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Hi. Someone knows the difference between ice and ice crystal? When we frozen foods, we have a formation of ice (water molecule in a hexagonal form), so what is ice crystal? Thanks.

Hi, I have just bought a chamber vacuum sealer for my kitchen. The thing is very programmable with vacuum adjustable to 99 seconds. My question is; often on recipes it says something like 'seal to 95% vacuum' etc. does this refer to 95% of the 99 seconds? As it seems to reach max vacuum by about 60 seconds in any case. Thanks Karl

Hi I am thinking of making a Steak & Kidney Pudding and instead of steam it, I was thinking of vacuum packing the whole lot including the pudding basin and Sous Vide-ing. Does anyone know how the Suet Pudding Pastry would take to it, I was thinking of a Temp around 80C for 12 hours? David

Have a creamy vinaigrette recipe in which I'd like to replace an egg yolk. Is liquid soy lecithin the best substitute and if so what is the equivalent amount of LSL per yolk? Thanks.

Hello. Someone can help me to understand this: why humidity helps to keep food moisture. My understanding is if I have 100% relative humidity, there will be no evaporation from the food, so we keep the moisture. Is that correct? Thanks, Alberto.

I am looking for some advice on how to work with freeze dried fruit powders. I am using the powders to create purees by rehydrating with water. The end result either comes out very thick & heavy but very flavorful or thinned out & little flavor. I was looking for a way to make the thicker version lighter & airy. I can only use powders for this and the only tool would be to shake once the water is added. Any suggestions? thanks Jason

Good Day I am located in South Africa. I have managed to source suppliers for Texturas and Biozoon TexturePro. The TexturePro stuff seems to be a lot cheaper the the the Textura products. If anyone has had experiance with either of these products could you please update me on whether the Textura brand is worth the almost 3 times the TextturePro price, are they pretty much the same products. Thank you in advance.

Anybody just drop a fully cooked spiral ham still in the package into a sous vide water bath? If so what temp and how long? I am going to be bringing a 10lb spiral ham to a Xmas dinner (6pm) and want to know what temp and time i should go with. I did some searching and found a few articles but after reading the articles reviews there was alot of mixed results. I have been reading between 3 hours and up to 24 hours, and temps of 120-140F. Need some advice. Im thinking drop it in right before bed @ 132F and 3 hours before serving time crank it up to 140F to make sure its cooked all the way through because in the past ive got a fully cooked ham and decided to slice it before reheating it for cold ham sandwiches and the connective tissue was under done.

Hi All, I made the banana cream pie this weekend and tried to follow the recipe exactly. The crust came out fine, as did the caramelized banana topping. The coffee infused cream came out, but the coffee flavor vastly overpowers the banana purée. The real issue was the pressure cooked banana. My first attempt led to pure charcoal. On the second attempt, I used 28 min and did not even let it get to 15 psi ever. The result was half charcoal, half reddish bananas. I ultimately just cooked them in a pan, but the flavor was still mild enough it was tough to know if it was banana cream pie or coffee cream. The pressure cooked banana failed entirely, just carbonized them in 2 tries, even with low heat and less time. I can cut the coffee beans way back, but what is going wrong with the banana? Thanks, Steve

Head to head review http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/12/sous-vide-circulator-review-sansaire-nomiku-anova.html

Hi guys ..Was wanting to store my flavoured caviar for my cocktails in the bar and was wondering the best way. Any help would be appreciated

Hi - I'm trying to make the modernist cuisine recipe for BBQed brisket. I have the sous vide equipment but my smoker is actually a kamodo style cooker and I am unable to stabilize the temperature any lower than 190 degrees. I am going to finish the recipe but I wonder what I might expect in three days? I assume that the meat's color will be greyer than that of the recipe as followed correctly. Is this correct?

I've always felt the most knowledgeable guy on the Internet about Knives is Jay Fisher I love his site and I have purchased some of his knives which I really like. I've also tried ceramic knives they haven't worked out I have a few Japanese knives which are good and a few German ones which are also good. The key seems to be honing them on a regular basis if their sharp they are easy to use and safe. I bought a book recommended by Jay Fisher the razors edge and it's worked out really well. But it's work and others do not treat my knives the way I do which means resharpening and rehoming. I now see a new type of knife called Vmatter I wonder if they really work I'm not qualified to follow the technical end.

ARY VacMaster SV-1 1500W Immersion Circulator $358.00 The alleged 1500Ws is interesting. Thoughts?

I want to get the rational 61 combi oven BUT it seems to be a very difficult task to get it installed. In Arizona I have been told that, since it isn't UL approved for home use, you can't have it installed while a house is being built as the building inspector won't approve it. And, the venting demands as well as the AMPS used etc make it a very problematic addition. Does anyone know what is the best of the home versions? Miele? Gaggenaeu? Any other ideas? thanks

Hello. Cooking a meat in a sous vide supreme for more than 12 hours, when i open the lid a feel an odd smell. Does it make sense? There is no leaking. I taste the water and it was fine. Where does this smell come from? I don't know about the meat because it is still in a cooking process, but i read a lot of comments about this on internet. Thanks.

Anyone fancy spending 5 minutes to advise me on the best restaurant in central London to take my family from this list http://regalawnings.co.uk/best-al-fresco-places-to-eat-in-london Restaurant suggestions that aren't on the list are welcome too. Cheers, Alex

Hi guys. I have a question concerning Crockpot and baking. Are they the same? Both have wet and dry bulb temperature? The low level of a crockpot is about 90 Celsius. If I put the same piece of meat in the oven with the same temperature, would I get the same result? The only difference I can see is the internal volume much smaller in the crockpot which can have more humidity. Many thanks.

