[0:00] Today's show was brought to you by molecularecipes.com, the world's number one source for modernist recipes, techniques,

[0:07] ingredients, and tools. I'm Damon Bolte, host of the speakeasy. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageradionetwork.org for 1000s more.

[0:25] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live on the Heritage Radio

[0:33] Network in Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Joined as usual with Nastasia Hammer Lopez and Jack in the engineering booth today. How you doing, guys? Isn't it our 200th? No, not yet. No, because we skipped last week. This is like, what is this, 99 or 98? That was 98. No, it's either 198 or 199 today. Oh, 199. 199. 199 episodes. And we're on next week, right? Yeah, well, I mean you tell us. Oh, ha, ha, nanny, nanny, poo, poo. I forget what we were. Oh yeah, we had... What should we do for 200? I don't know. Like, as people like, by the way, should you have any questions? I have a lot. I have a huge backlog, people. I don't wanna hear it. We might have to do a catch up. before 200. Well, then that would technically be 200. I would upload it and it would be 200, you know? So you're saying we have to do ketchup after 200. Right. All right, listen. Will there be champagne next week? Yes. Oh, Stas is going to show up. I just confirmed. Stas, you know what Stas told me? Right before the show, Stas was like, you know what? I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm not gonna show up. And then she's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? Champagne. and listen. Here's the question. Are we actually talking champagne? Who do we have? Are you any bubbly? Really? No preference? Cava? was ready to take your preference. Whoa. No, just get it. I mean, it's 200. Well, that's true. It is 200. Stas, listen. So we can get Krug. Maybe for 200, million stars can host the show we've been wanting to host for 200

[2:08] episodes. called issues. Yeah, just where we talk about our issues and solve your issues unrelated to cooking. Like my personal issues? Anybody, anybody's, yeah. Just issues in general? Just issues. That's a wide-ranging show. You could just take the 3 of our issues and fill a whole show. anyway, listen. So calling your questions two. 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. And I also want you guys to maybe come up with some sweet, sweet ideas for

[2:31] the 200, right? Yeah, send us some email. I got some listener emails with some ideas, but keep them coming. Yeah? Yeah. All right. Very good. Okay. So some updates. Uh, we had uh, MRAC on the, he is at Test Tube Waltz. That's his or her. Actually, I don't know. M. M. Her? Her? Test Tube Waltz wrote in because someone had asked about how to suspend citrus

[2:59] oils. Remember this question a couple weeks back? And so his her suggestion is uh, used uh, leveraged Esther of wood rosin is a new brominated vegetable oil. and not poly sorbet, but maybe, maybe, because you can have to be able to get the leverage ester of, uh, wood, uh, rosin,

[3:16] try lessin. Um, and also, uh, cyclodextrine might work to carry citrus oil, and it's clear. The carrying capacity is lower, however. So there you go. That's a follow-up for I forget who it was that asked about that, but I love it when people follow up on the Twitter. I try to read it back. And then we had one. Someone tried to ask about mushroom oil. Remember that one? Someone's going to make mushroom oil because they couldn't have the mushrooms necessarily, I think, was what it was. And I forgot, I'm sorry, whoever tweeted this into me. I forgot to copy who it came from, but I think this was at Clefts, maybe. Maybe this was that Clef did this. To make mushroom oil, take neutral oil, dry mushrooms, and a 2 to one ratio, blend for about 8 minutes until very, or until very fine.

[3:54] Cook at 80 degrees Celsius in 24 hours, for 24 hours in a water bath, strain it, or don't.

[4:01] It's up to you. Strain adult. I don't know where I don't know where they come from. So that's how I assume they sound like. In my head, that's how everyone sounds like until I hear you. Pretty much right, right? Yeah, all right. Okay. Um, I feel like I need to answer Max uh, Max's questions about outdoor kitchens because, like, it's been like, I don't know, a month and a half or something. So I want to build an outdoor kitchen with a big barbecue, not the right time of year in our part of the

[4:22] woods, by the way. Uh, so, like, I'm definitely gonna, but anyway, okay. I'd like to build an outdoor kitchen with a big barbecue, a smoker, and maybe a rotisserie. You like rotisseries does? You like rotisserie cooked things? What about you, Jack? Are you fan of the rotisserie? Oh, yeah. Why is, do you know why the rotisserie is good? No. Okay. I would assume because it's even? Well, it's it works in in... Okay, so McGee and I have this thing and it's like, you know, the kind of like the law of why the rotisserie works good. Well, good. It was good. So like the reason why is, um, it has a very high instantaneous heat input, but a very low average heat

[4:58] input. So you develop that nice crust with a nice surface with a high instantaneous heat input, but because your average heat input is low, it acts almost like a low

[5:07] temperature kind of a cooking situation. So it's a very old way to achieve kind of modern results if you want. See, see what I mean? See? I built a rotisserie once. I did too. How did you build your rotisserie? I built several. How do you build yours? Over spit with ropes and then I would turn it. Oh, you turned it by hit. the power? That was the power. Right. Well, you know, I did, we did this TV show thing once where I had to, we, they had to, they used an actual dog to power the spit because they used to have turnspit dogs that would run

[5:33] a little hamster wheels. No, no, a Tudor, Tudor era. This was time machine. Time machine, chief. Yes. But also, like, I built a rotisserie once that fit into my salamander, but I had to pull out the dripping grease dripping

[5:47] trade. Otherwise, the chickens wouldn't fit into it. I was like, you know, I don't want to just do Cornish hens, so I've got to do the chicken. So I had to drop it down and get rid of the grease tray. But the other best rotisserie I ever did. You know what the problem with rotisserie motors is? People. Rotisserie motors suck, and here's why. The average rotisserie motor you can get is really just a POS and here's why. They don't have 0 backlash gears. So what's happening is the rotisserie needs to spin slowly. Let's say it does, I don't know, three, 4 hour PMs, something like that, 4 PM, right? lets say it. around there. don't know. I got to look it up. But anyways, so you put the shaft on it and you've weighted your whatever,

[6:22] hopefully so that it doesn't so that it's even and doesn't like, you know, move around on your skewer on your spit too much, right?

