamber out with nitrogen prior to pumping down to a vacuum. This helps reduce oyxgen levels in the pouch even further. However, it is mainly useful for storage (i.e. vacuum packing to extend shelf life) rather than for sous vide cooking. The US machines are primitive compared to the European machines which typically have several additional features. This isn't a question of national chauvinism - sous vide is much more advanced in Europe than the US right now. Service is always an issue - all things being equal it is better to go with a compnay that has service people (or authorized service shops) in your area. If you rely on a machine crucially for your business, you really don't want it to quit. Home use is generally more forgiving in that way. The European machines (and a few US models) are typically digital rather than analog, and have microprocessor based controls. "Soft air" or "soft release" is a very good feature on advanced machines. This is a valve that gradually releases air into the chamber at the end of the sealing cycle. Soft or delicate foods can be crushed by the rapid influx of air - this is particularly true of something like fois gras which can crack when the vacuum comes back on. It also helps prevent creasing in the bag. Another feature is double seal bars - this in effect does two independent seals on the bag to make sure that it stays sealed. They also store 10 or more programs for various food types -so that you can program the vacuum level, seal bar tempertaure, soft air (or not) and other parameters. Some machines also feature special cycles for achieving extra high vacuum (important sometimes for sous vide, but mainly for storage). Here are some of these European machines - Henkelman, Biro (US based reseller of imported machine). Powervac Note that many of these are imported to the US would be available here. I don't have enough experience to say which of these European machines is "best". Perhaps an eGulleter from Europe can comment. There are several others - notably some German and Dutch made machines but I don't have the URLs handy. The more advanced machines naturally carry more advanced pricetags. I am somewhat feed up with my SVP-15 machine - it is slow and it has a tendency to blow fuses often. So I will probably replace or suplement it with a more advanced machine.

The texture was good on both the Jaccard and non-Jaccard meat. Jaccard is more tender due to the processing, but it does not get mushy unless you cook it for so long that the normal meat is mushy too.

I have an interesting new result to report. It is well known that one of the reasons that juices escape from meat as it cooks is that fibers in the muscle contract. These contractions squeeze juice from the meat - in effect the meat wrings itself dry. This process starts at 120F/50C when myosin starts to coagualate. Because the effect depends on temperature, it happens in sous vide cooking in the same way as any other kind of cooking. I wondered if one could effect that somehow, so I have run a series of experiments where I used a Jaccard meat tenderizer. The Jaccard is a set of 48 thin blades that poke through the meat and cut some of the internal fibers. Running the Jaccard through the meat cuts many (but not all) of the fibers. Most steakhouses use a Jaccard (or the industrial equivalent) to make certain cuts tender, particularly New York and Rib Eye steaks. Note that the Jaccard does not generally leave any obvious marks on the meat once it has been cooked. People served a Jaccarded steak generally will never know. It tenderizes by cutting enough of the meat fibers to make it much easier to chew, but without getting soggy or mushy. On one hand, the Jaccard perforates the meat, so one might think that more juice would run out. That is the common sense answer. However, at the same time, the Jaccard cuts fibers that would otherwise pull and squeeze the meat which forces the juice out, so perhaps it would not leak more. As I guessed, the results of several experiments show that the meat perforated with the Jaccard loses LESS juce than the unperforated meat. The same fiber cutting that the Jaccard does to make the meat tender reduces the ability of the fiber shortening to squeeze juice from the meat. The effect is pretty large. The un-Jaccarded meat loses about 50% more juice than the one that is Jaccarded. I have repeated this several times now in different cuts of beef cooked sous vide to 130F/54.4C. Other red meat should be the same. I have not tried poultry or fish yet. So, if you want a juicy piece of meat, consider using a Jaccard tenderizer first. Yes, I know that sounds strange, but there you have it...

Here are recipes from the Kentucky State web site.

If you cook a steak via some other means you can use a heat gun to improve the browning of the crust. I've done this, but it is pretty inefficient - it takes a while and you need to hold the heat gun.

