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[0:08] 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 heritageraidernetwork.org for 1000s more.

[0:26] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, you're host of cooking issues and coming to your live from a British Pizzeria and Bushwick. Brooklyn on the Heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from roughly really late this time, though. Roughly 12, roughly, yay. 1245, 1250, 1255 depends on, you know, whether someone's coming in to record after us. Joined, as usual, in the studio with Nastasia, the Hammer, Lopez, and Jack Ainsley in the engineering booth. How you guys doing? Good. Good. I'm all alone back here Is that why you didn't have the time to put the Jackie molecules on? Or is that going to go on during the... We'll do that on the break. Jackie Molecules. Call your questions too, cooking. Not maybe not cooking. anything, right? Anyway, we'll take them all. We'll take any questions. I mean, look, there's some questions that will probably refuse to answer, but test us out. Call in 2718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. Do you guys remember that like for the 1st year, I could not remember the number. Yes, I was just thinking that in my head. Yeah. And you guys would have to, literally, like, I couldn't remember the number, and they, uh, Jack and or Nastasia would have to write the number on a piece of paper. Yeah, and hold it in front of my face. I had like a mental block on the telephone number crazy. Maybe, you know, it's like, well, I don't know if I'm sticking around. I'm not gonna commit this number to memory. Yeah, you think that's what it was? I think so. Wow. You haven't committed my number to memory. That's because it's typed into my phone. Like, I know how to... What? I know yours, though. Oh, Mimi. Well, you're better than me, me, me. Dave, how many numbers do you have memorized? Yeah. I have like the my, like the number I grew up with in junior high, high school in college. My, my, uh, yeah, my, my mom's house number. It's still the house. Say same house. Yeah. And the 1st telephone number I had in New York City, I remember. 212-666 typo. Awesome, right? Two, two, 6, 6, 6, typo. I remember I remember numbers that existed prior to like when your phone stored all the numbers. You know what I mean? So, like, I remember very early cell phone numbers. Like my cell phone number, uh, I've been around a long time, my wife's cell phone number and her sister's cell phone number has been around forever. So I remember those. My dad's house. Yeah, that's it. It's pretty much it. I don't know my own house number. I don't know any of that stuff. I have to ask Booker what my house number is. But I do know the number of the Heritage radio network's call in line. And that is 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. So you get any good cooking things happen to you this past week? No. Nothing? No? You didn't cook anything? You haven't cooked? Yeah, every night, but nothing worth talking about. Wow. That's kind of depressing. No, I mean, you know, I make food. Last night I made eggplant for, I'm like, it's nothing. eggplant parm is not is not nothing. Did you make it from scratch? So you, well, how do you prepare the eggplant? do you do? Oh, just salt it so it sweats. How long? Not long because it's usually late. Do you press on it? No. You don't press on it? No. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know why? Okay, look. The salting right starts drawing the liquid out, right? But you still have a really spongy, like a spongy thing going on with the eggplant. So when you squish the hell out of it, Well, the salting also helps you squish a little, but when you squish it, you're getting rid of some of the porocity, it's going to lead to the increased oil absorption. I don't put oil in the pan. What the what? Whoa, whoa, you what? I just heat the pan and then put the eggplant in there and like try it. Is it breaded? No. So this is not what I would consider eggplant. No, no, it wasn't breaded. didn't have time That's why I said nothing interesting food wise. This is more like an eggplant casserole. As you say, eggplant parm. holy crap, she's got a... no, no. Got to press the eggplant, got to bread the eggplant, got to fry the eggplant. Nope, but it was the bachelor finale last night. No, how'd that go? Did he choose the lady you wanted? Yeah. You watched The Bachelor, huh? Yeah. Yeah. It's like Christmas. It's like it brings people together. Please do not compare the bachelor in Christmas. Please do not compare. You didn't want you didn't feel compelled once you saw it last week. I felt compelled to never see it again. I felt compelled to never see it again. Wait, did you watch The Bachelor 2? I don't know how it happened was last week. Did we talk about this on the radio? All right. So we had the maker of the sears all and the soon-to-be mailed steak decorator and then the next 2 products actually, which you'll hear about in the next couple of months from Booker and Dax. You know, our manufacturer. I had him over at my house and we made him use the Sears all on a prototype steak decorator, by the way, because this guy didn't understand why he was making this product. We ever mention this on the air? Charles, the name of the guy is the project manager at the manufacturer we use was like, I don't really, I don't get it. I know why you want it useless, useless. I don't know. Who wants this? Anyways, so like we got him over and we made him cook a cook a steak, but Nastasia was like, well, I'm not coming over unless I can watch

