[0:00] This piece was brought to you by S. Wallace Edwards and Sons, Surrey Farms.com. Hey, hey, hey, I'm Jimmy Carboni from Beer Sessions Radio. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network Broadcasting Live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit Heritage Raider Network.org for 1000s more.

[0:22] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues, coming to you live on Heritage Radio

[0:30] Network at Roberta's Pizzeria, where in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Joined, as usual, with Nastasia, the Hammer, Lopez. How you doing, Stas? Yeah? Yeah? You know, Stas has been busy these days working on marketing stuff for

[0:45] this, this, this, this, sears all. How's it going there, Stas? Fine. Fine? It's doing all right actually, right? Yeah. Yeah. Should be getting another shipment in, hopefully, like March, right? Yeah, March. I hope so. And hopefully, no promises because I can't promise anything because I'm not building this stuff myself. Stas and I don't have the ability to build them ourselves, which is why we can't promise dates, but hopefully in that shipment will also

[1:09] come, the steak decorators, people, for those of you that we owe steak decorators too, so I'm very excited about that, um, anyways, we also are joined with our master blaster of engineering, Jack Insley.

[1:22] Hello. Oh nice. You see, when you're actually running it, you can put the reverb on whenever you want. How you doing, Jack? I'm feeling a little under the weather, but I'm all right. Yeah? Is that why you need the reverb? You need the reverb, you get yourself pumped up there? I can do a lot of things with my voice on here. Did you know that? No, let's see something. I can do this. What the? Wait, do that again. Oh, man. I got some tricks left. Wait, now, so like what's interesting about that one is it's not temporally shifted. It just pit shifted. So it's not like what they used to do in like Funkadelic where they actually would just speed the track up by like one or

[1:59] two. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. Oh man. Can you can you go the other way? Can you go helium? I can do it. Well, I tie. Oh my god, you can be the Yonkers raceway guy now. That's true Oh my god. We're gonna need to, okay, we're not gonna do this to you people like live while you're listening, but we're gonna come up with a choreography of craziness that we're gonna, we're gonna start, uh, you know, cooking issues. We're gonna do, like, up and down, like, oh, my God, we can do all sorts of parliament arrangements. Oh, God. We have to come up with our own kind of Pfunk style mythology. Like, you know, Stas is like vegan-faced devoid of funk. Devoid of funk. Uh, so anyway, uh, all right. So this week, what do we have anything? We have anything special going on this week. It's mellow week. Nice. Although, I am going to be asking requests for people, because over the next couple of months before the spring, I am going to be finally,

[2:57] finally after like 20 years, I'm finally going to be building an outdoor kitchen.

[3:02] Yeah, right. So I need some, I need, well, 1st of all, there's going to be a deep fryer out there because I put my fryer where my mouth is. You know what I'm saying? I tell other people to put an outdoor fryer and I am going to put an outdoor fryer in. But I think that might be the only gas fired thing I have out there. I'm gonna maybe put a gas assist on the fire pit, but check out what I'm gonna do. I'm going to have a, I'm going to have a, a standard fire pit, right? But I also want integrated into this big thing, a tandor. You know, Lucas, long time listener, Lucas, a museum supporter, he's building a tandor right now, and a bread oven.

[3:36] Maybe, as much as I rib them, maybe kebequois style bread oven. So bread oven, you know, masonry, retained heat, masonry oven, fire pit, tandor, and here's the last one.

[3:48] This is the unusual one because everyone's like, everyone builds a tandor outside. I going to put a criticula in that son of a gun. So criticula is the Roman kind of cooking platform. So what it's weird. It outdoors. It looks like a fireplace, right? So it's like looks like a mantle, like a flat thing. And underneath it is an arch shaped thing that looks like a fireplace, right? Right? So it's like, it's like imagine like a little mini Arc de Triompe with like a flat tabletop onto, without all the, you know, the ornamentation and crap, right? But here's the weird Roman thing, is that they don't build a fire in the arch and

[4:21] cooking the arch. They store wood in the arch and they build the fire directly on top of the table surface and they cook on this table surface. And, um, years ago, Johnny Azini and I did a, uh, um, like a video shoot where we were imitating Roman cooking and we built one, like a

[4:39] criticula, and we were cooking on top of it. And I actually really liked it. It's kind of fun because, you know, like instead of like reaching into a fire pit or reaching into an oven. It's like the fire is literally right there and you can move around it in like all the way around it and you can like shift stuff around in kind of a cool way. So I kind of liked it. So I'm going to do that because you know what? Because I can. Because I freaking can. And another thing I'm doing, we talk about before I get to the questions. Oh, by the way, should you have questions? You can always call them in too. 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. So, I like espresso. I love espresso, espresso. Do you like espresso styles or, but do you drink it straight? No, you drink like lattes or you drink like macchiato? What do you drink? drink from the Mr. Coffee? No, no, espresso. You said espresso. When you're going to have an espresso beverage. But do you like straight espresso? Okay. So anyway, I don't really like, it's not that I don't like it. I'm not I don't go out of my way for like super drip or like, you know,

[5:42] pour overs or pour over sounds like home over to me. I know it's like super popular now. We had a good one at that Japanese style coffee place. Stas gave a because it just took forever. took for freaking ever, but I'm fine with that. You know, I enjoy all this stuff and I enjoy. But really, my heart's an espresso. But I haven't had a chance to update my espresso game in many, many years because I had a spending kibosh dropped on me, you know,

[6:05] because I already had a fairly decent setup. So now I'm also, and you guys will regale you with the stories, when it happens, I'm updating my espresso rig. Now, the trick with espresso. The mistake that people make, right? Espresso, and I've said this a 1000000000 times, is all about control and

[6:22] repeatability of fairly small range of variables, but it turns out it's more difficult than you'd think to control them all very well.