Hello All, I am newly registered on the forum, though I have read a lot of material from the forum. It is a wealth of information and knowledge, so I thought I'd reach out. I recently purchased an immersion circulator, so I am learning about sous vide techniques. I have decided to tackle duck sous vide. Before I had my immersion circulator, I followed Alton Brown's method for preparing duck (quarter, brine, steam, and sear). My favorite part of the technique was the significant amount of duck fat that rendered into the steaming vessel for other uses. Without any research, my inclination would be to brine and steam the duck quarters, sous vide cook to desired internal temperature, and crisp the skin in a blazing hot pan or via blowtorch. When I researched duck sous vide, I could not find any recipes that included the steaming step and very few with a pre-sous vide rendering step. So I had a few questions: 1.) Would duck quarters cooked sous vide benefit from a steaming step to render out some of the excess fat? 2.) Do duck quarters cooked sous vide, without a pre-sous vide rendering step, still allow for you to gather and save the rendered fat for later use? 3.) Is there a good technique for cooking a quartered duck in a single water bath for a single meal? Thanks a lot for any input you can give.

I notice that D. Baldwin says that one can reheat frozen cooked sous vide meat in a one hour waterbath, so that makes me think that frozen meat unfreezes quickly. Lots of the meat which I will eventually cook sous vide is now sitting in the freezer vacuum-sealed in cook-safe bags. Can I put the frozen meat directly into a water bath and just extend the cooking time? Or is this a really dumb idea?

In what might be the greatest "extra" product to have if you're into sous-vide cooking, Dave Arnold, in conjunction with David Chang and Momo, is going to be selling his first consumer product, the Searzall. One of the things I've always disliked about the blowtorch method of searing food is that I have been able to detect the taste of the blowtorch. This seems to solve that problem: I want one.

I've been making ice cream using Dry Ice since it's producing much better results than my cuisinart ice cream maker and fairly easily available. What I'm wondering is if Liquid Nitrogen would be more cost effective. Dry Ice can be found in a minimum of 10 lb blocks which cost about $1 per lb (sometimes a little less). And since it melts we usually make a couple different ice cream bases ahead of time and go a buy the stuff and then make it. So while I enjoy making ice cream this way, it adds about $5 to the cost. Would liquid nitrogen cost more up front? How much do you need per batch of ice cream? How fast does it dissipate? Lots of questions but I'm just trying to figure out which method makes more sense. The results of dry ice ice cream are great so it's not really important to me if liquid nitrogen is superior results if it's more expensive. Thanks!

I now have an Immersion Circulator, an SVS, a blowtorch, Kuhn Rikon pressure cooker, an immersion blender, accurate scales, pH meter, silicon ravioli molds, caviar syringe, thermocouple thermometer and will hopefully have my iSI Siphon by next week. I also have a reasonable selection of hydrocolloids and other powders to play with: agar, xanthan, iota and kappa carregeenen, sodium alginate, calcium lactate, methyl cellulose LV and HV, cacium chloride,sodium citrate,soy lecithin powder, wondra, and N-Zorbit, some culinary crystals (i.e., unflavored pop rocks) as well as malic, lactic, and tartaric acids. In short, the beginnings of a respectable modernist kitchen. I feel I have a really good handle on sous vide now and basically it is the only way I've cooked meat. Still experimenting and getting to know the "culinary powders", but each experiment has been a delicious, if not always completely successful, learning experience, Also, this year is the first year my family is coming to my house for Thanksgiving, which makes sense because my mother hates to cook and it's my passion. My mom like "traditional" holiday fare and has ask that the basics -- turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy -- be served. Outside of that, I'm pretty free to play. There are going to be 5-6 of us. I guess I should add that while I'm new to the modernist pantry, my traditional cooking skills are quite advanced, leaning French with an emphasis on technique. I'm looking for suggestions to put my new toys to work to a make spectacular, unforgettable Thanksgiving dinner. And the more that can be made ahead the better. Definitely thinking of MC Mac and Cheese, some version of the Robichon, Bloomenthal, Myrvold, et al, pommes purée. and would like to include spherification in some way, as none of my guests will have ever had that experience. And the more I can make ahead, the better. (Also tried the much raved about carmelized carrot soup last week -- loved the technique, did not care for the soup itself, probably because I'm not that big on cooked carrots, so not interested in doing that again.) So, anyone have any ideas/recipes?

[Moderator note: The original Anova Sous Vide Circulator topic reached the maximum size the eG servers handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: Anova Sous Vide Circulator (Part 1)] I had to post this because this is happening more and more often now : If you drop your unit into water: Do not power it on!!! We have industrial vacuum ovens that can dry things out in a flash and recover the unit - if you power on, the unit will short out - meaning you probably will be buying a new unit.

I made up some feta a few days ago and followed my normal recipe, draining the cheese in a mould, then placing on a rack to drain, then drying for a few days. At this stage, I put it in a 23% brine solution for the time recommended in Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking. I then put it in a 10% brine solution and into the fridge to cool down as I intended vacuum sealing the cheese in bags. The cheese felt a bit spongy and not like feta but I felt that brine maturing it would make it more like traditional feta. On vacuum sealing it this morning, I noticed an interesting phenomenon that I thought I'd share. When the vacuum was drawing out the air prior to sealing a lot of air bubbles came out of the cheese. When the seal was made and the vacuum released, the cheese compressed and suddenly became the texture that I associate with feta. I haven't cut it open yet as I want to let it mature for a while in the brine. Will post a picture here when I do. My reason for posting this here is that after normal draining and some drying, it may be worthwhile experimenting with using a vacuum to modify the texture of appropriate cheeses. I use the same technique with fruits such as watermelon to give a very interesting texture. Has anyone else tried this with cheesemaking?