[5:18] The Bachelor. And I told her, you don't turn on the TV when someone's over at your house for dinner. This is like, I'm a human being 101. You know what I mean? This is like, I haven't grown up in a cave. I wasn't raised by TV owning wolves. I know how to behave around other human beings, right? So I was like, look, I am a believer in technique. She is not a believer in technology. Nastasia does not have any form. Nastasia only receives television that is broadcast to her through the air.

[5:49] She will not accept any other form. She won't get it over the internet. She has internet. She has it, but she won't get TV via the internet. She, like, won't spend the $30 and no extra money ever on a Roku stick or on an Amazon

[6:04] Fire. I don't know why. She's a Luddite. The same reason why she only listens to music that's picked by people that she doesn't know on the radio rather than, yeah,

[6:15] she like Jack, you, your music professional, right? Yeah, right? If you made a playlist she wouldn't want to hear it. Any jerk.com who happens to, like, be, you know, get a get a DJ slot on any random, like, you know, radio station along some highway and some crap hole, right?

[6:33] That person's opinion on what should play next on the radio? Valid? Yeah, valid. Anyways, so. That person also probably a computer at this point. Yeah, yes, yes. So anyway, the point being that I said, okay, look it. I have the ability to record this onto a computer and you can watch it at later at a later point. So I recorded The Bachelor for her to watch, but it was at my house, so she had to watch it at my

[6:57] house. And so then I had to see it. But you had a book and you couldn't not watch it. That's not true. I couldn't pay attention. It was hard to pay attention. It's like... Because you're sitting there, like, making all kind of comments about people. I don't care about. These people are like compellingly stupid. I don't really see the difference between this. I mean, it's you're basically kind of making fun of humanity with this. Right. Which I don't know, it's kind of a base, it's base. I don't know. enough for it. Not for it. I get it. I don't really care what you watch. I mean, like, watch what you like. You know what I mean? I don't care. Not my thing, though. But how do we get on this? Cooking. Oh, yeah. So the bachelor was on last night so you couldn't make it. You know what? There's an interesting no fry recipe from the, you know, the new hip pressure. I know if it's out yet. Hip pressure cooker book. I don't know if it's out yet, but anyway, there's an interesting kind of pressure cooked eggplant Parmi style thing. Maybe I'll look up the recipe. If it's out, I can share it. and then we'll talk about that. You try that next time. Do you own a pressure cooker? What the hell is wrong with you? You know what, people? Listen. Like, we're doing this here. This is a 201st episode, right? How many times I talk about, like, saving time, efficiency, throughput with something like a pressure cooker. Nastasia is sitting next to me every single time. Have you missed one? One. I think one. There was one show you weren't here for. She called in for it. Now, I think there's one that she missed. There's one. totally missed. Yeah, one. Yeah. And, uh, no pressure cooker. Why? don't know. I don't know. Why are you so resistant? I'm not resistant. I just have limited space and that's a big... No, throw away another crappy pot you have, and use the pressure cooker instead. I use my pressure cooker about half the time as a regular pot. You know, and usually if you get a decent one. Look, we've pushed Coon Recon enough. by the way, in my life. You know how I've pushed Coon Recon so much. You know how much we've gotten from? Well there's Swiss, right? Oh, what's up, busting on this list? What's up, busting on the Swiss? Anyways, I think Nastasia should get a free coon recon. pressure cooker. That's all I'm saying. But, you know, the amount of crap that, I mean, I don't I own one already. I don't need it. You know what I mean? But whatever. Uh, so eggplant Parm, that's what you did. You know what? I think, let's listen. And I made s'mores with a seuzel. Oh, how was it? I didn't eat any. I gave it to my sister. Such a weirdo. such a weirdo. is wrong with you? didn't feel like it. It's like the roast Nastasia show. Well, it's I just, you know what? After all these years, I still just don't understand. using the thing that we built. Yes. good enough. that's true. Okay, listen, here, I think like everyone, a lot of people, you know, you get busy, you don't cook. I think you should take the time to try and make one interesting thing a week. I cook every night. Then why don't you try to make one of those things be new and outside of your comfort