[6:28] Now here's what happens. You never, ever, ever load it exactly right. There's always some sort of imbalance. So what happens is, is the motor goes, you've heard them, right? And then it gets to the point where that top load goes over and then it goes into free fall for, you know, a good, a

[6:47] good, like, seven, 8 degrees. And it goes, ka chink. And then it goes, again, as it goes around and you can hear it. And so what's the problem with this? Well, one, one section of your thing isn't getting hit for the same amount of time as the rest, which is stupid.

[7:00] But also, it puts like, not only did it start out in balance, but it puts a chink, chink,

[7:06] chink load on it every freaking time it spins around. And so every freaking time it spins around, it has a little bit of force added to

[7:13] it, and it gets more and more soft or cooked or, you know, hot, it has a tendency to spin out. So you get all these things where it runs all right for a while and then craps out on you unless you're used to it and do a really good

[7:23] job or you have the side, you know, I'm talking about the side chinks that really sit in there and really crush that stuff. I hate that. I hate it. And so, you know, the 1st rotisserie I ever built. I used a 0 backlash, really expensive motor because I stole it. Like, we had like a pile of motors that the Columbia University had, and they didn't know what they didn't know because, like, they were shutting this department down, so there's a huge pile of motors there. So we used a sweet old Bodine motor with an awesome gear shaft, like a long thing. We cut a 55 gallon drum in half, incinerated all of the carcinogenic

[7:52] paint off of it, so it was dry. cut a sheet of expanded metal in half, 4 by 8 sheet of expanded metal in half that we also stole, put it over the thing, welded some legs on

[8:01] it, and put like a giant pig on this rotisserie. It was awesome. And you know what? That motor had no backlash. Anyway, so in terms of rotisseries. What I would suggest is either hire Anastasia to come and be the power for the rotisserie, but some of these things cook a long time. You know what I mean? Yeah, what about the, you ever do the vertical one? The one in the fireplace with the spinning thing where you use the just the, no, anyway. Hire Nastasia to come. And, you know, she gets her energy from... from spite and hate. So you'd have to like, you know, if you stand there, then I'm sure she'll have enough energy. And it was energy from happiness. Oh, but

[8:39] get a 0 backlash motor when you're making a rotisserie. And the other thing is, if you're going to have a rotisserie there that's powered, you're going to need to obviously get electricity. Now, there's 2 kinds of kind of outdoor kitchens. Now, the question actually was, do I have any good literature and or blogs on the subject that I can recommend? Answer, no, because, you know, I haven't done, like the full research on it. I've been researching right now, just what's the best way to pour the concrete, for the slabs,

[9:03] the refractory, bricks, and things like this? I've been looking at individual things. Because remember in my outdoor, so there's various kinds of outdoor kitchens. Outdoor kitchens are extremely popular now, so even like Quick Crete, the concrete people have a book that they put out that shows you, you know, how to lay it out and, you know, do the coursing and stuff to

[9:21] build it. But most people fundamentally want just, you know, an outdoor kitchen, i.e. they want

[9:27] their, uh, they want their fridge. They want, you know, a bunch of stuff, electric and gas at it. I'm going to have gas there as a gas assist for the fire pit, but I'm primarily building an outdoor wood fired kind of cooking station, uh, and not like, I mean, maybe

[9:43] a traditional one, except for I am going to have gas to it to run the gas assist and to run the deep fryer, which is going to need to be

[9:48] covered because my deep fryer is going to be outside in Connecticut. So I don't have anything right now, except for, like I said before, I'm going to build a criticula, which is the Roman style thing, like

[9:58] a high heat surface, a bread oven, a tandor, and a fire pit. Maybe I'll build a rotisserie thing into it. And I will probably want a fridge, right? In a fryer? You want a fridge? Because why? Because you need a fridge. Because why not? And work surfaces. So as I do it, I will talk more about it on the show, but I don't have any specific references right now,

[10:17] but you know, obviously I love telling people where I get ideas. So as I do it, I will come up with information. It's too cold. You're in Sweden for Christ's sakes, how are you building an outdoor kitchen in Sweden right now? Although I remember when I went to Stockholm, I think I talked about this on the show, like I went in January or February, January. And the people in Stockholm were so baller, because they're just, they're sitting outside in Stockholm in the

[10:40] wintertime having drinks, and everyone just like has blankets on, like giant blankets, and they're standing under heat lamps outside, and they're like, what? What? What? Anyway, so Swedes, love them. Okay, um, Jasper, you also wrote a question from Sweden on uh, RotoVaps, but it's long and complicated. I get to it. to it later and it's about chilling. So did I answer that one already, actually? I don't know Jack will figure out whether I did. Stephanie wrote. I don't think so. All right. Stephanie wrote in from Sydney, Australia. you ever been in Australia? No, you know this. What about you, Jack? I have not, no. No. I want to go to Australia someday. I want to go to New Zealand someday in Australia. So far away, so far. I'm Stephanie from Sydney and I love listening to your podcast. I have a slow juicer that I use almost daily. Slow juicer sounds like a dance, doesn't it? Slow juice. Sure. Yeah. Over the last year, a white film has built up all over

[11:35] all over the internal services, even though I wash it properly every time. I've been trying to look up what causes this and how to get rid of it. Most articles on the internet tell me it is caused by the oils and the fruit and the vegetables and to clean it with bicarbonate plus vinegar solution. So like, well, that's just making foaming, right? Bicarbonate may have aware. Uh, I've tried this and it works on the lighter bits of white film, white, right? White film. Uh, but some of the buildup, especially in the nooks and crannies. Ooh, nooks and crannies. Now I'm thinking of Thomas's English muffins. You like Thomas's English muffins? Who doesn't like them? You know how you kill a Thomas's English muffin? Slice that sucker in half with a knife so that you cut all the crannies. You got to fork split them. Yeah, it's gotta be a fork. Got to be fork split. How many times have you seen someone try to bust out a bunch of Thomas's English muffins and they cut it with a knife and they obliterate them. And ridiculous. You need a fork. Makes me so and my blood boils. People do that. Crazy. Okay. Uh, where was I? Nooks and crannies. Uh, they they crap. And the nooks and crannies are a lot more stubborn. They wouldn't be if Nastasia did it because they'd just be sliced flat. Anyway, um, Okay. It also takes a lot of bicarbon vinegar to get anywhere. Another website says to rub extra virgin olive oil on it, something about oil dissolving

