Polyscience Sonic Prep Homogenizer

[Maxim]

I noticed a post on Ideas in Food recently about a new device from Polyscience (seemingly not available for purchase yet) - the "Sonic Prep" homogeniser. Basically, it seems to be like a commercial quality stick blender with a vibrating tip rather than blades at the end. It should be able to homogenise different liquids, infuse liquids with tastes and make emulsions quicker.

It didn't strike me initially as any sort of "mad have" for a mad-scientist-style cook, but I am intrigued by the applications. Any good ideas how one might use one in the kitchen?

[Lisa Shock]

Looks like it could replace the use of eggs in certain applications, for example making sauces similar mayonnaise without eggs. I saw their watermelon & bacon fat sauce and was intrigued.

[Tri2Cook]

Homaro Cantu and Ben Roche did an appearance on the most recent episode of Hell's Kitchen (a show which I grew tired of a long time ago but was curious to see what the Moto guys were going to do... not much as it turns out) and used it (or a variation of it, they didn't actually mention Polyscience) to make an instant sorbet. They cut a hole in the rind of an orange, stuck the sonic device into the orange and used it to completely liquify the contents which they they then made into a sorbet with liquid nitrogen. The only real advantage in that application other than the cool factor was the speed. The had pure juice sorbet in about the time it would take to juice the orange normally. The Ideas in Food use of it is much more interesting to me but I'm waiting to hear some information regarding price. I've seen lab variations of this device that probably inspired it and even the most basic I've seen are in the over $2000 range.

[rotuts]

Wow

great pointer-outer

and the bacon-watermelon sauce is indeed very intriguing.

[Paul Kierstead]

Tri2Cook, you sure it wasn't a rotor-stator homegenizer? An interesting short overview, including ultrasonic and mechanical.

Edited August 7, 2011 by Paul Kierstead (log)

[Tri2Cook]

  On 8/7/2011 at 4:00 PM, Paul Kierstead said:

Tri2Cook, you sure it wasn't a rotor-stator homegenizer? An interesting short overview, including ultrasonic and mechanical.

Nope, I'm not sure. He didn't say much about it other than it was using sound waves to liquify everything inside the orange. I was intrigued but not overly excited. A couple days later I saw the post on Ideas in Food and mild curiosity changed into real interest. But no, I'm not sure both were involving the same instrument.

[Robert Jueneman]

Ultrasonic Cavitation

MC has several recipes that involve ultrasonic cavitation. Most seem to use the Branson 8150, which costs somewhere around $1740, although smaller and less expensive units, e.g., the 5510 with a 11 1/2" x 9 1/2" x 6" 2 1/2 gal tank, might meet my needs, at around $1094.

But PolyScience now offers their SonicPrep, which instead of using a tank, uses an immersible tool that costs around $4500!

Has anyone compared these two devices, and can you offer any conclusions?