[9:55] zone and then we can talk about it. That's that's your cooking issue. did you make? I have to go back and mental. Oh, so this Sunday, what did I do this Sunday? I mean, again, nothing like, like, I did like, you like salt and pepper shrimp? I made salt and pepper shrimp. You know, where you, you know, the trick is to selling pepper shrimp? It's like the double fry. You deep fry. Right? Quickly, don't overcook the shrimp. Uh, and uh, with a with a little bit of a batter on it, right? And, you know, you could do the rice flour, cornflour, whatever. Light, right? Then, then you add the pepper, the hot pepper, and more salt, and then you stir fry it real quick, right before you serve

[10:36] it, along with like the, you know, I also put in like chilies and scallions, stuff, stir fry real quick. And that's what makes it so crunchy, you just eat the shells. You know what I'm saying? Because, you know, everyone's like, well, if the shark and pepper is on the outside of shrimp, Dan, what's the point? Because it's not on the inside of the shrimp, and the only flavor I get out of it is the stuff from if I like suck on the heads or if I get the stuff on my fingers while I'm peeling the shells, which is gross.

[11:01] If you're telling me that the flavor transfer you're getting is solely because you're licking your fingers after you peel

[11:06] the shrimp. You've just told me it's gross. Is that gross? Yeah. My point being that, like, if you fry it right like that, you should be able to eat the shell. Which I do. I consume more than my fear of chitin. And I made my mom's escrow dish, which is like a go to on Sundays when I'm super busy. I like it. You like escrowing beans? Beans, meat, escrow, and biscuits, which I know you hate. Yeah. Anyway. So that's that's our New Year's that's our New Year's resolution late. Come in, you know. Well, no, 201 is like a new. It's our new. Oh, yes. Our 3rd century of cooking issues. Nice, I like it. Yeah, nice. Cooking report. cooking report. All right, let's get to some of the quick, what about you, Jackie? anything interesting? I made, uh, there was like a beat facility with some trumpet mushrooms. Wait, the pasta was colored with beets? Yes. So it had no flavor. Not any discernible flavor, no. Here's a little secret. Yeah, here's a little secret. Colored pastas, they don't taste any different. My friend just got a veggetti. That is the grossest word you've ever said. ever. Do you know what it is? Yes. What you describe to our... like a spiralizer for, for, veg. I want to be mostly only squash, though. Like, you can't really... Well, I mean, like squash, including, like, zucchinis. Yeah. Yeah. And you make like veggie pastas and stuff like that. Yeah, pastas. Uh, what kind of non-English speaker was like, veggetti? That's a good name. Vegetty. Jack, would you ever like knowingly eat something that came out of a veggetti? I'm not gonna answer that question. I'm not gonna answer that question. Oh, God, the getting. Moving on. Yeah. But anyways, answer the question, Jack. Well, look, look, what about Daikon? Daicon would be good in that thing, but not cook. But the stupid thing is it's supposed to be like healthy for you, but all the recipes

[13:02] say, like, use the veggie and then fry the noodles and then, you know. Well, I hate any, I hate anything who's funny. No, but it's stupid. Yeah. Wow, the jetty. You just threw me for a loop. You threw me for a loop. I'll tell you what I don't like. Here's what I, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. You know spaghetti squash? Spaghetti squash? In the 70s, right, when I 1st became aware of spaghetti