[12:54] in oil, like oil on oil action. You like that size? Okay. But this only works superficially. Once the plastic bits are clean and dry, the white film is still present. No one likes a white film. No one likes a white film. I'm wondering if you have any idea what causes this. And if you have any better way of getting rid of this stubborn juice or scum, thanks. Regards, Stephanie, go. So the truth of the matter is, is that I kind of just put up with things like, like, films, I probably shouldn't, right? But I did some look into it. And if they are, in fact, oil-based, I don't know this is going to work, and I couldn't find anyone that specifically recommended it, but one of the most stubborn things that I have to get off of anything

[13:35] is like really baked in coffee oils. They're really a pain in the butt on the internals of like espresso machines and things like this. And UNX or like espresso machine or coffee machine, detergent is pretty hardcore. So assuming that your products are made of a plastic that can be boiled, then you can just boil those suckers in, um, in

[13:59] earn X or whatever, like the local equivalent of espresso machine cleaning detergent

[14:04] is. And that stuff is no joke. That, like, I put my, uh, you know, my brass into it that has like all like kind of crap on it from the inside of this espresso machine, like, you know, the, uh, where the group head

[14:15] is, and boom, the chrome stuff comes out shining. Um, plastic things. I'd cook my I cook my my coffee brush brushes, which are, you know, pretty tough. I cook those in it and they come out sparkling. So that stuff's pretty good. Another thing is neutrafaster, the juicer, which is like kind of like one of the butt kicking juicers of all juicing

[14:38] time. It's like, it's the one that looks like a spaceship on top of a pillar. They make a product for cleaning out the metal parts of their juicers in case they get filmed or slimed

[14:47] out. It's proprietary, and it's called clean cut, but you can buy it from neutra faster, and that stuff might work. And then, as a last thing, in case it is some sort of build up, um, that is related to, uh, water maybe, maybe, I don't know, hard water or something. And even I've read some things that things that aren't having to do with this can be solved by using CLR, which is the calcium, lime, and rust deposit

[15:10] remover, and like maybe there's something in there that's attacked by that. So give those 3 things a try and let me know what happens, right? Yeah. Alex writes in. I don't think we got, do we talk about Wondra? No. One draw. Hello, Nastasia, Jack, and Dave. Thanks for the show and everything else. I've listened to just about every back episode over the past 2 years, and I haven't heard you comment about pressure cookers that don't leak any steam as being better, but I cannot recall ever hearing why.

[15:36] I have some guesses, but would rather hear your reason. And if it's a slow day and you have time for another question. Last week, you spoke to a caller about ultra spurse versus uh, M versus three. Al, remember, ultra spurse are the pre-agglomerated, um, pre-cooked starches that dissolve

[15:54] anise, as opposed to, um, you know, the ones that are just pre-cooked, but then when you put them in, they can clump very quickly because they, they, you know, they form, they form balls because

[16:03] they, they clump. That why you get a pre-glomerated. Anyway, I'm unfamiliar with them beyond being pre-gelatinized starch,

[16:09] maize, and tapioca, respectively. How are they different than Wondra, which is the, you know, a wheat flour that you can buy, which we'll talk about. And what am I missing out by not using them? Thanks again, Alex. Okay. Um, 1st to the pressure cooker. I don't know why. I really don't. Like, um, it was one of those things that I never anticipated. Um, I never anticipated. what we did years and years ago. I was doing a test on pressure cooked stocks and I had assumed that pressure cooked stocks would beat traditional stocks like very easily because I had made pressure cooked stocks for years at home with my pressure cooker, which is a coon recon. And I, at school, they had these kind of these Fagor pressure cookers and the Fagor pressure cookers, they, the way they work

[16:56] by, to regulate pressure is they vent a constant amount of steam to keep the internals of the thing at 15

[17:01] psi. And what you do is, is you just throttle it down so it's only leaking a little bit of steam and then you know that it is running at pressure. That's how they regulate their pressure. Whereas Coon Recon has a spring in it, and what happens is you can look at it, and you can adjust the height of the spring, which says how much pressure it is.

[17:18] So you just use your heat regulation to adjust how high the spring pressure is, but it doesn't until it gets old and the seals start getting weak, it doesn't leak any steam as it's cooking. So anyways, so I'm there making a pressure cooker a stock in the

[17:30] Fagor, and I do this side by side and it comes out looking like I expected. Pressure cooker stocks come out browner than regular stocks. Um, so, you know, everything's as expected. We go do our blind taste test. Boom. The traditional stock, like everyone liked it better. Everyone liked it better. I liked it better. I was like, because you don't want that to happen. I mean, you do, but you don't. And then, uh, we did it again and traditional stocks win again. And remember, I had already started writing a blog post this, but I'm already like a 1000 words into the blog post. I don't want it to be for nothing and I got to publish this negative result. So I bring my pressure cooker from home. And I make stock and it wins easily over the traditional stock. And then we did all 3 side by side another couple of times. And so we just did it empirically. It just turned out that these pressure cookers that were venting a lot as they were cooking. We're not producing the same taste results as the ones that didn't. And I don't know why to this day. I've never had someone run GC Mass Spec on it to see whether we're losing a particular volatile. I have no, I have no speculation that makes any sense. I just know it from empirically and until someone comes back and shows me, you know, that why or what I was doing

[18:41] wrong. I just stick with the coon recon that doesn't vent, or you can seal stock in jars or cans inside of a venting pressure cooker and get those same results.

[18:50] Anyways. One draw. So, ultra spurse, all of those ultra spurse products are pure starches that are, you know, they're very highly kind of

[18:59] refined starches that have very specific characteristics that are nice, but they're pure starches that are pre-cooked, then agglomerated so that they dissolve properly. Wondra, on the other hand, is flour that is precooked and agglomerated. So it's not wheat, wheat, starch, it's wheat flour, that is kind of instantized in the way that these other things are instantized.