[6:29] Um, So I updated my uh, my roasting setup, because you know how I roast coffee styles? You know, I'm trying to save money now. So I went back to roasting my own coffee. And I use what's called a whirly pop. So, you know, you know, the popcorn maker that you put on the stove and you twist it and it goes, and it pops and it's this aluminum whirlipop

[6:48] thing? So a lot of people, I used to pop with air popcorn poppers. I had dedicated air roasters and I burnt out every single one that I ever had. Every single one I burnt out. The whirly pop. It don't ever burn out. It just doesn't burn out. You know what I mean? they've superseded that, you know, you know, with home roasters now. They have home roasters now that almost act like mini drum machines. awesome, but I can't afford them. Whirly pop is like 15 bucks. Right? But you know what I hate about the whirly pop? The whirly pop. You have to crank it all the time. So like, let's say all of a sudden, your nose starts to run. Can you go get a Kleenex? No, no, because you have to turn it all the time. Because if you don't turn it all the time. It's gonna burn. If something else happens, if the phone rings, can you answer the phone? No, no, you can't, because if you do, it'll burn. Can you make a cup of coffee while you're doing it? No. Like, can you take the last stuff that you had while you're roasting a new stuff and make, no, right? Which sucks. It's terrible. And and it's like 10 or 12 minutes of time when you can sit there and do nothing

[7:47] else. And then another couple of minutes cooling it down afterwards, like putting the beans back and forth after you roast them. So, I took, you know, Stas and I have an ultimaker for Booker and Dax for prototyping. So I probably I went off the reservation. I mean, I didn't really use it for work in this application, but I printed out a little

[8:02] housing, chopped off the end of the whirly pop thing, left a little bit of the handle that you crank on it. It chopped off enough so I could get a straight piece, you know, because the handle's bent, if you could picture it in your head, chopped it off. And then I put a little like 12 volt DC motor I got on Amazon for like 6 bucks and put it on there, printed

[8:20] like a case that fit around and held it onto the handle so it wouldn't spin. Now that's suckers electric. Oh, yeah. So now like for like 8 bucks or something. I have an electric whirly pop, and now I can, you know, listen, never roast, never roast coffee on a stove and leave it unattended. I'm not saying you do that, but I can now blow my nose, make a cup of coffee, move around,

[8:42] like get a drink of water while I'm doing it. It's just so much more civilized. I can't believe it took me years to do this, but it's all because, you know how,

[8:49] you know how, you don't do anything for a long time you stay in stasis, right? And then all of a sudden, you get a kick in the butt and you just do everything all at once. Well, it's like that with the coffee. So because I'm getting this new place, I need a new coffee grinder, right? Now, the coffee grinder I have is called the Ranchillio Rocky, and it's like, at the time, it was, you know, I couldn't believe I was spending that kind of money on a

[9:11] grinder. It was like 300 bucks or 3 some 50 or something. And it was the highest kind of level grinder that any home jockey was getting because this was like 12 years

[9:18] ago, 10, 12 years ago, something like this. Uh, like 12 maybe. And, um, maybe more. Jeez. Hmm, I might have gotten it before Booker was born. I don't remember. Anyways, it was kind of like it, you know? But now people are getting much kind of higher level grinders, but no one

[9:35] is, well, that's not true. There's plenty of rich people out there, but not very many people now are buying the highest level of

[9:41] grinder, like the Titan series are called grinders, like the very large ones with the very large birds in them. And it turns out they make just, you know, everyone who uses them says they make superior espresso. They're huge and they're expensive, like 1000s of dollars, right? So am I going to buy that? No, I'm not going to buy that one. Am I crazy? But, you know, everyone spends all their money on the espresso machine, but not on the grinder, which is a huge, huge

[10:08] error, because the world's greatest espresso machine with a crappy grinder, you're very limited in what you're

[10:13] going to produce in terms of quality espresso. So it turns out that there is this lunatic company called

[10:19] orphan espresso out of Idaho, right? And it's a husband wife team. I think their husband and wife. And they just make these crazy grinders that have really high quality

[10:32] burr sets in hand grinders. So they make, unfortunately, it's always out of stock because they don't really give a crap. It's called the pharaohs, and I can't get one right now because they're out of stock, and what happens is, is that they get the parts in for like 40 or 50 of them.