[13:26] squash, because that's when I 1st became aware of anything, because that's, you know, I was born in 71. So, uh, what they would, people would do, and by people, I mean, my mom, who's a great cook, great cook, and

[13:37] actually, I just went to her like, uh, I went to her, anyway, her, she just got honored recently because she started the pediatric

[13:43] card transplant program at Columbia University. By the way, I did not realize this. Did the 1st pediatric cardiac transplant successful anywhere? Yeah. She did that? Yeah, she's a cardiologist. Look, here's the thing. Everyone, look, if for any surgeons that might be listening, you're not going to take an insult. everyone's like, oh, it's a surgeon, it's a surgeon. listen, the surgeon comes in, they cut the heart out. They put the new heart in. They sew it back together and then they're done. Like they care beforehand and afterwards, right? Is it going to be whether or not this person lives for a long time or doesn't? You know what I'm saying? Whatever. She's a cardiologist. Surgeon's a surgeon, cardiologist, a cardiologist. How many times I've had to go through that. Anyway, uh, my point is, uh, spaghetti squash. So my mom used to make the spaghetti squash, but the problem is spaghetti squash can be delicious if you steam the sucker, right, or whatever,

[14:30] roast, whatever. Shred it into its little noodle litz, whatever you call those things. And then like butter, like lots of butter and other stuff, maybe some crunchy stuff in. You know what it's not good as? It's not freaking spaghetti. You don't put a can of or a jar of pasta sauce into the spaghetti squash. This is why they shouldn't have called it this. You know what I mean? Spaghetti squash carbonara. It's gross It's gross. It doesn't taste like spaghetti. And we should go back to, like, to go back to, what Jack was saying earlier. One of the few things I learned about making pasta. I mean, I may have made a lot, lot, lot of it, but you know, never I became very good at it, was that you could add anything to it to add color and it doesn't change the flavor.

[15:14] So, you know, originally I would care what I added to it. And then eventually I'm like, ketchup, whatever. I want it to be red. I'm going to dump a bunch of ketchup in because it doesn't matter. Like, the vast majority of the ingredient is the flour, and you're not going to get any flavor out of it. all left in. A gray sauce? Yeah. You know, what does taste is like using

[15:34] an alternate flour. Duh. Like, uh, you know, like the whole wheat ones or the far 0 ones or stuff like this. There's one that's made out of garbanzo beans now and it sounds gross. You have a vegan look on your face. pitched it to me because they were on a Shark Tank or something. They pitched you personally? Yeah, because they came to a pasta flyer when I was working there. Wait, so the dudes who were on Shark Tank the Show. Yeah, no, no, no. The guys who created this Garbanzu bean. Oh, we're going to go on Shark Tank. They were on Shark Tank. They got chosen and they won money from Dragon, whatever. So they pitched it to me and they were like, I was like, what's it taste like? And they're like, do you like hummus? And I was like, no. It would like completely like derail. Sometimes I really appreciate you. Who doesn't like hummus? No, I do. I just didn't want to eat into the. Oh, it's even stronger. What do you think about that, Jack? That's great. I have a caller. All right, call her, you're on the air. Hey, Dave, it's Joel Esposito. How you doing? I'm doing good. Hey, I have a quick question. I want to build a precision boiler for making

[16:42] coffee, and I started looking at like PIDs and heating elements and all that. Um, and my plan was to hook up like a, like a swivel valve to the bottom of an insulated stainless tank, eat the

[16:52] water and then just dispense it straight over the coffee. But I started pricing it out. By swivel, you mean ball valve? Like a ball valve? Yeah. Okay, go ahead. Um, I started pressing out all the different components that I'll need, and it almost made more sense just to go ahead and get a circulator like an Anova. And um, I emailed their technical support and they said that you technically could do that, but they don't officially

