Today's program has been brought to you by Whole Foods Market, a dynamic leader in the quality food business, a mission-driven company that aims to set the standards of excellence for food retailers. For more information, visit Whole Foods Market.com. Hi, this is Joe Campanelli, the host of In the Drink. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageradio network.org for thousands more.
Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues, coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network in Bushwick, Brooklyn in the back of Roberta's Pizzeria, every Tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly 1245. Joined again with uh Jack. How you doing, Jack? I'm great.
Yeah, you're back. Where were you? Where were you on the vacation? Where were we? I vacation.
I was I was working. I was performing at Bonroo. Ah, performing, but like for the Heritage Radio or for your band? For my DJ performance collective, we are called full service. So there's full service 16 of us.
Are you in fact a full service DJ collective? Yeah. Let me ask you a question, Jack. Now, you know, just based on what you're what you play here, you don't like, you know, spin like wedding hits, right? That's not your own.
No, it's not really our gig. Yeah. Okay. But let me ask you a question. Yeah, you can sure.
Let me ask you a question. This thing that people do now nowadays at parties where they play like 30 seconds of a song that I really love, and then they throw it into some other song that I may or may not like, but then it's it's only ever like 30 seconds at a time of a song. What what what's with that? What is that? Well, I mean, I guess that's you know, if you're looking for a professional DJ, right, or if someone's making a career as a DJ, you have to do something that sets yourself apart from somebody that might just have Spotify.
Because anybody with Spotify could just play a song that everybody knows. Yeah, but to keep up in other words to keep a room grooving, how many of these people, when they're switching this stuff up, keep people's asses pumping the entire time? They don't. They always f flub it. It's always messed.
I guess it depends on where you are. And do I really want to hear 30 seconds of hypnotize, or do I want Biggie Smalls to like, you know, bash me all the way through on that thing? Fair point. Yeah. I mean, it's not, you know, I just don't I just don't get it.
I just I just don't get it. Like old school DJs, right? They weave stuff in and out, but they're really just kind of like you you lay down a long, a long, long, long track that you can just keep grooving to fundamentally all night, right? And then you can layer tunes in and out of that, but it's not like they're literally playing the tune for 30 seconds and then just doing the crossfade, right? Which is what I feel people are doing now.
Or a lot of remixes and stuff. Weak. Alright. Uh so uh I mean, I don't know, do you think it's not weak? Tell me why it's not weak.
Why it's not weak? Why would I just describe like 30 seconds of hypnotize and then crossfade into some other song it doesn't even necessarily have the way you're describing that doesn't sound so good. You'd think that these DJs, when they're doing this, would notice everyone's leaving the dance floor. Well, that's your answer. If people are leaving the dance floor, then you're failing.
Yeah. Another thing, if any of you are getting married out there, enough with the brown eyed girl. Seriously. Jack, can you dance to brown eye girl at at a wedding? No.
I don't really dance at weddings. There you go, DJ. What about you? What have you used to us? I haven't been to a wedding in a while.
Yeah, but when you go out dancing, what do you like when they play like those like those songs that are good songs, but they're like you want songs everyone's butt can gyrate to, right? Mm-hmm. And that's pretty much it. Good gyrating beat, buff, buff, buff, buff, buff, enough water on the sidelines so people don't die. You can like finger snap to brown eyed girl, I guess.
Yeah, but everyone, look, unless you are freaking Fred Astaire, you're not gonna stand around in front of uh, you know, your friends, family, and god forbid someone that you're trying to get in bed with and snap your fingers. Probably not. Yeah. All right. Listen, we have more time later on this, Jack.
Do you have uh Chris on the phone? Uh no, we can get him on the phone right now. Yeah, well, I'll read I'll I'll uh talk about the question a bit and then uh while you're getting him on the phone, we'll try to do this here. So uh I got a question, actually it was into the uh into the Twitter, uh by uh Chuck Schneider asking um about a recipe that was published on uh Chef Steps for Mi Kui. You know, partially cooked?
Mikwi. You like that word or don't like it says? You don't like it? Why? What does it sound like to you?
Anyway, well, I can't. Chris is not on the phone yet. I thought you're gonna talk about it. Well, I mean, he has to hear the question, so I'm not gonna anyway. So it's about Mikwi uh sandwiches, like, you know, partially cooked.
And the question I've got Chris on the line. Hey Chris, how you doing? I'm doing well, how are you, Dave? All right, so uh got a question about one of your Chef Step uh recipes. Uh and I'm I'm presuming it's yours because when someone asked a question, you commented.
So I'm assuming that means it's probably your recipe. It's for uh the meek yeah, the Mikwi salmon. And the question was from uh Chuck Schneider. It was uh dear folks, I love the flavor texture of this, meaning your recipe, but curious how it compares to both raw or traditional cooked product, safety-wise. Now, uh just for you know, uh, you want to like give me give me like the 30-second like rundown.
The the difference between this low temperature salmon and the one that was the ones that are popularized by like the Roka style cooking that was uh you know came into vogue, I don't know, around 2001, 2002, is that this one is uh cooked, well, cooked in quotes. I'm putt making air quotes around the microphone, and then uh refrigerated afterwards, and actually kept, which is non not the way the uh, you know, the early low temp and sous vide jockeys were doing. So, with that in mind, why don't you give us the like 30 second rundown of the recipe? Sure. Well, the important thing to recognize that it's not only cooked or par cooked, but it's also lightly cured with salt, and so you have two factors improving the safety.
You've got a bit of salt that in combination with the heating is more effective at uh at uh providing a margin of safety than heat alone. And for uh for various reasons, we actually tested this recipe with an independent food research laboratory where it was challenge tested uh for a two-week period. And we we actually showed that although the the heating temperature alone wouldn't ensure adequate uh uh margins of safety, the combination of the salt and the heat together uh showed that the recipe was actually quite safe against uh the usual pathogens. Um so we feel pretty confident in recommending it. Uh it was only 40 degrees C, though, right?