[10:47] They put it on and they sell out like, like this, and then when they're gone, it's like, and they never tell you it's going to happen. And people, I understand that because you know what? They probably hate doing customer service. I with them. You know what I'm saying? So I'm not blaming them. It's just, I wish I could get one, you know? So they have a grinder set. First of all, this grinder called the Pharaos, the orphan espresso Feros. It's only $245, which seems like, oh, that's a lot, but I can't buy just the burrs because I looked into DIYing one. I can't buy the burrs for less than like 150. So I don't know how they're building the whole grinder for $245 because they're building a

[11:22] grinder that has the same bur set in it. It's called the coney as the name of the grinder, Mazricone. And it's like, uh, I think it's like a $4000 grinder or something like this. And for $245, you can get that same grind quality. It just put a little elbow grease into it. I got their next down in line one because that one's always in stock called the Lido 2, and I have to say, my espresso quality has jumped up. I might have to get one for my home rig. Anyway, later I'll talk about, because I'm finally going to pimp out the Ranchilio Sylvia, which is, you know, the kind of, it's kind of the 39 mark of espresso machines in that everybody, you know, everyone kind of tricks out the

[11:59] Sylvia because it's really easy to trick out. So everyone's done PID, which is, you know, the temperature control loops. And people have done everything to it. So I'm never, I'm not going to be treading on any new water in it, but I'll go through the kind of modifications that I've done through

[12:12] the Sylvia and I'll report back as it happens, but that's probably going to take a couple of months because I'm only going to be doing it in drips and drabs here and there.

[12:17] Anyway, so that's my coffee report and my other report. We get onto some Quest Echiones. Yeah. Okay. Stephen Hoppy, he says last name pronounced hop E, if you care to know, which I do. I like that. Hoppy. But like, like, with a capital E, which I also like, like, because when it's, if it's

[12:38] HOP dash E, that the capital E means it's pronounced E, like E-E, right? Hoppy anyway. Uh, from Chicago, uh, writes in about centrifuges. Hey, Dave, Nastasia, Jack, and anyone else who might be present, no one only got the hardcores, hardcores. Uh, I'm hoping to purchase a centerfuge. that I hope to use in a bar. I'm in the process of developing and found what looks to be a decent one for sale at a good price. It's, for those of you that know, it's a made by Fisher and it's, you know, there's Fisher is really a

[13:08] catalog. They don't really make anything. Um, I think that's my impression of them, but, um, it's about a 1000 bucks,

[13:15] which for a 3 liter centrifuge is pretty good. Anyway, so here's the question. There are a couple of things about this model that give me pause. For one, as you can see, if you follow the link, you can't, because you're on the radio, and I'm not going to give you guys the link, because if I give you the link, then maybe someone else would buy it out from

[13:29] underneath, Stephen, and that would not be fair. Would that be fair? Would not be fair. It only does 3000 times the force of gravity, and I know that you use a centrifuge that gets to 4000. On top of that, this model is not refrigerated. I think that the lower G force will just mean the product will take more time to form a puck, but I don't know how much longer and if this will be a problem. If purchased, this will be used in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Never been. ever been? I'd like to go. Would you like to go? Someone I know was just in Puerto Rico. Piper. I didn't know he was in Puerto Rico. When was he in Puerto Rico? When he worked with us. No, I mean, I know someone who just, like, literally just got back from Puerto Rico. Um, someone in Booker and Dex, maybe? Anyway. And I have a slight concern about the product heating up too much in Puerto

[14:10] Rico. I get you. If it's going to take much longer for a puck formation in a hot, humid environment. Does this seem like too large a caveat to make the purchase? Thanks for the help and for everything else you do, listening to cooking issues has inspired and emboldened me to give up cabinetry and take on bar management. cabinet. I think cabinetry is a great profession. I mean, I'm not saying you should go back to it, but a lot of honor in doing good woodwork. You know what I mean? I like good woodwork. Cheers, Stephen from Chicago, although I guess in the future, shortly, you know, will be in San Juan. So here are my thoughts. So for those of you out there that don't have the link, this is a spinning bucket

[14:46] centrifuge, remember, centrifuge is separating products based on density. It spins around really quickly, and the denser stuff goes to the outside of the spinning

[14:56] rotor, and the lighter stuff gets pushed up to the inner side of the spinning rotor where the forces of gravity, well, the centripetal force is less, right? Now, here's what you need to know. First of all, on refrigeration. The spinning from the rotor does generate a significant amount of heat. So if you're going to be spinning, things get pretty warm. Now, that said, I know plenty of people like Wiley Dufrayne, his centrifuge is not refrigerated, and he's had good luck with it, but you do need to do a couple of things. You need to chill your buckets down beforehand. So sometimes I would put ice water in them when I used a non-refrigerator, centrifuge, um, and just get everything coal beforehand. You can store a little. don't ever put anything into the um, into the cabinet while it's spinning because it can get kicked up and

[15:42] it's a nightmare. Don't ever do that. But you can put, um, you can put ice into

[15:47] the uh, like bags of ice into the centrifuge cabinet while it's not spinning to get it nice and cold

[15:53] beforehand, and that can help a little bit. So if you buckets start cold and your centerfuge starts cold, you might not need to do all of those things, you have a good chance of having the stuff not get too hot. But I'll just give you an idea when something spins for like 15 or 20 minutes without a refrigerator and it starts, everything starts out at room temperature, you can get, you know, up above slightly above body temp,