[19:23] So in a situation where you would want to bring, I think it's low protein flour. If you want to bring, uh, like the, all the characteristics of a low protein flour, including the protein into it, then you would use

[19:34] a wandra. So like one drill, a lot of people use it. A lot of people use pre, you know, pre-aglomerate, pre-gelatinized starches in batters, for instance. I think because they can absorb and capture water very quickly. I don't know why. There's a bunch of studies on it, but I don't really remember the mechanisms of it. Anyways, so that's the difference and that's, you know, use one where you would want a pure starch and use the other where you would want all the characteristics of

[19:58] a flower just in an instant format. Tom Fisher wrote in about lobster. I don't know whether answered this. Dear Dave, Nastasia, Jack, Wyatt, not here of today. He just got here later. Oh, hey, Wyatt, what's up, buddy? You got called out right in time. Perfect. I mean, this song right now. Yeah, talking with his mouth. Like a regular croissant or some sort of like nouveau croissant. Almond. Almond. What do you think about the almond croissant says? You like chocolate in your croissant. But you don't like a regular croissant, because you know what, Nastasia hates buttery, flaky, delicious things. you know this? Yes, yes. She hates it. hates biscuits. It hates. So there's a new thing that's out. I mean, we all know about Dominique Ansel's crow nut, right? Isn't there some sort of like new, like, croissanterie going on with some sort of one of the bigger, some sort of, like, croissanification or something? It's like they're, I don't know, they're turning a cow into a croissant or something like this? I don't know, like very finely layered, buttery, flaky cow, crispy. Anyway, someone else should come up with it. Like a pork rind croissant, you know? Pork, pork rind song. Well, the thing is, like, you'd have to make like micro layers of pork rind. Layer them, fry them up in butter, in claret, clary butter. Man, man? Try it. We'll try it sometime. You know, the problem is you'd have to get it like just right. Otherwise, the layers will fuse together. So when you're when you're making puff snacks, if you toss them in like a tiny bit of salt water right before you puff them, the

[21:21] starches as they become molten will glue themselves together. That's like the principle of making those kind of rice cakes. And plus even without salt water. That was the, that's how you can do it in a microwave. You can make like rice cakes in a microwave that way. Please don't do it because don't do it, but you can. I've done it. But, you know, there's itinerant issues with it. But like, or in puffing guns, when it's still molten, if they're touching, they'll glue themselves

[21:44] together. So we have to make the pork rind such that the sheets when they melt and expand, don't glue themselves together. You won't get all the layers like in the, what would you call that? You call it like a poissant, but that would be more of a fish. I don't know, we figure it out. Someone else. See Santa's little hipster today? No, what is he looking like? Yeah. Yeah? Nice. Anyway, Tom Fisher writes in. I took your advice from several weeks ago regarding steaming lobsters for lobster rolls. given that you can't really get a thermopen into the meat. Well, you can. You gotta boom, punch it through the carapace. Anyway, um, into the meat. How do you judge doneness? I got £3.5 lobsters and guest steaming time as the charts all stop at 3 pounds. Still, the range of cooking times is pretty wide. Best time. Okay, here's what you do. Par cook those sons of guns. Don't cook a lobster all the way through in its shell. Par cooked those things until they did. Uh, like, you know, a couple of minutes, then crack them open. break them apart, and then cook the different pieces of meat separately,

[22:42] like in butter or in. I actually do it in their own juices. I save the juices when I break it, and I bag them and cook them in their own juices. I like to cook them at high temperature because I kind of like that firmer. I don't like soft, mushy lobster. Do you like soft mushy lobster sauce? You like firm? You don't even like lobster that much. But when you like it, when you had it. and lobster rolls Yeah, but you don't want it to be soft and mushy. You want it to have that traditional cooked texture. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Anyways. So, and then it's much easier to judge doneness because you can just sit there and squeeze it with your fingers,

[23:10] you pull the bag out, go, and you squeeze it with your fingers and you know the sucker's done. You know what I'm saying? Much easier, much, much easier than trying to time out because when you're cooking a lobster that large, uh, like, you know, and I've done like six, £7

[23:22] normally, and then like, you know, 25, £30. When you're doing something like that, it's not the bigger the lobster, the more impossible it is

[23:30] to, um, to cook the inside without absolutely hammering the outside. So you want to break the meat in the smaller chunks and then you can calculate it with, you know, CV dash or any of those other things. That's how I do it. Anyways. And it also makes your life a lot free and easier. It just does because you pull the lobsters out. You can do the Nils Norin. Nils Norin ties a string around their tail, and then, you know how lobsters have that, uh, they have that kind of pointy, like, like bow sprit thing that comes out of their face

[23:58] right right in front of their eyes and like sticks out like a pointy, you know what I'm talking about? Jack, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Yeah. So what you do is it doesn't hurt them. So don't want any letters, please. But you, like, tie string around their tail, like right where the flare is at the smallest point where it, like, it flares. And then you go over their back and then around the pointy doodle and you tie it back to itself. So 1st of all, it gives you a little handle, which is nice to pick up the lobster so you don't burn yourself. Did you ever sous vide them? Yeah. What do you mean? But after you, no... No. No, it would take forever to kill them, it's freaking cruel. Don't do that. Anyway, so you take and you tie their nose to their and then and then their tail stays straight. So it's an alternative to the to the just shove skewers through its tail while it's alive or the knife kill and then skewer it and kill. So it keeps their tail straight, par cook them, throw them in ice water to stop the cooking. Then you break them, and then you can take the meat separately and cook each piece to its own perfection. Yes? Yes. But you got to make sure to cook it enough on the par cook, depending on the thickness, like a minute and a half , 2 minutes. Otherwise, the claw is a gooey mess and you can't get it out. Gooey mess. You know what I'm talking about? You know, I'm double. You never wrote that article. What article? On killing them softly. Well, maybe maybe that's what my next, maybe it'll be my next book. Who knows what my next book's gonna be about. I have a meeting with my publisher tomorrow to talk about my next book. I'll tell you what, people, it will not be about cocktails. David wrote in. take a quick break. Okay, quick break. Let's do it. We'll come back with some cooking issues.