40 seconds rundown. Sorry? The cooking temperature was only 40 degrees C, right? That's right. 104.
Yeah. So 104 fair enough. Like, in fact, for many bacteria, that's so people let's just let's just get this straight straight straight off the top. Chris, uh no, for those of you that don't know, I don't know how the hell you would be listening to this if you don't know who Chris Young is, but Chris Young is uh one of the founders of Chef Steps, and if you haven't gone to that website yet, I recommend you go right away. Or I would wait 35 minutes and then go.
Uh the other uh, you know, also uh, you know, uh one of the authors of Modernist Cuisine, the greatest cookbook achievement of all times. And uh and so there's there's a bunch of things when you're when you're doing food safety, and you know, Chris will we'll chime in in a second. Uh and there's a lot of interesting, interesting words about uh how the health departments across the country and nationally handle food safety in modernist cuisine if you haven't had a chance to read those sections yet. Um I especially like the submarine thing. You like that?
It's not really food safety, but that submarine thing changed my life. They I we'll talk about it later, because I don't know Chris is limited on time. But someone remind me to talk about the submarine thing if I haven't already. Is that everyone's favorite section of modernist cuisine or not, Chris? With the with the the butt die.
Uh uh it's probably not. Maybe yours. Oh, it's definitely one of mine. I mean, like, I mean, that's like crazy. Uh I have to get into it.
I'm sorry. So the the thing is is you know how how how mu how much are like uh germs, let's just call them, uh, on people really spread about, you know. And uh this doctor, a naval doctor on board a submarine, gave uh exams to the sailors and then said that he was testing their their their nether regions, their behinds, uh for something, and instead put uh a phosphorescent powder dye uh uh in their butts, and then uh like a day later walked around the submarine with a UV lamp and the entire freaking sub lit up from the phosphorescent stuff. Is it pretty much accurate? Yeah.
And I was like I I yeah, I the funny thing is I don't think it's mentioned who that story came from, but the person, the the sailor in question who told uh us that story was the the the renowned Craig Vintner, uh the decoder of the human genome during his time in the Navy. So he's actually the source of that. So so presumably reputable. Uh I think so. Nice.
I like that. That's strong. Strong. So you you heard it here first, folks. Okay.
Back to back to what we're saying here. So here's some true statements. Uh the the any food safety uh organization in the world, their job isn't to uh figure out the minimum possible thing that's safe from a bacteria or whatever standpoint uh for a particular recipe. Their job is to provide bulletproof uh uh you know guidelines such that no one can mess things up and no one's gonna get food poisoning such. All of the rules are always overkill, 100% of the time.
100% of the time. Um, the uh but here's the here's the thing. There's a little magical thing in the and the two magic words, because I was going to get in an argument with Chris about like you know the levels, blah, blah, blah. He he said the two magic words which which were challenge study. Now, if if you what a challenge study is is you you you actually usually incubate whatever you're going to cook with the pathogen of choice, and then uh you do your procedure to it, and then they test it uh you know with a certain number of uh uh iterations to prove that that the bacteria of interest doesn't grow.
And if your procedure does that, then it's safe. Accurate or no? Yep. Yeah. And and so that that that's that's exactly the approach we we took.
We were working with a a food retailer who was interested in this recipe, and and so they they funded this, and uh that recipe was actually put put to the test. And and certainly heating alone as a control would fail. And and if you're if your salmon was unsafe, um you would increase the risk slightly. Although, in my opinion, uh you know what we found from that is it's probably not any safer, even if you skip the salting steps than eating than eating most sushi. Um but if you add the salt in combination with heating, and you start out with a reasonable, you know, obviously you shouldn't have a horrible, nasty product, but if you start out with reasonably fresh salmon, you know, something you get it at a typically a reputable supermarket or fishmonger, and the combination of the salt and the low heating, followed by the chilling in refrigeration was adequate to provide an appropriate margin of safety.
Now would you would you avoid pre-butchered fillets? Well, uh in general, we prefer, you know, it's always the less processing your ingredients have had, generally speaking, the safer they're they're going to be because there's less opportunity for surface contamination. So it depends on how concerned you are. If you're very, very risk averse, um, then you know, maybe that you know, maybe you you do want to basically have everything as pristine and handled as little as possible. But you know what?
I eat salmon sushi in Seattle, and there was a study that said that one out of four pieces of salmon sushi have viable anti saccid worms. So you know, we we all do that pretty regularly. You know, most of the time, you know, we take some risk and it doesn't hurt us. Right, right. But I mean these are really minor risks.
Well, so here's the here are the the two bacteria I'm gonna ask you about, because I'm sure these are the ones that people one of the some of the concerned was botulism and listeria, right? So both of those were tested in the challenge? Uh no, we didn't do that because we were gonna have adequate refrigeration. Um and and you were not gonna have so with botulism, you have to undergo undergo spore outgrowth, and and our process does not allow nearly enough time to basically trigger spore uh spore germination and outgrowth. So botulism out.
So you so you're saying that the soak and the pack time prior to cook isn't enough to cause any germination? No. No. I mean, the the whole for the whole process is salt the salt the salt the fillets in a brine, you cook you you vacuum seal them and cook them for an hour, and then they're rapidly brought down to refrigeration temperature. So so you're only in the danger zone about forty five minutes to an hour depending on the sizes of your piece of of salmon, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes including the cool down time.
Right. That's just not a very long time for for for bacterial growth. Uh now obviously if you load it up with with with with with viable uh botulinum um uh bacteria rather than the spores or if you load it up with uh listeria bacteria but those are fairly fairly rare and they shouldn't have grown too large numbers to begin with. So really what you're gonna be concerned with are are are is fecal contamination in the form of coliforms and salmonella. And you generally want to look at it at salmonella because if you're killing the salmonella, it's a very very good bet that you're you're killing the other uh other potential uh illness causing bacteria.