[16:17] um, you know, up into like yeast proofing temperatures when you um, spin. So the temperature rise is appreciable and the longer it stays in, obviously, the higher the temperature is going to go. So that's, you know, what you're dealing with if you if you're talking about, um, uh, talking about not having a refrigerator. It's not insurmountable. It's not something that, you know, I would, if I could choose refrigeration. Would I have it? Yeah. You know, would I not buy a centrifuge because it didn't have a fridge? No, and the advantage of not having a fridge is the centrifuges with fridges are a lot heavier. They cost more, and they're a lot bigger. They take up a lot more space and they take more power. So these are, you know, 3 things that aren't necessary and they throw more heat off into your kitchen because remember, uh, any refrigerator in your kitchen's throwing off heat. That's how it's making things cold on the inside. Okay. So that's that. And if you're a real DIY mater, I'm not going to recommend that you modify center for what that

[17:13] one, crazy? What am I? What am I crazy nuts? Dave said I could modify the centerfusion. It blew up and killed everyone in my restaurant, you know? See, now that I deal with these corporate weasels all the time. Like I have to think like a corporate weasel sometimes, which is kind of depressing. Stas is like, who are you? I don't even know you anymore. I can't believe you moderated. something you were going to say based on corporate weasel think. Yeah. Well, you know, we all get worse as we get older, I think. You know, we're not like fine wines as it happens. So the other question is about the G-forces involved. Okay, here's the thing. On a spinning bucket centrifuge, um, I find that you need a higher G-force than you do in a fixed angle rotor. So a fixed angle rotor is one where you have tubes or vials or whatever, and they're kept at a fixed angle, right? Duh, fixed angle rotor. And what happens is at that fixed angle, particles that are, um, that are

[18:12] getting uh, spun out of uh, the solution there, not not in solution, but getting uh, desuspended, let's say, and turn into a puck. They hit that side wall of the fixed angle rotor, and then they scour themselves down that angle and compact into a nice

[18:26] pellet. Right? So fixed angle rotors can form a nice pellet at fairly low G forces. Whereas a spinning butt, and there's typically less distance that the particles have to travel before they hit that

[18:40] wall. So it spins out faster. Spinning bucket rotors, they can separate fairly quickly, but they don't compact as hard when they're hitting because

[18:50] they're basically just settling onto a flat thing and then they have to push. There's no kind of scouring action down into it. So when a spinning bucket rotor slows down, which is when the problems happen, they tend to kick stuff back up into the

[19:02] product and they tend to cloud. So back when, you know, when my centrifuges are running closer to 3000

[19:09] Gs, like when the bearings are getting shot, things tend to be a little cloudier.

[19:13] Is it still going to work? Yes, can you still carbonate with it? Yes. Does it make me super happy? Do I wake up with a big smile on my face thinking about a centrifuge that can only run a 3000 G's? No. You know what I mean? But that said, you know, it's definitely going to be worthwhile. Um, and certain things are going to clarify a 3000 G's, no problem. Like Banana Justino, which is a clarification monster. But other things that are on the verge of not clarifying or that have very fine sediment that tends to kick up, you might have some problems and spinning longer might solve them or it might not. But, you know, it seems like it's a fairly small centrifuge, it's, you know, might be worth the money if you can get it for

[19:47] $1000. The ones that I used to get for really cheap, the

[19:52] joans don't seem to be as available as they as they used to be. But here's the other thing I'm going to recommend. If you're going to buy a used centrifuge for a bar program, uh, don't count on it to survive. You must get a backup unit, okay? You must get a backup unit or you must train your bar staff to be able to do alternate techniques like

[20:14] Agar clarification. But agar clarification is not going to work if you're doing things like Justino. So, you know, a new centrifuge, is it going to break? Probably not. It's 8 grand, right? That's just, that's just facts. But, uh, a use centrifuge. Don't think you can get away with a $1000 one use centrifuge because that sucker will break.

[20:35] I'm telling you from experience it will break. And the odds that someone at the bar, if you're not there,

[20:42] is able to fix it themselves is low for 2 reasons. Not that many people are trained in fixing centrifuges or have the kind of kind of mechanical, I'm just going to freaking do this thing and fix it. And even if they did, what are the odds that someone who's working for you feels comfortable ripping apart your

[21:01] centrifuge because what if they mess it up? You know what I'm saying? So it's very hard to get someone at the bar to be able to do something like fix a centrifuge for you. So if you're not willing to fix it or you're not able to get there instantly to fix it, if it goes

[21:14] down, or if you don't have some sort of, you know, way that you don't need those menu items on a regular basis, then get

[21:19] a backup. Yeah? Did you fix it yesterday? Yes. See, I have to say. We had one that was broken yesterday. The brushes, it was the brushes that went bad, and I might need to replace it again, but I was able to get it to run, no problem.