[25:55] Hey, what's up, guys? Its me, Jack, as in Jack, from cooking issues, as in the guy that's probably been talking on this show. So, here on the break to tell you about molecular recipes.com, which is not only an awesome website and store and resource, but

[26:10] also they support us, which makes them even that much cooler. So I know Dave gives you plenty and plenty of information on the show, but should you need further resource, should you want to get some of the things he's talking

[26:21] about. Molecular recipes.com has recipes, techniques, ingredients, tools, all in the world of this modernist thing we love so much on the show.

[26:30] So, you know, explore the world of foams and spheres and invisible foods and mind blowing cocktails, all that awesome stuff. There's a community of over 400,000 chef, scientists, and food lovers sharing their favorite recipes, tips, and tricks. Cool photos, tools, gadgets. Again, this is everything you'd be into all in one place, molecularecipes.com. And just for being a listener of this show, you'll get 10% off any of their popular

[26:57] kits just by using the promo code heritage at checkout. That's promo code heritage. So again, check them out, molecular recipes.com, tons of really awesome stuff there. definitely right up your alley. So Jack, is that your that's your molecular music? Oh, yeah. I don't like it. Oh, you don't like any molecular stuff. Why do you not like what specifically? I don't know. It's like annoying. Hey, you should go there. you know what you should give them? You should give them the promo code. Everyone should go and buy stuff on it and say, Jackson,

[27:40] say, Jackson, you say, change the name because we all hate molecular and they know it. They know it. But yeah, check them out. Tell him it was the song that really swung you in the direction of...

[27:51] Bang, bink, bink, bink, bink, ding. That's like Jack Jack Molecular sent to you by Jack Jack Molecules. So, a couple of shout outs before we get back into the questions. I went to the um, pre-opening of uh, where Nick, Nick Bennett, our longest employed bar, our bar captain at Booker and Dax, left us to

[28:13] go uh, help start uh, Porch light uh, with uh, Danny Meyer group. Yeah, it went last night. Looks awesome. Super congratulations out to Nick Bennett. So check it out. There's like an old warehouse building on 28th and 11th. They actually got hit with Sandy, got flooded out, and they rebuilt the inside. The concept of it is that it's kind of like when you go there, it's kind of like hanging out

[28:37] in the porch, so you have drinks on the porch and you have some snacks. And they used all reclaimed wood from the obliterated basement on the inside.

[28:44] That's cool. So check it out and congratulations to everyone involved with Porch Light, Porch Light, NYZ. Also, uh, little uh, self-plug here. So my son, Booker, goes to a school called the Quad Preparatory School, Manhattan, for check out this term. Ready for this? Twice exceptional. Twice exceptional. Why? Well, like, it's like, you know, give it and take it away. It's like smart kids who like are on the autistic spectrum. So it's like, hey, twice. It's not really twice because it's kind of like on either side, whatever, but he goes to the school and I really like it a lot, the school, and they're having a, um, they're having a gala event, but that's not why I'm telling you about it. There is a silent auction, and one of the things that we're auctioning off, and I'm going to make you come with me, Stas. Sorry. I didn't tell you this. Yep, I am sorry. You get to meet Nastasia too. she getting auctioned off? We're I'm auctioning a cocktail party. That's the only thing that people ever buy. bring him in on personal things too. You do all the time. Remember when I helped you move your freaking house in a freaking zip car? Yeah, but I win forever for that. Nastasio rented... Nastasio rented a tiny truck, by the way, and was like, oh, we're moving a couple

[29:54] of things, and she's moving from like a 5th floor walk up to another 5th floor walk.

[29:58] got a freaking zip car that was too small. such that we had to like, we had to bungee cord ourselves to the freaking bed of

[30:06] it, along with her fake fireplace, whatever. I don't want to hear about it. Anyways. So, uh, it's a, it's a... Wait, why can the public bid on this if they don't go to... It's a silent

[30:16] auction, because it's silent auction. They just go. don't have to go to the gauntlet a bit to bid on it. Anyone could bid on it. They don't have a part of the school. They just have to want us to go and they want to support this like small fledging school that's using very new techniques to try and help kids who are very smart, but can't be kind of dealt with in a

[30:36] normal school setting to get their best potential. And they're trying to spin this off into other, you know, not just in, you know, with the small

[30:44] school they have, but spin these techniques off. Anyways, so here's what you would get. So Nastasia and I show up and we make 3 cocktails for you for 3 hours. If you want snacks, you have to get the snacks. We're going to show up. We're gonna make some nice cocktails. You're going to handle ingredients and we're just going to show up. New York City, though. New York City, New York City. Listen to me. New York City. Connecticut. You can do Connecticut? All right, but we have to bring all the crap. Yeah, weekends we could drive all the crap out. All right. you know, if you're in the zone. Not Triborough. I mean, not tri-state. She's like, I won't go across the Tribor Bridge. Of course, no, we take 3rd Avenue in Willis. What are we? Paying money to get out of our own freaking city? No, for those of you that drive up 95. You know what I'm talking about. So the, the, anyway, so we're having a cocktail party, they're auctioning it off. You can bid on it if you like. And the website is HTTPS colon forward

[31:35] forward. www.biddingaforgood.com

[31:40] is a lot of stuff. Forward slash breakthroughs. Breakthroughs, plural, not just one breakthrough. Multiple breakthroughs. What's it called? Double the knowledge or whatever? What do you mean? You'll have twice exceptional cocktails. Whatever that means. Twice exceptional. Hey, we even give you a choice. Usually we do like a third. We do a shaken, and then, and then, you know, a lot of times a carbonated we do. Up to 30 people, right? Yeah, 30 people, 3 hours. We show up, you get to have seen Nastasia's vegan face. bring some vegan stuff to have her eat it. You can see the face, right? Come on. Depends on how much they bid. Right? Nastasia will bring or not her, her, you know, her, her A game, depending on how she feels in any particular situation. But you know what? If someone from the radio show bids on it, it means it's a real honest to God food person, and so we're going to have a good time. It's not just someone who happens to have a lot of money but doesn't care. I think people have a lot of money. or fine too. Yeah, but not if they don't. We've done events before where they just bought it because they got strong armed into buying it and we show up and it might as well just be someone pouring beer