I mean it would seem to me that like salmonella doesn't grow so well in the it seemed to me that salmonella doesn't grow so well in the fridge but like your your hope is that you're not going to get a listeria growth your hope is that you get it rid of enough listeria or that you inhibit its growth with the salt combo enough that it doesn't grow in the fridge because that's the only one that right but but the other reason is is we're we're looking at refrigeration temperatures of two to three degrees Celsius and so provided uh you know provided you you respect that and you provided you only have a two week shelf life um listeria is a a minor concern. I w you know you you can't say that this is going to be a product that's good for for a month or six weeks because now even at refrigerator temperatures listeria would start to become a concern. So you always you have to keep in mind um what time scale are you talking about too. If if you're gonna basically cook it and uh chill it down and serve it within one to two days, right, uh it this just isn't a very risky procedure. If on the other hand you're a retailer and this might be in your your supply chain for for a week, you really want to know you have you have a a larger margin of safety during refrigerated storage.
Okay, so also people should label their bags. Everyone should label their bags, but I think people at home don't do it very much. Label your bags and do you recommend an ice chill down or no? I mean, people at home do weird things with their their fridge. For for starters, you know, just realize that you know any almost anybody's home fridge that I've ever seen would be condemned by a health department.
Uh uh fair point, Dave? Yeah, fair point. Uh and then the the other side of it is I read a really weird thing. Like something like 25% of the population changes the temperature of their refrigerator uh seasonally based on how warm or cold it is outside. Why would they do that?
I have no idea. I like my brain melted a little bit when when when when I when I read that finding for a large appliance manufacturer. And so, you know, this this was a recipe that was you know meant for chefs and meant for enthusiastic home cooks who are going to be knowledgeable about food safety and be reasonable. And so as long as you know you use high quality ingredients, as long as you do salting and cooking for for relatively short amounts of time, and then as long as you chill it down and keep it in a cold refrigerator, as long as you consume it within a week, this is a very, very safe recipe. Okay, so here's here here's what I'm gonna say, because in case people don't look at the recipe right away, your brine percent was ten percent.
So stuff's not gonna be growing in that brine during the brining procedure and the brinding procedure done cold, correct? Yes. Okay. Once you take it out, don't let it sit on the counter in the bag, do your cook step and re-chill it uh, you know, lickety splits so that you stay in the in the evil window as shortest time as possible, correct? Yep.
And label the bag and keep it in the coldest part of your uh fridge, or you know, if you can, maybe even on like an ice pack in the fridge. Good point or not good point. Uh exactly. Good point. And but challenge study done and proven safe or proven proven does not decrease the safety level of the fish that you started with appreciably.
Proven that it ha proven that it was adequately safe at two weeks. Right. Now, people bear in mind that safety levels are done for different uh things. So there's like uh what we're talking about here is something that doesn't appreciably uh add to uh risks as opposed to completely eliminating risks that are R. So don't dip your salmon in poop and do this recipe.
That's right. You need a different recipe if you're gonna dip your salmon in poop beforehand. I I don't want to see that recipe. Hey, but that no, but but like all kidding aside, I mean like a lot of the recipes out there, a lot of the the rules out there where they make you hammer everything are done with the with the fact in mind that you might be horribly contaminated with you know, quite literally with poop. Yeah, and and you know, the the funny thing is we we worry about the risk of say a salmon me quee or a rare uh uh uh a piece of chicken that's still slightly pink, but the inconsistency is we all eat salads with foraged ingredients and and you know we've all had grit in our salad.
I mean, that's not just dirt, there's other things mixed in there. So one of the one of the things is you really have to, you know, look at a recipe and say, well, what level of risk am I really taking from that? And where we think what we tend to think is risky is cooked, uh, is often not the riskiest thing we do. Yeah, yeah. Do you have to uh high tail it or can I uh bring up another thing with you real quick?
Yeah, I've got a few minutes, so go ahead. All right. So uh I had another question in. Uh this is from uh John Riper in Seattle, and he's actually got another question. I'll take later that uh Chris doesn't need to stay on for but uh I saw also I don't know who's over there is doing it but I know you've done a lot of work with uh cheese and he had a question about his cheese curds.
Uh he said the sources I've seen uh for cheese you know cheese curds and cheese uh all use calcium chloride when they want to fortify the calcium levels of milk for firmer curds presume by the way people what happens is is uh during uh the uh pasteurizing and storage process of uh milk that you buy in the store you know um some of the calcium is rendered no longer available you need the calcium there for the binding of the you know it's a it's a it's a uh divalent uh cation you need it there to bind the uh curds together if it's not there you won't get a firm curd and so people add sometimes calcium if they're gonna use store bought milk uh to uh increase the firmness of their curds and his question is why are aren't they using calcium lactate or calcium gluconate is there a good reason or is it just price almost certainly just price in that you're adding very small concentrations so that you don't tend to notice the slight bitterness. Right I mean even I who hate uh calcium chloride I mean the recipes I saw they're using like a hundredth of a percent you know something t tiny so no one's gonna taste that no you know and then you know that that's that's such a minor level of bitterness that uh um you know even super tasters who are people who are hypersensitive to to bitter um I would be surprised if they're really picking up any substantial uh bitterness from that and then the other thing uh yeah so that's that's my opinion is I think it's mostly just the price and convenience factor calcium lactate on a commercial scale is just a lot more expensive than uh calcium uh chloride and and it's also less readily available. Right. So point oh one percent. I mean, I'm that's actually that's gotta be too low.
That's a tenth of a gram in a liter. Right? Yeah. That's a tenth of a gram in a liter. So the the one of the things to recognize is you're really just fortifying.
Yeah. I would and I would say that that is almost an order of magnitude below the taste threshold. I I would suspect that's pretty near or below. I haven't actually seen uh uh uh any studies on what the threshold is. I mean I'm just saying bitterness.
Uh apparent. You're doing ten times less than that. You're doing a gram into ten liters of of first of all, not water, of milk. And a lot of the whey, which is gonna have a lot of that stuff is going to be expelled as well. So you're not going to I mean the calcium's gonna be bound up in the free calcium chloride, a lot of it will be expelled.