[21:31] Look, it's the kind of thing. It's like, you know, I know that Stas and I said that we weren't going to be, you know, you know, duct tape and bubble gum. I did the brushes last time. was like balancing on 2 things and you had it like it was underneath. It's still like that. Yeah. Well, this is like on, yeah, on a sheet tray. that didn't fit on. Right. Yeah, this one, it's like, I mean, look, if you guys knew

[21:54] the kind of like real dumb way that we have to do things 9 times

[21:59] out of times. The funniest thing ever happened, I forget who it was, somebody once like said that they accuse us of like having all this like awesome equipment and like

[22:09] like cushy everything. And while that thing came in, I think I was literally lifting a centrifuge by

[22:15] myself, like, up to a place over my head so I could go underneath it and work on the motor. Remember that day? Oh my god. anyway. You know, again, like, we're not as duct tape as we were before, though, right? Styles were getting a little better. Yeah, but whatever. It's like, it's like, uh, it's like Jack. You know how we've had this conversation a 1000000000 times, but it's always worth having again. You know how in a band you keep on saying that someday someone else is going to move your equipment for you? Yeah. Is that ever happen? Yes. Hey, you have other people moving your equipment now? No. I mean, not fully, but sometimes in some gigs, you know. Really? Yeah. Man, I was always, I was like, I'm going to get to the point in my life where someone's going to carry my base rig around. No, you won't. No, you won't. You know, and it's the same thing with our crap. Same thing with the cooking crap. You never get there. All right. Brian Haggerty writes in from Minneapolis. And by the way, he says at the end that we were wondering about it once that the abbreviation for Minneapolis, MPLS. Did you know that? Really? Yeah. Mipples. See, it doesn't make sense. I don't I don't get Minneapolis. NYC, you get. NYC, you get New York City, but many... Wait, MNPS? No, M-P-L-S. N-P-L-S. M like Minnesota or Minneapolis. P, like, political science, L, like, latrine, S, like, sandwich. Mipples. But, like, the thing is, is like, like, I don't know, like, MIPS

[23:50] or MIPS. I't know, like mini nipples? There's no end. To me, Minneapolis is about the ends, right? Minneapolis. Min. This is just nipples. How about an MMP? MNP, or MNPS, Memphis, Memphis. I don't know. I don't know, dude. How about just Minneapolis? I'm looking at the word Minneapolis next to nipples, and I'm not... I'm not feeling it. You feeling it? No, it's just not, no. No, no. No, right? No, no, no, no, no. At 1st I thought it was like some sort of contraction of like Minneapolis, St. Paul, like a kind of twin city thing, but it's not. It's literally just Minneapolis. Crap on those St. Paul people. not even in there. You know what I mean? Whatever. nipples I kind of now I kind of like it. Now I have in my uh, in my head, um, you know, like at the beginning of a lot of rap songs, I'll be like, nipples, nipples, nipples,

[24:45] nipples. You know what I mean? Like public enemy used to do that all, but they wouldn't say nipples. They'd be like, uh, uh, what's that song? Come, the drums. It's off, I'll look it up. anyway. But that's what I have it going through my head. I have someone like mipping, mipping, mip. Oh I know, it's that, never mind. not going to get into it. It's off of, uh, uh, 91, the, uh, the, what is it? The 91, the enemy Strikes Black or the Empire Strikes Black? Remember that album, Jack? Anyway, Brian Haggerty writes in, regarding Chia. I recently discovered your show and I'm loving it. I'm wondering if you had any. well thank you. I'm wondering if you had any thoughts about the usefulness of chia seeds. Can you do the Chia song for me? No. Come on. Jack, can you do the cheese song? Am I going to have to do it? I want to do it. have to do it. Okay, did you used to do those things when you were a kid? Yeah? You know what? most recently I had a new old stock. This is maybe 10 years ago. Mr. T Chi ahead. It's awesome. His mohawk is perfect because it's got the ridges in it to hold the chia seeds. Did you do chia pets when you were a kid, Jack? Why not? What hell's wrong with you? You don't like cheap pets? So, is he like a classic chia pet? Or do you like some weird chia pets? No, classic. I had the classic. Not like some sort of Homer Simpson growing hair thing. Classic. I imagine that seems like a very California thing. They have chia seeds in disgusting stuff now. like in juices. That's what we're about to talk about. Do you prefer basil seeds? I had my 1st one 2 days ago and I thought it was disgusting, the texture. Have you had it? It's like mucilage. Gross. In a beverage. People like it I thought it was going to be like, because it was raspberry flavor that it would be, I like raspberry seeds, you know, so I could like crunch. Yeah, the raspberry seeds, and we're about to talk about this, or very different from chia seeds. I know. didn't know that. Yeah, hugely different. Gross. Gross. Gross. What are your actual thoughts? Gross, gross. Are you going to have a new face just for chia seeds? Still sitting in my fridge. Still sitting in your fridge? You couldn't convince anyone to drink that? No. No. How, like, how Xanthan looking is it? Not very Xanthan looking, but the texture is very. Yeah, very Xantan. So we'll get into it. So anyway, I recently, uh, okay, blah, blah, blah. As you know, okay. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about the usefulness of chia seeds, backing up so people know because obviously I went off on a tangent because I cannot help myself. As I'm sure you know, they absorb a ton of water and form a weird gel.