[17:16] tension it, you know? Um, so. Wait, what don't they effectually sanction? What don't they sanction? Oh, drinking the water that circulated through the Anova, they don't officially sanction. Ah, gotcha. I mean, they said that they said it'd be a problem from a standpoint

[17:31] of if your tank gets dirty or the circulator gets dirty, you know, clean it, but they didn't specifically say don't do it because the water isn't good to drink. Um, and to my understanding, all the parts that are on, that are submerged in the water are like food grade and metal and except the bottom, uh, the cap for the, um, pump is

[17:50] plastic. Probably not a big deal because you're dealing with, you know, everything below 205 degrees. So, um, I was just wondering what the deal is there, if that's something that's like even reasonable or... I'll give you 2 deals.

[18:03] Here's 2 deals. One. As the manufacturer of equipment that people use to cook things and having spoken to many people, they will never tell you it's okay because they have

[18:17] to, you have to spend, whether or not an item, an item can be pure as the driven snow, but

[18:23] you, in order to get it so they can legally tell you it's okay. They have to pay some some Jokomo, a lot of money to look at it and certify that it's okay, even if they, even if every material that's put into

[18:37] it is known to be food grade, right? They have to, like, pay a lot of extra money and then keep the certs up to be able to say that it can be in direct food contact.

[18:47] So that's why none of these folks are ever going to tell you that you can do that. unless unless for some, unless there's a big market for it. If there's a big market for it in a commercial situation where they need direct food contact,

[18:59] then they'll pay the extra money. But unless they have to for a very small thing, they're never going to tell you it's okay, right? Now, since I don't manufacture that product, if they say that the stuff

[19:10] that it's in contact with the, with, with the water is food grade, then you're okay. Your obvious points are, one, you know, you have to sanitation becomes a big deal because if it's not meant to be food contact, it might have nooks and crannies where bacteria are going to grow, but that said, you're going to be circulating

[19:28] at a temperature's just going to wipe out any vegetative

[19:31] bacteria. Obviously, you're not in like sterilization spore stuff, but you could always, in between things, bleach it if you want, right? So I would say you're okay now. 2nd point is that uh, I mean, I've used circulators to uh, do uh, tea seminars where people want a very accurate tea temperatures. One of the problems with circulators is in general, it's not

[19:55] going to, it depends on, do you want to do this every day of your life or you just testing? If you're just testing, then, yeah, get a circulator and like, you know, just get a container and like put like a little valve in the bottom and take out of

[20:06] it. Make sure, you know, insulate the container, whatever, insulate the thing you're putting it into so you don't lose a lot of effects. But on a day by day basis. Do you want this sucker hanging around in your kitchen with a circulator in a bane with a valve over a thing with the stuff? You know what I'm saying? So, like a lot of, uh, the other thing is, is if you just want to see whether, if you just want to see whether or not you like the results,

[20:28] then yeah, whop it up out of a circulator and then figure out how to make it all fandancy so that you,

[20:33] uh, you know, so that you get the results you want. Like right now, right? You know, I want to see whether or not the, I know it's espresso is not what you're working on, but I want to see whether this Ranchillio that I was, you know, that I had would, you know, PID'd Ranchillio would be kind of where I wanted. So it's kind of opened up all over my kitchen and it takes a boatload of time to make coffee because it's a nightmare to work with. I'm trying to figure out whether it's worth it for me to fix it 100% and then put it back together in a way that makes my work streamlined. Does that make sense? Yeah totally. Yeah. So I wouldn't worry about too much about the, uh, the food greatness. I don't know what kind of plastic that they use, but, um, what do they use? You know what they use? Do you know what it is? Is it ABS? It's probably ABS. The the construction is completely polycarbonate and metal,

[21:21] but, um, what I'm thinking is, is it's an impeller pump, and I just needed to, to basically even out the ambient water temperature in the