I mean, uh non-tastable. And another reason to use it is that it you ha can use a lot less than you use of the other ones, and it is extremely soluble, so you don't have any issues where you might have uh I don't know, some piece of grit left over that didn't get dissolved because you didn't agitate it enough and it got strained out or some sort of nightmare situation like that. So I would just stick with the calcium chloride. Uh easier to, you know, easier to purchase, cheaper, and definitely not gonna taste it at that at that level. Right?
Okay. Oh, yeah, quite hold on. Can we have them both on? Yeah. All right, caller, you're on the air.
Maybe not. Hey there. Hey. Hey Dennis, it's uh Colin down in DC. How you doing?
Doing all right. How's it live? Hi, Colin. Uh I don't know if you know this, Colin, whether you're listening, but Chris Young's also on the air with us. So it sounds like uh the last guy was asking something about calcium, but I just had a uh was making some caramelized onions, and you know, I've seen people, you know, uh tendu asalt and uh chymos, all those folks are into using a little baking soda to kind of help it along because of the basicity of it, you know, speeds up the browning.
Right. But also, you know, the I tried that and wasn't very impressed because it does make it really mushy because of the it breaks down the pectin, right? Uh but I guess the thinking helps helps. Uh yeah. If you use calcium hydroxide, would that give you the enhanced browning but also keep the pectin firm?
Well you're not gonna brow the calcium hydroxide is not so soluble, so you don't want to use it as your yeah, you like you don't want to use it for that application. No. Yeah, okay. But alkaline conditions also speed the the the dissolving of the cell wall. So it really doesn't matter what salt you use to raise the pH, whether you use calcium, whether you use baking soda or calcium hydroxide.
But calculation calcium in the the interesting thing about calcium hydroxide, and I have done tests on this, but not with browning because they were done aqueous. Yeah, I see. So using the calcium ions to try to cross link the the the cell the the pectin in the cell wall. Yeah, that works, but but it won't work for your application because calcium hydroxide, you d what you would need to do is a pre-soak in a calcium bath, get the calcium into the vegetables, then lower the pH for the browning. You see what I'm saying?
See what I'm saying, Chris? Yeah, yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay, so so so you basically do what uh what ticklers often do where they they infuse uh some calcium salts to keep to keep the pickles crunchier after after retorting.
Sure, yeah. Or pressure canning. Right. So you can, for instance, you can do you can do the calcium uh yeah, the you know, you can do the calcium hydroxide in a boil a little bit to do to to prevent uh to prevent the browning of broccoli, let's say, and still keep it crunchy. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah. I mean it's we've used it to a lot of other beneficial applications. It just seemed like a place where, you know, it has the it had the hydroxide and it had the calcium all in one spot. Right, but if you if you're just curious if it would kind of kill two birds of one stone, but it wouldn't it would not it would not do the browning kind of stuff that you would get out of like the uh what was it you guys did in the modernist cuisine? Was that butternut squash that you added to the pressure cooker or was it uh uh uh can the the the we did it with certain squash, we do it with banana.
We we did it to just about anything we could we could catch. Yeah. But remember they're pressure cooking, so they're gonna make it soft. I don't know that even cross-linked pectin. I mean, look, look at look at uh canned tomatoes.
They keep their structure and they've been canned. So it is possible to use calcium to cross link the pectin to keep it uh somewhat intact at retort retort temps. But that's that's a good point, Dave. Yeah, two parts, two part process, or let's go back to the thing we were just talking about, Chris, uh the calcium a little bit of calcium chloride, because I don't think it's gonna take much. You know what I mean?
Yeah, I and you uh again I think uh in in with the complex sort of uh mired flavors, I don't think bitterness. I mean you have other things that are gonna be slightly bitter too so I I think that'll just fit the flavor profile so yeah maybe maybe taking your onion slices and and if you have a chamber sealer just do a do a vacuum infusion of of of some uh some calcium water. Yeah hard water. Yeah. Uh and on one last note uh similarly so you know calcium's your divalent ions at least like will crosslink some different uh different types of stuff we use and have you seen that uh with guar gum much do you see much of a effect of calcium and other stuff in the viscosity?
I've never seen any I've never seen any uh any ion interactivity with guar. Have you Chris? I mean it's not no and I and I haven't worked with guar as much as I have locus bean gum but no I'm not I I'm I'm just trying to think this too and I don't I wouldn't expect much. I mean lo locus bean gum and guarante I I was kind of curious since uh you know I do a lot of like energy research and what I was looking at you know uh just water water impacts of hydraulic fracturing and of course you use tons of guar gum there and one of their problems in reusing the water is that you know you get an effect of all these geological salts like calcium chlorides and everything that's underground causing stuff in their fluids to crosslink and get thicker and get all messed up. Well don't they use it sound familiar from kitchen stuff, but right.
Don't they in fracking fracking isn't it borated? Don't they put use boron? Yeah, boron as well. But uh, you know, it seems like like blonde, zirconium, those those are things will add, but that's not present in a large amount in the geological formations. Whereas the calcium, there's tons of it.
So that'll actually end up in uh, you know, it can be like uh, you know, ten percent salinity just of calcium salts in some cases. Right. I mean, I was kind of curious. I won't say I remember it back on to the calcium levels that high. Yeah.
I mean, I don't know. I'll look it up. It's interesting to me. Uh I don't know that much about fracking. I know that guar is used because you can rapidly shift the viscosity of it.
That's the gimmic, that's the gig, right? I don't know uh how that happens, but I know that whenever you use guar, uh we use guar as a thickener and we ignore calcium and I use guar in dairy and non- Although you know what's interesting. So like no one of my old recipes was uh guar gelan, low acyl gel an mix, and there's definitely a synergy between uh loacyl gelan and guar that doesn't exist with locust being gum. I don't but I was only doing that in a milk-based system and I never tried it in a non-dairy system. So maybe there is some sort of weak calcium uh reactivity that just I've never been a aware of.