[32:46] and, you know, and handing out white wine. Two. Those aren't fun. I mean, I like beer and white wine like the next guy, but, you know, I don't, you know, I don't need to, you don't need Nastasia and I to come pour that stuff, but if the price is right, we will. Okay. David wrote in about coffee. Um, hey, Dave Nasashi Jack, how are you? I've just listened to the latest cast. I want a couple things about Dave's half mocking suggestion. Did you really call it a cast? Cast. cast is cast. Yes, we are the cast. Short for podcast? like that. Oh, oh, cast. No, yeah, you're right. meant podcast. By the way, we're going back to, remember when Johnny was on and we were talking about coffee and sieves? This is how far behind we are. That's what this is in reference to. All right? So, you know, Johnny from the, you know, the underground cuisine collective in Wisconsin was here and we were talking about using sieves

[33:37] in fractions of coffee to get specific because we're talking about grinders and how, you know, the particle size distribution in a grinder is very important in the taste of coffee.

[33:48] That's what we're talking about. I wanted to add a couple things about Dave's half mocking suggestion that Barista should stack 2 or 3 labs, sieves together to get a uniform profile for the ground coffee.

[33:59] In the average or even fancy coffee shop. That's not practical, of course, but I know some people who compete in brewed coffee championships, actually do one better. Last year, I was at the World Brewers Cup. And I know that during their exhibition, one competitor described how they use four. They discard the top, middle, and bottom piles and only keep the ones between the 1st and the 2nd and 3rd and

[34:20] 4th fractions. Other contestants pick the beans one by one before grinding them or created their own water by dissolving various minerals into DIonized water. Kevin, you use craft cocktails at home. Good book. check it out. The rationale behind the sieve stack. Now I'm thinking of Reggie Watts, a sieve stack, but it's, you know, you can't say it on the radio. was that by having 2 controlled ranges of particle sizes in a single extraction, They were able to better control flavor profile, acidity extraction, and so on. Also, Johnny Hunter was right when he said that 2 uniform particle size range makes for a comparatively less complex cup in the same way as brewing methods that keep relatively uniform brew temperature and or concentration due, e.g. reverse arrow press, French

[35:01] press, or relatives. A great, not just good cup, is about carefully controlled over and under extraction. Oh, by the way, I have also put caustic soda on the tip of my tongue, gnomen omen, it seems. Cheers. David, yes, it's Italian, so you got it right last time, right? David in Italian or David? David? David, is that right at the time? So I got it right last time, so it's David was right. So sorry, I ruined it at the beginning, because it's Davide now. Anyways, good. You know, I love follow-ups like that. Don't you like when people send this follow-ups? So I was like, no, I really don't care. I don't care. Um, from a Mr. Gadwa, regarding the CVAP. didn't do this yet, right? I pinged Dave on Twitter a few weeks back about CVAPs. CVAP is, by the way, was the oven invented by Mr.

[35:42] Winston to help the Colonel Sanders, who is a real human being, figure out how to keep Kentucky

[35:48] fried chicken in good condition over the course of, you know, a long

[35:54] time while it's sitting after it's fried, assuming that assuming they're not crushed in business and they have their frying like as fast as they can serve it, which is how you want.

[36:01] That's how Popeyes does that stuff. They just start frying stuff all the freaking time. You ever notice that? Do you like Popeyes fried chicken? I haven't been in a long time. Do you enjoy it? I think I do Jack, do you enjoy Popeyes? I actually really like Popeyes, yeah. Popeye's a delicious fried chicken. I'm not trying to insult Kentucky fried chicken here. It's better. Okay. Wyatt? what are your thoughts? Both good. What's up, diplomat? Move to Washington. get your diplomat, get your diplomat on. Anyway, so it was invented for that, and the premise of it is, is that there's a heater in the air, and then there's a water, a Bain Marie water system, and that by adjusting the temperature that the

[36:38] Bain Marie is being held at versus the air temperature, you can very accurately adjust the humidity inside the cavity and the temperature, and that the main problem in holding foods is that the humidity inside

[36:49] there's not right. So you just, uh, the difference in temperature between these 2 things. And if you do it properly, you can hold almost anything. And I've had actually, um, hot tortilla chips held in it that stay crunchy. So, and I've had, you know, meat in it that's held for a long time. Ive had chicken that's held in it a long time. Technology does in fact work, but that's what a CVAP biz, that's how it works. But Winston, the guy, he's now like 90. I think he's finally stepping aside. He's like 95 or 96 or something like this. cantankerous dude, cantankerous dude. Anyway, anyway, it looks like, this is going back now to the question. It looks like Winston Industries sadly changed their minds on producing a home CVAP. So give me some UConn Cornelius. Ive changed my mind, does. No. She won't do it? Dax does it all the time. I changed my mind. Anyway, so I'm passing the message below along for the benefit of Dave and the cooking issues listeners. I've been using the Cuisinard steam oven. Well, this can turn out great results. It really makes me pine for a real CVAP or a Combi. The solution, of course, is for Dave to introduce the Booker and Dax 5000 home combi oven. No, no, not on the radar, right, Stas? Not on the radar. You can make a DIY CVAP, though. It's not that, it's actually not that hard. All you have to do is, um, you know, put an accurate control on your oven, which is a lot easier in electric oven, uh, and a, I put a water bath in the

[38:15] bottom and control the difference between a thermocouple that's held in the oven and one that's held in the water bath.

[38:20] I've done it as a test. You can do it. It takes some walking around and working with, but maybe someone out there. Look, all you guys out there. you know, one of you just build it. I told you how to build it, and then just put the protocol up on one of the internet things. There might already be a DIYCVAP thing out there. And if they're not going to make one for home, then they're not going to get too mad if you build

[38:39] one. And the original patents for that thing have been gone a long time ago because they've been around for a bazillion years.