[21:28] tank, so I could just take the cap off, because I don't need directional flow. Right. Right. Yeah, anyway, look, if you're really super dupe worried about it. I mean, like the really baller, the really baller move, here's the really baller move for you. The really baller move would be to also submerse the, um, wait, are you doing what style of coffee you're doing? Is this, are you doing it like stirred and then drained? Are you doing pour over? Are you doing French press? What are you doing? Uh, Ken X and Harry O V 60, so basically just pour over. Okay. Because if you were going to do a French press thing, the awesome thing would be to also put the cylinder in the bath that's being circulated so that the temperature, although, you know, look, as people have written in,

[22:11] like, who knows? Maybe a decreasing temperature during the steep time is what you want. Maybe what you want is a temperature gradient, in which case you need to figure it out a way to continuously change the temperature during the extraction time.

[22:22] You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's that's another thing I was thinking about, is hooking up like a manifold beneath, and then having like stations where the water is

[22:30] heated to another specific temperature, so I can do an extraction that ranges from, you know, 195 to

[22:35] 205 and have basically a manifold with 3 different valves on the bottom and they're all heated in different temperatures. Right. Right. Huh. Let me think. I think the easiest way to probably do it. I think most people who do coffee, they want to... See, they want to start high and go low. They want to start high and go low, right? You want to lessen the temperature over the course of the extraction. Is that true? Um, actually, I'm not, I'm not up on that right now. I need to research that. Yeah. If you want to... If you want to lower the extraction temperature over time, then what you want to do is dump the liquid through

[23:17] a block that is hotter than the water. And then the water as it passes through over the course of the um, over the liquid passing through it, the liquid will cool it because the block won't be able to heat it

[23:33] uh, at the same rate for uh, a long enough period of time, right? So what you'll get is you'll get a gradient that goes,

[23:42] initially it'll start at the block temperature, and then if you if you time it right, you know, and if you get all the thermal masses of everything right, it'll end at the temperature of the liquid.

[23:52] And that can be changed, obviously, also by changing the flow rates and, you know, various other things, like whether you add extra heat to the block during the period of time when you're doing it, doing the

[24:01] reverse, I suppose you could also do the reverse where the block is colder than the

[24:06] liquid and then the liquid comes out, then the temperature will rise. But anyway, all these things would have to be tested by testing it. You'd have to, you'd have to do it. You know what I mean? But all of that's easier than actively changing the temperature of the bath over time, which would be much more complicated.

[24:26] And in fact, if you look at most coffin machines, Um, they're, they're kind of like the good designs are the ones where, uh, you know, it's not necessarily that the temperature is 100% stable, but the gradient during the shot is favorable. Again, my brain only thinks espresso, so I have to apologize for that. And I said, I said, I have to apologize. My brain only thinks in espresso, but think about it this way. In a classic French press shot, French press cup of coffee, right? There's a large temperature gradient between the beginning and the end and that's a decreasing. That's a decreasing for you. So if you like that flavor. Whereas I think a clover, which I don't have any experience with running one, I think a clover can maintain the shot temperature. So I've never done like a side by side press versus clover shot without kind of getting rid of the other intervening variables. It's all interesting. And it's a question of what tastes best, what you like. But anyway, hopefully this is somewhat helpful. I said, hopefully this is somewhat helpful. I'm sorry I couldn't hear you. I said, I hope the information helps out a little bit. If you can't hear, if you can't hear Well, you have to go back and listen to it on the iTunes. Yeah, yeah. Um, so, I mean, it's basically just my way of sidestepping buying a $3,500

[25:37] uh, Marco or um, the Uber boiler or whatever. So um, yeah, I'm just trying to find a way to hack my way around that. All right. Well, tweet it on into cooking issues at cooking issues. Tell me how it works out for you. Awesome. Will do. Thanks a lot. All right, Jack, you want to take our break? Yeah, let's do that. Jackie molecules.

[26:07] Hey, what's up, guys? It's 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

[26:24] 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

[26:35] things he's talking about molecular recipes.com has recipes, techniques, ingredients, tools, all in the world of this

[26:42] modernist thing we love so much on the show. 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 chefs, 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, molecular recipes.com, and just for being a listener of this show, you'll get 10% off any of their popular kits just by using the promo code heritage at checkout.