I can look it up, but it's not my memory. I'll go check the uh handbook of Hydro College, the uh Nusovich Classic, unless there's some newer book I need to look at, but I'll check it out. Okay, well great. Thanks for thanks for silling a bunch of stuff. All right, thank you.
Cool. Thanks. Dave. Uh yeah, Chris. For having me on.
I I do need to run now. All right, cool. Thanks, Chris. And uh, you know, hopefully uh this is this is good. This is a good part about knowing people is that when someone asks a question that relates to them, we can just call them.
Yeah. Always appreciate it. Good to talk to you. Alright, thanks, Chris, and we'll take a break and come back with more cooking issues. Today's program has been brought to you by Whole Foods Market.
Seeing a need to help people sort through all the misinformation about healthy eating, Whole Foods Market added a seventh core value to promote the health of our stakeholders through healthy eating education. In our stores, we give you the tools you need for choosing the most nutritious foods and healthy recipes, as well as offering classes with nutritionists and cooking coaches to help inspire good health and well-being. Stop by your local store today and learn more about our Health Starts Here program and wellness clubs, or online at Wholefoodsmarket.com slash health starts here. And oh welcome back to Cooking Issues. That was fun, right?
Having Chris on the phone. Yeah. Yeah. Call her. By the way.
Stas, what did you think of that? What? What, Jack? What'd you think of the phone, the phone and phone? Two phoners at the same time.
It's hard because they can't see each other. You know what I mean? I'm not answering that, Jack. Yeah. Yeah.
She's not answering that because she didn't even hear the question. No, no, no. People, people, she didn't even have her headphones on. No, no. Like that's how important her text session was.
That she didn't even have her headphones on. Alright, let's uh Yeah. I had a quick, like fun little summer question for you. All right. Roasting marshmallows.
Yes. What's your technique? I use a Searzel. Come on, though. But I mean, yeah, come on.
Yes. No campfire technique. Uh well, look, here's my feeling on marshmallows. There are there are a couple schools of thought. I can think of three.
There's the I don't give a crap school of thought, right? In which case they just do it. And then there's on the either end, there's the lightly toasted, puffed, golden brown marshmallow lovers, right? And then there's the burnt crust, gooey inside like charcoal kind of lovers. Which one are you?
Uh I I I don't know. I'd say probably the first. Yeah. But you know, it's nice to kind of give it a quick zap in there and then you just kind of peel off that burned layer. Yeah.
And then you can kind of go again. You know? Yeah, that's true. That's true. Stasza, do you do you are you are you one of those freaks that doesn't like toasted marshmallows?
I do. Okay. What do you which which kind do you like? We just did it on a campfire last week. That's not what I'm asking.
I said between the two things that you weren't listening to that I was talking about, which one do you prefer? Um I don't know. Do you prefer it lightly toasted or do you prefer a char? Both. I think it's a lot of things.
Do you see people? People, do you see? Do you see what I'm dealing with? There's no wrong. There's no wrong.
It's a chit choice. So the uh I think it's d the difficulty with the lightly toasted one is that um a lot of times when you're doing it that way, you don't get like a gooey enough inside. Now, some people might want the inside to be totally raw to have that kind of chew to it, but I think that often when people do that, they're gonna under they're gonna under do the inside. So to do that one really right, it takes more patience than most of us can muster because you have to hold it fairly high above the flame. You have to rotate it constantly and make sure that you don't have any one section too, you know, too burnt.
Um, and just who has that kind of patience, especially if you're using a four edge stick that's a pain to turn around, you know what I mean? I was cheating. I kind of I put a stick in the ground uh over the weekend and just kind of kept it sort of close to the fire and kept it there for like 15 minutes, so it really slowly cooked. And how was it? It was great.
See, that's the thing. I think that's probably a good that's a good technique. It just who has that kind of you know, that's that's more patience than I can move. If I want a s'more or a toasted marshmallow, I want that sucker like now. Enter the search all.
Enter the Searzol. Although you still have to be careful with the Searsol because uh although it does it quickly and it's more even, you can still, you know, uh very quickly set the outside of a marshmallow on fire. Because you know, the thing with the marshmallow is it's dry. There's not a lot uh a lot of water there. So once it starts going brown, it can then go black and then ignite fairly quickly.
So you have to, you know, you have to be you have to, you know, be gentle with it. So it's like it's either either you risk the burn or you take your time. Those those are the two choices. I like them charcoaled, to be honest. Although I like a toasted one every now and again, but I don't know, I love that outside kind of charcoal overcooked action too.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Uh all right. So John Riper's other question, which I'll get before I get to the other question.
By the way, uh, should you have any questions in the next couple of minutes? Call them 2718497-2128. That's 7184972128. Oh, yeah, Jack, your question. I think it's tough with two people on the phone because they can't see when the other one's gonna talk.
Exactly. You know what I'm saying? Yep. Yeah. Okay.
Uh Jack's set uh John's uh separate uh second question. What are your thoughts on equipment to create a cheese aging environment at home? Wine cooling units seem to have good temperature control, but they don't cu control humidity or aim for a uh lower relative humidity than or they aim for a lower relative humidity than cheeses need. Is DIY the only way to go, or is there a V ISA meaning spending money from your credit card? Alternative, John Riper in Seattle.
Well, okay. Uh actually, you know what I've gotten a lot of questions on recently is this uh I have Jesus, I can't remember the name. It's called the steak locker. Have you been getting questions about this recently? Have you been seeing Mark been asking you about this?
It's like a Kickstarter thing, it's available right now where it's um it's kind of like a wine cooler, but it's it's tweaked out for uh dry aging stakes, so it's got humidity and temperature control for dry aging stakes, and like you know, a light bulb so you can see what's on, you can put a salt slab in there if that's your jammy. Uh anyways. So uh that's got temperature and humidity control. However, it uh it's gonna be putting it at a lower relative humidity than you want. So that's probably not gonna work for you.