I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure you are talking about two different fruits. In some parts of the world paw-paw is another name for papaya (Carica papaya), and I think that this the is West African fruit described above. Papaya is native to Mexico but has been widely cultivated around the world in tropical conditions, including in West Africa. The American paw-paw (Asimina triloba) is the largest fruit tree native to North America. It's range is from Nebraska to the Eastern seaboard, and from Ontario to Florida. It is not a tropical plant at all, but is frequently compared to one because. I am pretty sure that the paw-paw described in the initial post is this version. It is not grown very much commercially, but there are some varieties people plant in their gardens. I have a several trees, but they have not fruited yet. Here is a web site that has information about the paw-paw. Kentucky State University has a research web site that lists lots more information.

Pacojets are amazing - I've had one for ten years. Besides ice cream and sorbet there are powders, flavor essences, soup or sauce bases..... basically anything where you want to grind the material into extremely small particles - so small that it is totally smooth. The two things that mark a great kitchen tool or machine are the ability to something that you can't do any other way, and/or the ability to tasks better than any other method. Pacojet has both features, depending on the recipe and context. I recommend getting plenty of beakers. I have maybe 30 myself. This lets me keep multiple beakers of favorites, but also lets me experiment and have a wide range of flavors and materials at any point in time. A pacojet is not a large scale produciton machine - some people use it that way, but that is not its main forte. The thing that is great about a pacojet is that you can keep lots of things on hand and process to order in small quantities. A blast chiller is the best way to freeze things for the pacojet. This is one of my pet peeves. There are two different functions of a freezer - chilling or freezing versus storage. Chilling or freezing is the cold equivalent of baking or roasting - you want to create a large temperature change. The best way to do this is with a blast chiller, which is a freezer/refer with a high chilling capacity and a powerful fan. Storage is totally different. Some of the problems mentioned with inconsistency come from that fact that many kitchens try to use the same freezers for storage and freezing. So, they have an overcrowded freezer that is packed too tight for good air flow, and the door is opened a lot, and people put hot things in.... People who would never bake under those conditions are happy to freeze things that way. For example, they don't know the temp of their freezer, they don't know how stable it is, they overcrowd it and they leave the door open a lot Anyway, if you use a blast chiller, then store the beakers in a freezer with a good regulated temperature the pacojet works great. Or, if you only have a conventional freezer, check the temp, don't overload it, leave plenty of room for airflow around the pacojet beaker. Adapting conventional recipes for the pacojet can be trivial - many of them just work. Or, in some cases it can take some tinkering to adjust them accordiningly. If the temperature, fat content, sugar content are not right you can get powder rather than a smooth texture. There are some generalities that I've seen somewhere but I have never seen a really good set of rules. So, everybody who uses a pacojet experiments until they are happy. It's not that hard. Unfortunately, very few books have anythnig specific about the pacojet. El Bulli cookbooks do, Oriol Baluger, Los Secrets de los Helados and a few others do. As mentioned above the recipie book that pacojet sells is not very good. They have some web site recipes that are mixed quality. There are some other sources around - some articles in Art Culinaire, Food Arts etc. It seems a bit odd that so manychefs have this tool, but so few write about it. I think the issue is that publishers want mass market cook books to aim at a bigger audience. So, chefs who have pacojets in their kitchens nevertheless write books that don't mention the pacojet and have recipes adapted to conventional machines. Meanwhile the people in the best position to write a really detailed pacojet cookbook are too busy being practitioners. eGullet undoubtedly has people who collectively know more than enough to write the definitive pacojet cookbook but unlocking that knowledege requires asking specific questions, because nobody seems to have the energy to write the definitive book (c'mon somebody, rise to the challenge!). One problem that can result in some pacojet recipces is that the material in the beaker can separate while freezing. One problem is that if you put in chunks of fruit, or some other solid, with liquid around it, the liquid will push up in the center during the freezing process and the first serving will be problematic - too much liquid, not enough solid. Or, if you have density differences something will float. As an example, with coconut ice cream, I have had a problem where the fat (essentially the coconut cream) separates and float to the top during freezing. So the first serving or two is much higher fat content, and the subsequent ones have not enough fat content. This kind of problem can be solved by being careful to emulsify the contents prior to freezing. In addition, you can minimize the time that the material has to separate by chilling the contents outside the beaker very cold, then run through a blender, then freezing. If you get a powdery texture with the pacojet you have several choices. The first is to keep it - I love the El Bulli style powders - in some cases it can be a great effect. Or you can adjust your recipe (depress the freezing point by adding some sugar, or another freezing point depressor), or change the fat content (more fat usually reduces tendency to create powder), or raise the temperature to which you freeze the beaker (the colder the beaker, the more likely you get a powder). By the way this is one potential problem with using LN2 to freeze pacojet beakers - if the beaker is really at LN2 temp at the time of pacotizing, then I think you could make a powder out of nearly anything. So, if you use LN2 to freeze a beaker, you probably need to warm it up to -5C or so to process. If you get a powder and you don't want it but don't want to start over you can usually fix it by adding a bit of liquid (cream, water, whatever is appropriate) right in the pacojet beaker and then processing a second time. Some peolpe do not believe in adding stablizers to pacojet ice cream or sorbet, others believe that you can't live without it. The reason for the controversy depends on the recipe and how you serve it. The pacojet can make sorbet have a great texture across a wide range of consistencies - ranging from very soft which will melt very fast to pretty hard which last longer. Another factor is whether you hold after processing, or serve immediately. Some materials develop a lot of internal stabilization - when I make pacojet sorbet from mangos, it gets a very "stablized" texture even without any gelatin or stabilizer. Indeed I've made mango sorbet that basically won't melt - it is really a frozen whipped mango mousse. You can get this effect in other product by adding gelatin or a stabilizer. Hope this helps.