[27:18] When you say that's accurate stuff, Weird gel. She's got her weird gel face on her chia gel face. Her trying to keep it down in her mind, face, on. Various vegan folks suggest, I like that various vegan folks. It's got a good ring to it. You have good alliterative pros, Brian. Various vegan folks suggest using a slurry of ground seeds, ground chia

[27:42] seeds, and water, one tablespoon of ground seeds to 3 tablespoons water in place of an egg. Yeah? Okay. I have used chia seeds in turkey meatloaf to good effect. America's Test Kitchen has a turkey burger recipe that calls for gelatin to offset the dryness of the turkey.

[28:00] Or you could just not overcook the freaking turkey America's Test Kitchen. This is why turkey burgers suck so hard. They always are over freaking cooked. Why do people do this? It's like salmon burgers. Like someone throws you a salmon burger and they overcook the piss out of it because if

[28:15] they salmon burgers, Like, theoretically, a salmon burger is a good idea, right? Except for they always make it too far in advance. The sucker oxidize as you get that oxidized salmon flavor and it's overcooked into a dry puck and they do the same thing with the turkey burgers. And when they order the turkey burger out. I'm like, don't order the turkey burger. Don't do it. You know what I mean? Anyways. But you can make a good turkey burger without using chia seeds or gelatin.

[28:44] If you just take care, whatever. not going to get into that. Were not talking about that right now. Okay. I have used back to the question. I have used chia seeds and turkey meatloaf to good effect. America's Test Kitchen has a turkey burger recipe that calls for gelatin to offset the dryness

[28:58] of the turkey. So I figured I'd use chia slurry. How do you like that word? Chias leri. Instead of gelatin. I also mixed in ground dry chia seeds on the theory that as the meat cooked and released its juices,

[29:12] those juices might be captured by the chia seeds and thus be retained in the loaf. I don't know if this mechanism, this mechanism functioned, but I do know the finished product was juicy and delicious. Awesome. Awesome. That's good. Uh, I used chia seeds in crepe batter in place of eggs to weird effect. The seeds thickened the batter like crazy, so I added a ton of water plus some oil to thin it down, and it cooked up strangely with lots of holes that developed as the water evaporated.

[29:41] The taste was not bad, but it wasn't much like a crepe. Yeah. So, remember, you know, you don't want a lot of, like, you know, big, like,

[29:48] injira style bubbles in a crepe, and, uh, this kind of xanthani effect is going to have a different water hole. So you should think of chia like a Xanthan because it forms a mucilaginous slime. And literally, like, technically, they're like, it forms a mucilaginous slime, much like

[30:06] Xanthan does. So you're gonna get, you know how like, you remember when we used to foam Xanthan foams for demo styles, you get those big holes in them because of the way it holds. I don't know if it technically forms. Um, I don't know if the gel because of what I was reading, uh, has what's called a yield point, which I'll get to in a minute. But, um, so things like Xanthan have a yield point. So they actually act like a solid, you know, a gel up to a particular amount of force being applied, and then they shear thin rapidly. I know that Chia from the research I was doing is rapidly sheer thinning, but I don't know kind of how much of a yield point it has. Anyway, yield point is really good for things like eggs. So I'm imagining it does have a yield point because that's why Xanthan is so good at replacing eggs because it's not a protein, but it has a yield

[30:49] point so it can hold things pretty well. Anyways. So the taste was not bad, but it wasn't much like a crepe. Anyway, modernist cuisine, modernist cooking uses all kinds of weird gelling agents, but I haven't seen very much about chia gel in the modernist cooking related stuff I've read so far. For instance, science fair, which is like Naveen and Kevin and those guys. No, the Harvard or ex-Harvard guys, because they're not at Harvard anymore, right? They're gone. They have a long list of hydrocolid and hydrocolid enablers, but chia seeds not on the list. I'm interested in your thoughts. Brian Haggerty. Okay, so, you know, look, the interesting thing is, oh, by the way, before I get started, just take a look at this. Um, document. It's open source so you can get it on the internet, the International Journal of Food

[31:34] Science, volume, uh, 2014, uh, article 241, 053. It's called Chemical and Functional Properties of Chia Seed, Salvia Hispanica, Gum, by Myra, Ruby,

[31:49] Segura Campos, at all. It's available online. It's a good read. And interestingly, you know, what they said that I found interesting is that it was used in Aztec ceremonies,

[32:00] chia seeds for a long time. And their argument, I haven't researched the history of it enough, is that it's literally because it had religious significance, that when the conquistadors came in and wiped out all traces of religious

[32:14] ceremony, that Chia was kind of expunged. And that's why it wasn't used very much in that kind of stuff for a long time, even though it remained a traditional food stuff. But that she accedes was an incredibly important food stuff. Like in the words of the article, less than corn, less important than corn, but more important than

[32:33] amaranth. Interesting. So, all hydrocolloids, almost all hydrocolloids are natural things that are extracted either from, um, fermentation like xanthan or

[32:47] gelan, so, you know, a bacteria or a fungus is making a slime and

[32:51] uh, that slime is then, you know, purified and turned into a gum. Um, or from things like seeds. Um, so guar, seed, um, you know, locust bean, seed. So, you know, that's how we come up with hydrocolids. But the interesting thing is there are a lot of seeds out there that have hydrocolloid properties in them that have just never been really research from industrial