[38:44] So, you know, go ahead and do it. You're not, you know, doing anything wrong or bad. Anyway, um, Anyway, okay. So, and by the way, he sends the, uh, he sends along a note from Winston Industry saying that we're not going to make one. So

[38:58] there, there you have it. Anyways. Ellie writes in about fat and about ice. Dave, I understand that Suett is beef fat from around the kidney area of the beef, the beef. That is very tough to get a hold of here. I forget where she is. That is very tough to get a hold of here. Is there any reason regular beef fat cannot be used in its place, especially if it's rendered? Also, thanks for the clear ice technique and liquid intelligence, that alone, and how my old-fashions look using it are worth the price of the book. Is there any sort of, oh, this might be, uh, the Elliot that's the dude? This might be the other LE. Anyway. Also, thanks for the clear ice technique and liquid intelligence, that alone, and how my

[39:38] old-fashions look, using it are worth the price of the book. Is there any sort of shelf life or freezer life, I guess, on the clear ice that I've

[39:45] made, best LA? Okay. Well, yeah, so in your freezer, right? bad things can happen if things stick out. Like aromas can stick to the service of the ice. And also during like repeated freestyle cycles. You can get some crap on the outside of your ice. The good news is the core of your ice is okay. So if you pull the ice cubes out, let them temper up and then rinse them off a little bit, then they're good. They're good as new. And in fact, if you go to Japan, the assumption is that the ice that they

[40:15] get because they're getting big block ice cut is filthy. And so like, I watched them rinse their ice cubes before they used them. And I was like, why are they doing this? And then I asked someone who, A, speaks English and B is very familiar with Japanese bar technique. He's like, oh, because the presumption is that the ice is dirty. And so they rinse it off. So, you know, I don't know how much you'd have to get rid of, but once it's

[40:36] tempered, and you give it a quick rid, so you could probably do one test, but

[40:40] just, if it's at home, just lick one of the cubes. And then if it has a flavor, that, 0 my god, Santa's little hipster is here and he's dressed in green tights and a green beard.

[40:49] Woo, Christmas is over, buddy. Never. Christmas is never over. He keeps it in his heart, which I appreciate. Anyway, so you can go ahead and lick the ice cube if it's for your own consumption and then rinse it up. Okay, I have I have a, it's for his own consumption style. She's given me the gross face. Here's another thing. Like when I cook, and I actually tell my, I shouldn't say this, but so when you're cooking with extremely hot peppers. So we we're in situations where we take like habaneros and blend large quantities of habaneros, like a kilo of habaneros in a

[41:23] vita prep, right? And then we run it through a roto app, and everything that it touches is poisonously hot, poisonously hot.

[41:30] We've done it with Nagajolokias, even more poisonously hot, right? And so you have people rinse the stuff off and like clean it because some of

[41:38] the stuff can't go through the dishwasher because you can't put it through the dishwasher. And so they're like, it's clean. And I'm like, oh, really? Oh, really? And then, you know what I do? Because here's what you got to remember, people. This sound what I'm about to tell you sounds gross. However, people drink with things all the time and put it to their mouth, eat things with forks, put them in their mouth, and then you clean them and wash them, right? So my test is see whether or not you've properly cleaned when I do something ridiculously hot. I lick it. I see whether it's still hot. If it's still hot, I know you didn't do a good job and you got to rewatch it. If it's not still hot, I just made it gross. Now you have to rewash it and make it clean because of the fact that I licked it, but at least I know

[42:17] that next time you've washed it, it's going to come out being good, it's not going to affect the next product. So, you always have at least 2 washes. But at least this way you know. Anyways. Back to the fat. So the difference between the fat, different fats from different parts of the beef have

[42:37] different fatty acid profiles. So that internal non-muscular fat that's on the inside around is extremely hard. Uh, and, uh, it's extremely high in the, um, in the fatty acids,

[42:50] like, uh, uh, that are longer chained and are, um, just hard as hell. And so they, the actual characteristics of the, of beef suet, real suet, i.e. that you can grade it into things that has a very high melting point, that it makes a certain kind of

[43:08] porosity and the puddings that, that, that's being used in, can't really be imitated by using other types

[43:15] of, uh, beef fat. But it depends. I mean, if you're just using, if you're using it and, you know, you're going to render it anyway or, you know, do something else anyway, then it shouldn't matter. But if you need the particular textural characteristics of

[43:29] suet, then you have to get the real thing. Sorry, right? anyway. I don't know. And I don't know what to say about that. Like the other stuff's just softer. What are you gonna do? Brand it. I'm actually like once I get through this, I'll be on this week's questions. No, so maybe we don't have to do a capture. Well, but I still have questions from this week. I haven't answered yet Anyway... All right, Brandon writes in. I recently got a big green egg. I missed some from Twitter from last week, which I got to find out. I recently got a big green egg, which I can use as a smoker. I'm hoping to be use it in combination with my circulator to get the best from both techniques. If you were to do something like this for, let's say, say, fibs or pork shoulder, uh, would you start in the smoker or in the circulator, uh, what temperature and time would you, um, recommend? Well, once you put the smoke on it, it smokes flavor is going to stay, whether it goes in the bag or not. It really, it all depends on like what's kind of the best, what your best workflow is. I mean, I would probably cirque the stuff out. I would probably circuit out. Uh, pull it out of the bags, let it dry off, uh, substantially before you smoke

[44:37] it and and then smoke it for for flavor instead of for for doneness. And then you can pull it out kind of whenever it's done. That's just kind of what I would do. Do you say what he wanted to? Do you say what he wanted to do? Pork shoulder or ribs. Yeah, you know what? Because the fact of the matter is, yeah, I mean,

[44:55] it also depends on whether when you're smoking, whether you care about getting,

[44:59] you know, if you're doing traditional techniques, whether you care about that ring or anything like