Good suggestions. Basil oil ice cream sounds great and is exactly the sort of thing that I have wanted. The interesting question with the pacojet is getting the the right combination of fats / oils and lowered freezing point so that you get an ice cream like texture as opposed to powder. I love the powders too, but it is a different sensation and different goal. Good ice cream "design" means knowing the freezing point lowering due to sugars, the solds content (via nonfat dry milk) and the fat content. There is a lot of knowledge about this and good information for all of this in various sources. Ideally I would like to know what combinations of fat and other ingredients will make a ice cream like texture in paco jet versus a powder. The suggestion of milk solids is a good one. That certainly helps some ice creams. I'll try various stabilizers. However mostly stabilizers and gums are about what happens as the product warms up - they gel and hold it together. You can easily make a powder in the pacojet with a stabilizer in it - it just won't melt the same way as without. To get the ice cream texture you need the right mixture of fat and lower freezing point (I think). In a machine other than a pacojet the story is a bit different. A mixture which would be a coarse granita in a conventional ice cream freezer will be a powder in the pacojet. However, by the time you have the right mix to get an ice cream texture it will probably funciton in both paco and not....

BUMP - I just finished reading this whole thread and am curious to hear how your later ice cream experiments turned out.... Thanks! Andrea http://tenacity.net ← Sorry, I got busy and did not post all of my experimental results. My experiments have been very successful. As others have posted, one key issue is using a blend of several sweetening agents. Another is to have a very good base recipe - I used a vanilla here, but with real beans and a proper creme anglais base. The stronger the flavor, the more likely it is that you will overcome subtle differences in taste between good old sucrose and the blend of sweeteners. Adjusting the sweetness is important too - if the ice cream is too sweet you are more likely to have a subtle flavor difference come across. Finally, texture is important too. That seems to be the main contribution of polydextrose, which by itself is not that sweet. I use a pacojet which has a different set of issues than a conventional churn based ice cream freezer.

The heating is just to hydrate the alginate, correct? It does not affect the alginate/calcium reaction right, which has to be cold (or anyway below some threshold). Note also that thre are MANY formulations of alginate with different properties.

Seeing this thread pop up again, I realized that I never did report back on my experiments. That's mainly because they were not very good - micri just wasn't that interesting. The micri that I had was a lot like the paste that kindergarden kids use. You are supposed to whip it smooth with an immersion blender - that didn't work terribly well. The result was a tasteless goo that did add body to sauces. Mine was always a bit lumpy so I would have to strain it. It might have been too old or something. The starch slurry that akwa suggests sounds like a much better idea. I am also about to experiment with xanthum gum and some other hydrocolloids as gelling agents. Nathan

Many commercial machines are set up to do this - you push the seal bar as close to the food as you can, and then it automatically cuts off the bag just past the seal. You can do the same by cutting the bag short first (just not too short). The other thing you can do is seal twice a little way apart because that helps have redundancy in case one seal breaks.