[33:16] standpoints. Sometimes it's because there's not enough production out there, and sometimes it's just an oversight. And so this article is saying that they believe that chia seeds do have the ability to have some

[33:26] commercialization, in terms of their use, because they can be grown in places where other things aren't necessarily going to grow very well,

[33:33] and they have some interesting properties. So what are those properties? Chia seed forms a slimy gel at very low concentrations, as Nastasia knows from her raspberry drink. But also what's interesting about chia seeds is chia seeds were an important dietary

[33:49] item because they're very high in oil. So it's a very, like they're 39% oil, very high oil percentage. And if you soak the chia seeds, or grind them and you get this mucilaginous sludge. This mucilaginous sludge is mainly formed by a polysaccharide, as all

[34:05] hydrocolloids are, but it also has a large protein component in it, the way that gum Arabic does, and a very high oil component in it.

[34:13] And that combination, that kind of triple threat of oil

[34:18] and, you know, oil and polysaccharide and protein means that it not only can hold and absorb water, but it can hold and absorb oil, and they think because of the protein also can

[34:30] emulsify. So you can use it as an emulsifier, hence it's a good, maybe good replacer for something like eggs. I haven't experimented with this. This is all just this article, but I'm pretty interesting interested in it. Unfortunately, to get the pure hydrocoloid, and by the way, the yield of this gum is fairly high,

[34:48] like on the order of 10, 11% by weight of the chia seed, right? So like a good bit of it is functional. Then the rest of it you have to deal with is the seed and all that other stuff. Most of the, they think that most of these properties are concentrated in the outer coat, you know, near the edge of the seat. Anyways. Unfortunately, to produce it the way they produced it in the article, you have to soak the seeds, blend them, then, you know, then you have to like heat it at 50

[35:12] C, and then you have to spin it at 10,000 times the force of gravity for like 3 or 4 hours to get

[35:17] the, you know, separate the seeds out from the gum, and then you can dry it and have the gum.

[35:22] So, you know, interesting, but I've never, I've never used it, but it is very interesting. Maybe, uh, because they suggest maybe making mayonnaises with it or anything that needs emulsifying or oil holding, but you don't want to

[35:32] use, um, things like eggs. Anyway. Uh, so we got a quick uh, quick 2 questions in. Jared writes in about ISIs. With respect to flavor extraction into alcohol and oil. How do chamber vacuums and uh, EC uh, whippers, ISIEC, whippers differ. And if you can start with only one, which is preferred, or is there a better option than either of them, especially for long-term shelf life of the

[35:59] flavor? This alcohol percentage or oil type matter, what else should be considered? Thanks very much. Okay. I'm not I'm not going to push my book except for I go into like excruciating detail in the book on this kind of

[36:12] stuff. And so I'm like, I'm not going to be able to go as in depth here. I will say this. Yes, alcohol percentage matters. Uh, I mean, higher or lower alcohol isn't necessarily better or worse, but higher alcohol is going to extract things quicker, right? So it all depends on what kind of a flavor. It's like anything else. There's no better. There is no good guys. There is no bad guys. Just you and me, Stas, and we just disagree. You know what I mean? Yeah, that she likes that song. She's bop into that one. We all know that's a good tune. anyway. Oil type. I don't think it's going to matter as much except for, I guess, obviously if something's a solid fat or liquid fat. So maybe it does matter. I don't have as much experience with that. I usually use neutrals or oil whose flavor I particularly like, something like olive oil. With respect to vacuum machine versus EC. Um, the fundamental, the fundamental point is this. The EC is a lot more flexible. It has a lot more power to do infusions because the pressure differentials are a lot wider. Uh, and, you know, you can do things like heat it in the in the EC. You can, you know, put a much higher pressure differential. It's easier to deal with. That said, um, if you can deal with the lower pressure differentials that you're working on in a vacuum machine, which is only like 15 PSI, the advantage that a vacuum machine

[37:29] has is you can do a huge quantity at once, like, you know, depends on the size of your vacuum machine, but I've

[37:35] done, like, gallons at once, uh, that's, you know, 4 liters in units of 4 liters for eumetric

[37:41] types. And, you know, so it can do that kind of a thing. And to be able to do that with pressure, you would move away from an EC and you would get a 5 gallon Cornelius

[37:51] keg and you'd hook it up to a nitrous tank or in a pinch of CO2 tank if you had time to let it vent

[37:57] off. And you could do it that way. But, um, if you could do it in an EC and you could afford the chargers, then I'd say it's a superior technique to using a vacuum.

[38:08] But, and it's a lot easier to experiment with the EC, um, because the unit quantities are much smaller. So anyway, that's my feelings on it. But, you know, again, in the book, I wrote so many. I can't even, like, I can't even think about it anymore because of all the words I wrote in that freaking book.