[27:15] That's promo code heritage. So again, check them out. molecular recipes.com, tons of really awesome stuff there. Definitely write up your alley. Good news. got Johnny on. You got Johnny? Yeah I'm here. Hey, what's up, brother? Oh, is that your is that your Johnny Hunter music? Let me hear some Johnny Hunter music. Wow. Wow, I didn't know that was your jammy, Johnny. Yeah, we got Johnny from the Underground Meats Collective Underground Food Collective in Madison, Wisconsin. First of all, how's it going over there in Madison? I hear a lot of a lot of protests going on right now or what's what's the what's the feeling like over there? Yeah, it's pretty intense. Um, yeah, just uh, unarmed. Uh, African-American kid was shot last weekend and uh, the city is kind of grappling with it and asking a lot of really good

[28:13] questions, so, um, the protests have been really good. I mean, it's like really engaging and a lot of people participating. Yeah, well. Anyway, it's yeah, awful. So, uh, we had a question in on smoking, uh, meats, and, um, I thought I'd ask you because I didn't want to answer the question based on my solely theoretical knowledge, uh, because, you know, I don't have a lot

[28:41] of uh, expertise in what this person asks. So I figured I'd call you. Jason wrote in. Hey, cooking issues team, I have a question on cold smoking and smoke absorption. As I understand, smoke absorption is affected by the relative humidity of the environment and the moisture of the product being smoked. What about temperature? How does environmental and product temperature affect smoke absorption? I'm thinking coal smoking in this case. So if I cold smoke at 75 Fahrenheit, will I get more or less or the same smoke flavor as if I smoke at 40 degrees Fahrenheit? Inquiring minds wish to know Jason. And I figured I'd ask you, since you probably tested this stuff. Yeah, let me, uh, hold on. Let me ask our head smoker right now. I'm gonna... All right, so you... You find him and I'll just talk about some random stuff about smoking while you get back. All right. Old smoking, absorption, difference. So, uh, that said, like, smoking incredibly complicated. I haven't really, I haven't really studied it in depth in a long time, even from a theoretical basis. But I did learn some interesting techniques. What? We should thank him. Oh yeah, we should Oh, wait. Okay, well, he's back. Charlie, I'm going to let Charlie answer this question. First of all, thank you for the meats for the 200th episode, by the way. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. All right, so who do we have on the line? Hello? Hello. Hello. Hey, this is Charlie. How you doing? So the question was, in cold smoking, like, what's the difference in terms of smoke flavor, more or less smoking at 40 Fahrenheit versus 75 Fahrenheit?

[30:15] 75 degrees Fahrenheit? There's not going to be that much difference between 40 and 75. The only real difference with smoke doesn't penetrate once meat gets above about 130 to 140. It stops penetrating at that point. So, okay, so you're saying that like, you're going to get, so you're, so you're, whatever you're doing for, I think 40 degrees, 75 degrees, I don't think that's

[30:42] going to make much of a difference. It only it's always going to affect it once it gets above like that 130 threshold.

[30:48] Right. Do you think there's going to be a big difference because the humidity in the box is going to change a lot, if they don't have good control over the humidity in the box, because it's going to be like a different relative

[30:58] humidity, when it's that cold, when it's like fridge tent versus when it's at like room temp, or is it not, is it really just going to be like 6 and one

[31:05] half a dozen to the other? You know, I don't really think there's much of a difference. Some people really think that there's a huge difference, but I don't think there's much of a difference if, if you're, humidity

[31:17] is, is relatively the same. You know what I mean? Right. And so then, would your opinion be, keep it at like 40 just for safety reasons? Is it, are you better off just staying low then? Yeah, you know, you're always better off staying low. It depends on if you have any pink salt or any sodium nitrite in the, in whatever you're processing, whatever you're cold smoking. If you have, if you have that, then you're not worried about the botulism. I'm not worried about that temperature getting up there. Right. So you're here for a quality standpoint. If you don't have anything, if you don't have any nitrite or anything in there, then I would keep it at 40 or below if you can while you're cold smoking. But if you have, but if you have cure in there, then you're fine. And you should be able to smoke at 75 degrees and then cool afterwards. Sure. So you're saying it's not a quality issue, maybe a safety issue if there's not enough botulism inhibition due