Here's what you're gonna want to do. You're gonna want to go uh the only one I could that I know of offhand, and I've never used it, so I don't um I don't really know how awesome it is, but the only kind of semi-off the shelf, so that it's not a hundred percent DIY, but it's not a hundred percent, you know, like plug and play. Uh Aubur Instruments, who uh you know is a leader in incredibly cheap uh temperature control stuff, uh has the TH210 temperature and humidity controller for curing fridge uh and high relative humidity, right? So that's the key that it can do high relative humidity. And that's a hundred and ninety a hundred and nineteen bucks from uh Albur Instruments, and you just set your fridge on coldest, plug the fridge into the temperature plug on this thing, and then uh whatever you're gonna use to control the humidity.
So, I mean, I wouldn't necessarily recommend like a pan with a small heater to increase the humidity in the in the fridge, but you or you could get a small humidifier that sits in the fridge, uh, presuming that the fridge maintains a relative lower relative humidity than you need, and then you just plug those two things in, set it, and you can walk away and it should work. So you buy a fridge or you know, a working fridge, one of these units for 119 bucks, and some form of uh humidifier that you like and plug it in and go. Yeah? Yeah, all right. Um now we had a question in that uh we missed before.
Tom Fisher writes, where's he where does he live anyway? Do you know? Do you remember? Shoot, I don't remember where he lives. See if we can find it.
Dear Dave and Nastasha and Jack. I have a logistics problem. I've fallen in love with hot lobster rolls. Hot lobster roll sounds uh like vaguely kind of uh vaguely kind of dirty, right? Hot lobster roll.
Doesn't it sound like some sort of like I don't know, I don't know. I mean, I like them. I like they're delicious, but something sounds like hot hot and roll, it's hot and roll together, I think, right? Anyway, uh, and I'd like to make them at home. The problem is the lobster meat.
It seems it seems way too expensive in both time and dollars to buy live lobster just to steam them to get the meat. Frozen lobster meat would work, but the affordable sources only have it in two-pound packages. I need single serving sizes of four to eight ounces, and I don't want to resort to canned lobster. Any ideas? Uh okay.
Well, I mean, look, uh, in a lobster roll, it probably doesn't make uh much difference. The only frozen lobster experience I've ever had was with uh Whole Foods. Uh one day I had to do a low temperature uh demonstration, and I went to Whole Foods to buy lobster, not knowing that they somehow think that it's inhumane for you to kill a lobster at home, but it is humane to have some dude in a factory in Canada kill the crap out of the lobster and then freeze it for you. Does that make any damn sense to you, Stas? Makes no damn sense, right?
What are Canadians inherently less cruel as people towards lobsters than Americans? I don't know. Jack, do you have any thoughts on the relative cruelty of Canadian lobster killers and Americans? I think it's even. Even Steven, right?
Yeah. Yeah. And I would bet that in a commercial environment, like I don't know, I bet it's even rougher. At home, you know, people are like, oh, sorry, buddy, you know, and they throw it into the pot. You know what I'm saying?
It is true that commercially uh they use uh high pressure when they're doing uh steam, so it probably maybe kills them a little bit faster. I don't know. But I've already done plenty of work on lobster killing, so I'm not gonna talk about it now. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get into it because I don't have time. But uh here's what I would say.
If if you can buy a two-pound block of lobster meat that you like. By the way, also, if you train yourself in ripping a lobster apart, there's almost no time in breaking a lobster down. Like, I I remember I was uh uh Bobby Flay opened this place called Bar American. I don't know if it's still open, like a million years ago, right? I went to the opening party and they had this giant lobster out there, and it was crowded, so crowded.
And uh, you know, for anyone that's grown up on the Cape or grown up around the Cape or on the East Coast and like eating a lot of lobster, I mean, we know how to break lobsters down fast. You know what I'm saying? Now it's true. If you want to get 100% yield out of a lobster, you gotta rip it open, like break open the bodies, get this, get the meat out, but in a small lobster, that's not such a big thing anyway. And getting the meat out of the claws is a little bit of a little bit of a hassle sometimes.
But the guy goes, I say, uh, you know, they didn't have enough horse dervis because they had more people than they thought, right? So they had that, you know how like when they're opening a restaurant, they have like the raw bar out that no one's really eating off of, it's just there for display. You know what I'm talking about, Stas? You've seen that a million times, right? So they had this like big old lobster, like a three-pounder or something there, or you know, a two and a half, three-pounder something, you know, medium size for for you know, for people who get really big lobsters, but big for you know being served on a plate.
And I say to the guy, uh, you know, one of the, I was like, hey, uh, can I eat that? He goes, if you can get the meat out. I was like, I literally, as soon as he said, if you can get the meat out, within within maybe 10 seconds, I had the tail meat completely out of the lobster and I was eating it. And the guy had that, what the look on his face, because anyone that's grown up eating lobster knows how to get the tail out of a lobster with no equipment and like almost instantly, you know? You know how to do it, right, size, you know how to break a lobster.
I mean you go to Rhode Island enough. Anyways. My point being that uh you can get the the majority of the lobster meat out in well under a minute. Now it's then it it's it's minutes and minutes if you want to get the rest. The advantage then is if you want to make like a like uh if you want to use the bodies and the insides to make some sort of a soup or stock, you can and then freeze that out.
But if you don't want, if you want to buy the frozen meat, fine. Let's talk about the frozen meat. Which I can't vouch for the texture of it, but in a lobster roll, it'll probably be okay. The texture of this stuff I got at Whole Foods, maybe if I had uh done a high temp traditional cook, it would have been okay, but low temp, it just fell apart on me. I couldn't get it to work right.
Anywho, uh, I would go and purchase a uh a meat or a brand either a brand new stainless steel hacksaw or a uh meat uh uh you know saw and uh have it around anyway. It's gonna be useful for hams and whatnot. And then you can just saw the uh get really cold, get everything really cold, and saw the two-pound block of meat into portions, and then uh either uh ziplock and get rid of the air, or better yet, vacuum pack the individual portions in the fridge, and then when it comes time to to cook them, just throw the individual servings of meat into uh into you know water inside the bag, they'll thaw out fairly quickly, and then you can uh cook as uh desired uh and make into a lobster roll. What do you think? Sounds good.