[45:03] that. Most of the reason why people don't like to pre-cook things before they're going into barbecue or smoking. I think are in general wrong, wrong headed because you don't need to add a lot of moisture. You're not removing a lot of flavor. I think it's, I don't know. I think it's kind of like a knuckleheadway to do it. So if you want to do a low temper, if you want the texture of low temperature cooked product, I would

[45:24] probably, and you want it smoked in a traditional thing, I would probably cook it all the way out. Um, you know, like you would for low temp. So for ribs, um, you know, well, it depends. Like for, let's say you're doing a beef rib, like a short rib, you know, for you would do low temp, you would do like 57 because you don't want it too

[45:43] rare. 57 for like, I don't know, a couple days, a little longer, cool it down, pull it out, unbag it, let it dry thoroughly, and then

[45:53] because you don't want it too moist because that's gross, then throw it in and smoke it

[45:56] until until it's ready. I would probably do it that way. Um, that's how probably how I do it. Or you could, if you just want the smoke flavor, but you don't want the texture or something that had just been pulled out of a smoker on the outside. Then you can smoke it beforehand. not going to kill you. not going to hurt it. Anyway. Uh, Quinn wrote in. This is a good one. We have time for this, Jack. Three minutes. Three minutes. All right, so I'm not gonna get to, um, shoot. I'm not gonna get to the Koji stuff, but we'll do Quinn. Quinn writes in. I've got a food safety question. You like food safety questions, Jack? Sure. Yeah, all right. I've got a food safety question. I often make stock in my pressure cooker, putting protein and bones and vegetables in for a few hours. I don't even do that. I have to do like an hour. I'd never do it longer than an hour. The pressure go good, 2nd ring, 15 PSI. Anyway, when I'm done, I strain the solids and let the stock cool. I am not a restaurant with an ice machine, so I can't really put the container on ice to cool rapidly. After a few hours at room temperature, The liquid is usually cool enough to stick in my fridge without messing anything up too badly. I know this time spent in the zone. that's the danger zone is suboptimal, but given that the product was pressure cooked, I feel like this is fine. So my question is, I've forgotten to put my stock in the fridge after a few hours. In fact, left it overnight at room temperature. I'm not sure about using it as is, but I'm wondering from a food safety perspective, it would be safe to use if I put the stock back in an empty pressure cooker for a few hours.

[47:14] Uh, and I'm hesitant to throw out this beautiful stock, and I figured the chicken that went into the pot in the 1st place was teeming with baddies, which were eliminated by the pressure

[47:22] cooker. So another trip to the pressure cooker should return to the product to a safe product. Thanks for the show, Quinn. Okay, look. Huge controversy on this with Michael Ruleman,

[47:32] who on his blog, in I think 2011, um, said that he basically leaves his stock on the stove for like a week and then just reboils it before he's going to use it,

[47:42] right? And McGee came in and wrote that, hey, this is unsafe, uh, because, um, you know, because things can grow in it. And if you don't, and McGee actually wrote about it in the New York Times in 2011. So McGee writes, I'll admit to violating the guidelines, the cooling

[47:59] guidelines, in my own stock making, though, by a few hours, not days. When I cook a roast for dinner, I use leftover scraps and bones to get the start the

[48:07] stock, simmer it while I cleaned up, take it off the pot and heat it right before I go to bed. At that point, it's too much trouble to cool it. So, uh, it won't warm up the, you know, everything else in the fridge. Instead, I cover the pot, leave it at room temperature, reheat it in the morning, about 8 hours later before straining, cooling, and refrigerating it, and my stock hasn't made me or my family ill either. And then the question is why is Ruleman survived? So he asked a food safety expert. why isn't Roman dead? And the food safety expert said, because Mr. Roman boils the stock before he serves it. Dr. Snyder was the guy who any active bacteria are killed by holding the stock for a minute or 2 above 150

[48:41] degrees and botulos and toxin is inactivated by 10 minutes at the boil. But just quickly reheating a contaminating stock won't destroy the active bacteria

[48:48] and toxins and you can make people sick. And his point is you can actually grow anaerobic bacteria in the bottom of an unstir stock pot. Anyways. So, uh, you have to kill the hell out of stuff, but like boil the hell out of

[49:00] it if you want to want to do it, um, not do it that way. But here's the actual truth. You're not doing it any of this way. You're cooking it in a pressure cooker. Pressure cooker, if you're pressure cooking it for like, you know, 4050 minutes, uh, you're actually wiping out at that point the spores.

[49:17] you've, in essence, candid. Here's what you need to do. Don't open the pressure cooker. Right? So if you're gonna go to bed or whatever, just don't open the pressure cooker. And if new bacteria can't get in, everything on the inside of that pressure cooker has been hammered. It is dead. So what you do is, is you take that pressure cooker. Let it let it cool down to, you know, 0 pressure. Then you can put it in cold water in your sink if you want to drop it even further and just let it cool down like that for a little while, then don't let it get too cold because then it kind of jelly up on you. But down when it's closer to room temperature, when you can put it right in the fridge, right? Open it up. Now it's contaminated because you've let stuff into it. Now you strain it, and then you can put it directly in the fridge without worrying. That's the way to do it with a pressure cooker. In general, at home if you don't have a lot of ice and you want to get within the window, just kind of like, it's 2 and 2 here because you're about to contaminate it more, but at the same time, you know, you kind of win in other

[50:18] ways. What you want to do is get the biggest, widest thing that you have and pour your stock into a very thin layer and that thin layer is going to cool off a lot thicker than a

[50:29] stop, sorry. It's got to cool off a lot faster than something thicker is. And so you can get stock cool very quickly if you pour it out into thin sheets and then do it. If you ever should need to cool something down really quickly. And then as an alternative, if it's out, you don't need to pressure cook it again for another hour, just bring that sucker back up to a boil, boil it for like 10, 15 minutes, then

[50:52] strain it, cool it quickly, and get it in the fridge. I hope that helps. We'll try to finish the next ones on the 2nd on the 200 anniversary episode. Coding issues. Thanks for listening to this program on heritageradionetwork.org. You can find all of our archive 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 with questions anytime at info@heritageradionetwork.org. Heritage Radio Network is a 501 c 3 nonprofit. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.