Ultrasonic Baths

[Anonymous Modernist 5593]

What is the difference between a commercial non-heated ultrasonic bath vs. a cheap consumer-grade jewelry cleaner? Is it possible to use the latter for smaller batches?

[Anonymous Modernist 4165]

Hey Jhmman, I bought an ultrasonic cleaner from Aldi in Australia for $25 with the same hypothesis.

I made a big batch of chips using "Golden Delight" potatoes and ran half of them through the cleaner for a little over an hour, turning once, the others I just put in the fridge to dry out. I didn't impregnate the chips with starch or salt, just regular old triple cooking.

The results were pretty underwhelming. The agitated chips were, in general, no crispier than the unagitated ones. I thought that they were more consistently crunchy, and that the crunchiest ultrasonic chip was crunchier than the crunchiest triple cooked chip, but that could just be bias or anomalous.

There are a couple of ways that the poor results could have been my fault: I may have used the wrong sort of potatoes (Golden Delight are sold in Australian supermarkets as an equal to Sabaego, which are good for chips, but I suspect they're a cheaper, lower quality alternative, and don't provide the same result). I also may not have taken the boiling stage or either of the frying stages far enough, or I may have overloaded the bath. It seems to me, though, that the jewellery cleaner may just not have enough power to properly agitate the potato. Maybe I should try attaching an amplifier to it!

The other issue - at least on my model - is that the timer is limited to a max of 3 minute periods, so in order to agitate the chips for the full 90 minutes recommended in the book you have to reactivate the machine 30 times, so there's not much else getting done while that's happening!

Linked below are some pics of the process for you to take a look at.

http://www.aaronmcauley.com/images/pmmc/WP_000040.jpg -- This is the bath I bought

http://www.aaronmcauley.com/images/pmmc/WP_000041.jpg -- Agitating the chips

http://www.aaronmcauley.com/images/pmmc/WP_000042.jpg -- After the first fry

http://www.aaronmcauley.com/images/pmmc/WP_000044.jpg -- after the second fry

http://www.aaronmcauley.com/images/pmmc/WP_000045.jpg -- closer comparison of the best examples. Ultrasonic on the right.