Yeah, yeah. Stas is like, sounds good. I eat, don't care. I eat don't care. Uh okay.
Now, we got some more questions. Um I had it takes me longer to get in my iPad now that I had to change the password because my kids figured it out. Don't you hate that? You don't hate that, you don't know you don't know what I'm talking about. But like the kids, they they break into your into your iPad all the time and play stupid games that rot their mind, etc.
etc. Anyway. Um, um okay. Wyatt Burns from Brooklyn, New York. Brooklyn, writes in, hey, a Jack, Dave, and Nastasha.
I currently make seltzer in my apartment with the liter soda bottle technique. So that's using a liter soda bottle, a 25 or 10 pound CO2 tank, and a carbonator cap. We go through it pretty quickly in the summer, so I'd like to upgrade to a carbonator system. I listened to the episode where you explain your home system, and I would like to implement something similar, but I have a few questions. Okay.
So we're talking about uh people's is instead of having a system where you have to constantly make seltzer like a chump, so that would be either the bottle system or soda stream or similar, right? Which is like well, well above the super chump, which is going to the store and buying seltzer, which is if you live in New York City and you have our awesome tap water, you know, and you buy case after case of seltzer, you're pretty much a chump. Am I right? Chump. Yeah, okay, okay.
Um you said you have a McCann carbonator, but which model would be appropriate for our light non-industrial use? Would the big bat big Mac be fine or overkill? Also, how loud are these things and do they run constantly or only when seltzer is being dispensed? Okay, so so when you're when you're buy buying a uh a professional carbonator, people, uh what what you have is you have a little rotary vane uh pump. It's the same pump that similar pump, same company, uh Procon, that's used in uh commercial espresso machines, right?
And uh they what because what happens is is the carbonator is a tank, it's fundamentally a tank. Uh and the tank is hooked up to high pressure CO2. Now remember, you're carbonating water in a carbonator at like a hundred psi. And the reason is is that you're doing it at root with room temperature water, and so you need a much higher pressure than you would use if you were going to carbonate in a bottle, let's say, right? Okay.
So uh so here you have you have a high pressure tank, and your water, even if you have a very high pressure water system, uh, which some people in the city do, depending on kind of how high their building is and where they are in the building, you're still not going to really top out much higher than like 60 psi. So what you need is you need a motor that can uh pump rather that can force under pressure the water through and into that tank, and it sprays the water into the CO2 tank so that it carbonates instantly. Then you have a hose that comes off uh and you dispense. You need a good dispenser for it, really good dispenser. That people always chinse on the dispenser, and that's where they ruin their seltzer of the chumps.
There's also a very there's a special way to uh to hook up a carbonator for the first time to get it to work. And if you know if anyone buys one and they want me to come on and tell them how to hook it up, I'll I'll tell them how to hook it up on the air. It's not difficult, but it'll take a couple minutes, longer than I have right now. Okay. So the the choices you had, the motors are all the same, and you already have the tank.
So the difference in carbonators is the size of the reservoir that the seltzer is in. And I would get the big Mac because it's gonna turn on less. Uh and you know that that's what I use. I used to have a smaller one and it just turned on a lot more often. So I would just get the big Mac because if you're gonna have a dinner party and someone's gonna pull a picture of seltzer out of it, then you're gonna wish you had the Big Mac.
Just saying, go for the Big Mac. Okay. Um, how loud are they and do they run constantly? They don't run constantly. They what they there's a little uh a float, like in a toilet, but not with toilet water.
There's a float that uh judges when the water is below a certain level, uh, and when that happens, it kicks on, it fills it uh up, you know, to its final fill level and then turns off. So I'd say that you know it cycles on every gallon or so of seltzer that you pull. Like every like something like three quarters or a gallon, somewhere in that in that range. Uh and how loud are they? How loud they are depends entirely on the rate of water flow into the carbonator.
So you need to filter the water that goes into the carbonator. Even New York City tap water, which is famously you know uh clean tasting and good a lot of times some there there can be chlorine in if they if they have an upstream problem with uh something they'll dose chlorine into the water and that makes seltzer taste like poison so you gotta get rid of that. Also your pipes uh sometimes like throw sediment and other things into the water that can affect because even minor taste defects in in in tap water uh get incredibly magnified by um by uh cells the seltzer making process so you need a filter the problem is is that most filters when you when people when they hook them up they hook them up with a really crappy water supply line such that they use some sort of three eighths flex cable into the filter instead of like a half inch uh you know full water sub copper water supply line and what happens there is is that when the seltzer is trying to pump in it chokes up and when it chokes up you get a very small flow of water through your filter. So you actually want the coarsest filter you can that has the you know the the uh that that provides the the taste that you want. So you don't want like a super heavy duty like remove cyst removes lead.
You just want an odor and taste and chlorine removing filter. Alright so it chokes up and once it chokes up it starts cavitating. When it cavitates it gets really really really loud and then when it comes you'll know when it's time to change your filter because all of a sudden your carbonator will get really really loud. When you have a fresh filter it's fairly quiet if you keep it under the counter and keep the door closed in the cabinet that it's in. Um another caveat when you install a new system, there's flux and crap in the uh in the uh in your copper lines uh from the soldering and just residue and stuff, you want to put that stuff through a filter.
You don't want that getting into your carbonator because then the c water is gonna taste like poison for a while. And also your first filter is gonna clog within like a week or less. And don't worry about it. Just the second filter you have in there is gonna last uh a lot lot longer. So, anyway, there you go.
Uh two, I don't have an ice maker and really don't want to use the traditional ice chest for the cold plate. Shit, you're telling me, man. I did that for 10 years. I had a uh an ice bucket with my cold plate in it and I had to fill it every day with ice, but you know, it's a hassle. It's it's a hassle.