[38:25] Stas won't even look at the book. As you all know, she uses it as kind of a McDLT hot food separator. Like that's, she can't, doesn't want to open it. I think she might have it taped shut so that she never has to see anything on the inside of it. And but she says it's just thick enough to make sure that you never get the hot side mixing with the cold

[38:43] side. So it's, you know, at least it's pretty flat, right? It doesn't bend too much. So, you know, I've done a good job right there. That's all I can hope for. Last in. Alvin Schultz, our good friend Alvin Schultz, writes in about eggnog. Hi Dave, Hammer, Jack, Indie Jesus, Santa's Hipster, and Friends. I've been inspired by Booker and Daxes, Nick Bennett, and haven't we all been inspired by Nick Bennett to make some aged eggnog for next year and years to come. Bennett just did a tasting recently of like three-year-old eggnog or something like this. I recently had a one-year-old eggnog from Hail Pale in PDX. It was delicious and I didn't die. Good news. I'm glad you're not dead, Oven. Dave, what's your thoughts on the safety of the 2 recipes listed below, particularly

[39:22] are my final ABV calculations correct, and should the mix be sterile and safe to drink after a year,

[39:27] plus if it's sealed in mason jars, not canned or cooked, and stored, and wrapped in foil at room temp. I wouldn't keep him in room temp. keep it in the fridge. I keep it in the fridge. Wouldn't you cut stars? Why do they have to be room temp, Alvin? I don't know about room temp. Because all those studies, I think, were in fridge. Although I have to ask Bennett how he stored it. I don't know. I didn't read that when I was reading it. And also, Alvin, your your ABVs didn't come in. Um, but Nick said he shook his a couple of times a month to keep it homogenized. I also plan on shaking it every so often. If it matters, I'll be using farm eggs unpasteurized. I don't think it matters. The whole point is, if it's safe, it's safe no matter what kind of an egg you used. The guys at Rockefeller University who famously did the study, I think, in 2008. I think it was 2008, of the eggnogs that they have been making for 65 years based on a recipe that was handed down to them from someone who was born in like 1890 and she got it from

[40:14] her, like grandma or something like that. That recipe. Um, you know, that recipe they tested by inoculating the eggs and the whole batch with salmonella and seeing if it killed it.

[40:25] So the whole point is, is that if it's safe, it's going to be safe no matter what kind of an egg you use. So anyway, if it matters, I'll be using farm eggs and high quality dairy products from a local creamery. I'm also at high risk. I'm not at high risk for illness, illness, and or pregnancy. And the 2 recipes of a mixing are Michael Rubens and George Washington's. Yeah, the George Washington. Washington's recipe emits number of eggs used, so I calculated what Roman's yolk ratio was and inserted into Washington's booze dairy mix. All right. So I couldn't look at your calculations. They't come through on the email album, but what I would look up is Dr. Rebecca Lancefield's eggnog recipe. That's the one that was tested by Rockefeller University. That recipe is a dozen eggs, whole eggs, not yolks, whole eggs. A quart of heavy cream, one quart light cream, one pint bourbon, one quart rum, nutmeg, and a half

[41:11] pound to 3 quarter of a pound of sugar. So what you're looking at here, sugar is going to reduce the water activity and make it a little bit safer. And the eggs water activity is what it is. But in terms of the other things, you're looking at a quart of heavy cream and a quart of light cream, which has a lot of fat in it.

[41:26] So there's actually like, you know, a good deal of not water in that too. But you're looking at, for that ratio, a pint of bourbon, and a quart of rum. Okay? So a quart and a half of liquid for that level. George Washington's recipe is one quart of cream, one quart of milk, but who the hell knows what that

[41:42] means because that's like 1700s, who the hell knows? You know what I mean? It wasn't getting it from a store. One dozen tablespoons sugar, which is like, what is that? A dozen tablespoons. It's like not quite a cup. What is that? Well, it's 8 tablespoons in a stick of butter and that's a half cup, right? So not quite a cup. Anyway, one pint, here's where we get the important part. One part, one pint brandy, one half pint, rye whiskey, one half pint Jamaica rum. So now we're at pint, half pint, half pint, full pint, quart,

[42:15] uh, and one quarter pint sherry. Then you mix that and you separate the yolks and the whites, which is interesting, and you beat in the yolks and then whip the egg whites up and fold them in.

[42:25] So you're looking at Washington's recipe is a little less alcoholic than the other one. And he also only lets it sit for a couple of days tasting frequently. So, I mean, I don't know whether Washington's recipe, as written, is safe. It's clearly a little less alcoholic than Dr. Rebecca Lansfield's eggnog, which is guaranteed safe because they ran a challenge test on it. But it's not that much less alcoholic. So you might, yeah, I mean, might be safe. I don't know. Uh, and then Roman's, 12 egg yolks, 2 cups granulated sugar, a liter of bourbon, only 4 cups

[42:56] milk, and one cup heavy cream, and +3 quarters a cup of cognac, and a half cup of Myers, dark

[43:01] rum, and a pinch of salt. A, that sucks. higher in alcohol content than the other one. So I'm going to go ahead and say that Roman's recipe is 100% guarantee. Obviously, Lancefield's recipe is a guarantee because they tested that sucker and George Washington. I can't vouch for it, but probably if you let sit around long enough, it, you know, it's going to be safe, but I'm not going to guarantee

[43:23] it. But good old George Washington. He didn't die Well, he did, but not on that. Cooking issues. Thanks for listening to this program on Heritage Radio Network.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website or as podcasts in the iTunes

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