But I did it for 10 years. Are there any other techniques for chilling a water line that don't require ice? I'm considering modding a cheap mini freezer to directly chill a water bath that the cold plate is submerged in, but maybe I'm overthinking this. That won't work so well. Um you need ice because what's happening is is it's the actual melting of the ice that is um it's the melting of the ice that is providing the quick hit to make it cold.
And so you really need uh melting ice. You could theoretically um you know use only carbonate cold water and keep the carbonator in in a in a mini fridge and the water in a mini fridge, and then as long as your draw wasn't too low, you could do it, but it's kind of a pain. I'd really I would recommend if you have the money. I can I currently have an under-counter manitawok ice machine that is freaking amazing. The cold plate fits right in the bottom of the ice maker, and now I have fresh ice for drinks for cocktails or whatever else, and it just it it automatically drains.
That that mini minute wok under counter ice machine is I have the the boardroom model that's really home friendly. I would look at it. Um otherwise I'll have to think more. If none of these work, you have to ask me again, I'll think more. And also, in your rig, do you run the cold plate before or after the carbonator?
I imagine I could get away with lower CO2 pressure if the water line is already cold going into the carbonator, correct? Not really, because you're it's not it's not a system where it carbonates the water now, but you're not drinking that water for a long time. So if you were to if you were to keep the carbonator in the fridge, then yeah, you could have a cold plate and you could uh and you could use a lower pressure and push it through the cold plate first to chill it down, carbonate it and put it in. But 99%, if you mean most people can't store the carbonator in the fridge because it's rather large. So what they do is is they carbonate room temperature water, which is why you need it to be a hundred PSI, and then uh they chill it through the cold plate and then dispense.
But anyway, if you have any more questions, uh Wyatt, uh give uh you know, shout them back to me. And he says, love the show, and shouts to gunwash, Jack. Shouts to gunwash. Wow, it's a first time on this show. Yeah?
Yeah. Yeah. All right. I got one more question that I have to uh get to today. Do I have a couple minutes, uh, Jack?
Or no? A couple minutes? Sorry, not really. Oh my god, Jesper in Sweden, there's an auction that's gonna end today. Like three minutes?
Okay, go. Okay. I previously bought an old Bukey rotary evaporator, so I'm not gonna have time to explain to everyone what a rotor evaporator is, it's vacuum still. Uh on an auction, included was the base system uh and the condenser and all this and the boiling flask and receiving flask and all that. Look up rotary evaporator on the cooking issues you want to know.
Where I live, i.e. in Sweden, it's not that common to be able to get a cheap to be able to get cheap laboratory equipment on auctions, at least not what I've experienced. Moreover, Bukey is a pretty expensive brand, and in it's Swiss, that's why. And in hindsight, maybe I should have opted for a new complete IK uh IKA ICA uh system instead. Don't.
They suck. Remember when we had to use that system and it sucked, it sucked, it sucked, it leaked. I hated it. Remember that? And a leaky rotovap is bad flavor right there.
Anyway, however, now I have the R210 base, and my questions are related to kitting the system to have it operational. At the same time, one of those rare lab auctions are now taking place in my neighborhood, which closed its door in a week on Wednesday, June 25th, Jack, which is why I had to get to it. So it would be great if you could answer my question before that. My first choice is regards to vacuum pumps. Well, would uh would like to have a diaphragm one together with a vacuum controller, but the auctions do not have those.
Instead, they have a couple of rotary vein pumps. Now, all the ones that you mentioned are Edwards brand. Edwards are extremely, extremely high quality vacuum pumps. However, they are way overkill for the rotary evaporator application that you need. If you can get them cheaply, get them, they're awesome, but it's again way overkill.
Are any of the uh especially the like the E1 M18 and 28 because they handle vapor very well and they have a ballast in them? So then your question is, are any of those rotary vein pumps a good choice in regards to your opinion? My main concerns is the vapor and contamination. Should I uh buy a rotary vane pump and add some kind of inlet condenser or coal trap? You can, but that's a hassle.
It's a real hassle. It'll be easier for you to find a diaphragm pump that's gonna do what you want. Uh I use just a re regular refrigerator pump, which is a couple hundred dollars, a refrigerator vacuum pump, but it's not ideal either. Do I need something extra apart from the gas ballast valve uh open? No, not really.
And you're gonna have to close the gas valve valve if you're doing really super low temperature stuff. Another important topic related to the vacuum pump is how important is the vacuum controller? They're pretty expensive and they do not uh have them at the auction. If you're not using a vacuum controller, how do you control the vacuum? You put a bleeder valve on the line so that you can control like a very like a like a like a multi-turn needle valve to bleed air out on a T in the in the in line with the vacuum line.
That's how you do it, but it's a hassle because you have to control it. You have to sit there and constantly control it, and it's constantly pumping, which is also not ideal because you're because you're constantly pumping, you're sucking uh flavor out of your system. So I don't I mean, I've done it, that's how I used to do it, but I don't highly rec highly recommend it. You also uh mentioned a recirculating cooler that you use for your chiller. Uh, here's the thing.
Uh that'll work, but if I looked at the specs on it and at minus 10 C, which is what you're gonna want to run at least, it only does 120 watts of cooling. The main mistake people make with condensers is they do not have enough power to condense all the stuff that they uh can put that they can uh boil because the the heater is at like a thousand watts, and your condenser now is only providing 120 watts of cooling. What that means is your condenser is going to warm up significantly until it gets up to about 20 C. Um I can give you more input on that next week uh because those auctions are over. That's my feedback on the auction uh items that you have.
In other words, if you can get that pump cheap, I would get one of those pumps cheap, but it's not the same thing. And I can also work more on a vacuum controller. But the circulator, it's convenient to have around, but don't expect it to do high volumes. You're only doing 120 watts at minus 10 C. So don't expect to do high volumes of rotary evaporator work around it.
And Jesper, I'll get to the rest of your questions next week after the auction is over. This has been Cooking Issues.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website or as podcasts in the iTunes store by searching Heritage Radio Network. You can like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at Heritage underscore radio. You can email us questions at any time at info at heritage radio network.org.
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