[32:07] to due to the cure you applied. That's, yeah, just going on what you're saying, what I know from what you're saying just now. Yeah, that's what I would think. Is there is there any difference, by the way? It's just a question I have not related, uh, to the, um, how uh, wet or dry. You want the surface of a product to be when you cold smoke versus when you hot smoke? I mean, you, anytime you're going to smoke, uh, you want to give that, give the, um, whatever

[32:32] your, whatever you're smoking a day to hang, um, overnight in the cooler so that it develops

[32:38] some, some tact to it. Right. But not totally. you don't want to, you don't want to form like a, like a, an impervious skin. You don't want to case harden it though, right? No, you don't want to case harden it, obviously. Yeah, you don't want it to be completely dried out, but you do want to have, uh, a decent dry surface. If it's, if it's wet, it, you know, the smoke tends to, it can get kind of like an acrid taste to

[32:59] it. Now, uh, there's a, there's something I read about, which, you know, you guys, like having access to all the science folks over there at the university, I just read about it, I didn't know about it, and they're going to cut me off the air soon, so I

[33:11] wanted to see what you think about it, whether you, you can try this. Have you heard of electrostatic smoking? Um no, I guess not. I mean, I've seen some pretty bizarre smoke designs. I've seen like where it's like a friction smoke, but I don't know what that is. Yeah, friction smoking is cool. Okay, so like, I think it's pretty clear that the temperature of smoke generation, super important, right? we're not talking about that. This is check out what these guys do. This is like super speed, super speed smoking, what they do is, is they have a metal conveyor belt that the food travels on. right? And they travel it underneath a 40 kilovolt electrode, right? And they set up a giant electric field in between this electrode and the conveyor belt with the meat in between, and it

[34:03] just, wham, like accelerates like the particles and the vapor stuff in the smoke onto the

[34:09] meat, and then it rolls away. And so stuff is smoked in like 5 minutes. But here's the crazy part about it. According to the data I've been reading. Like it literally forms like a layer of smoke on the on the stuff that you can peel off until it goes through. like cooking and like tempering out procedure. And at that point, that like it soaks in and behaves like a normal piece of smoked meat. isn't that crazy? I guess I'm still concerned, like a conveyor belt? You said it wizzes the meat too. Well, yeah, so his conveyor belt is moving through, but it also provides like the other side, the electrode, the ground, and then they have smoke going through this chamber, and then they have a giant electrode that like electrostatically slams the smoke into the surface of the meat, like

[34:55] embedding, embedding the, not just the particles, right? Because, you know, everyone who's like smokes knows it like there's there's particles which have like a certain, like, uh, you know, and the actual vapor, which is different, right? So there's the vapor and then there's the particles, which is why if you put smoke in a container, let the let the particles settle out and open it, it still smells like smoke because there's vapor and whatever anyway. But it accelerates not just the particles, it accelerates the vapor, like, with this huge, like, electrostatic

[35:23] force, bang, right into the surface of the meat and is, like, insti smoke. isn't that nuts? So, but is it, so does it penetrate, though, further

[35:32] than or is it just a base level like just the surface? Well, these guys aren't doing it in a coal smoke application. They're doing it, I think, in a hot, in a, like a pseudo hot smoke. So what they're doing is, is that after it goes through that on the conveyor, it goes through its cook process. And during the cook process, like all the stuff that's been embedded in the surface of the meat will distribute throughout the

[35:54] meat the way that it would in a normal kind of a situation. Yeah. So, so, so it's sort of... Uh, no, that's interesting. So it puts like a heavy dose of it on the surface of the

[36:06] meat and that is absorbed through just the regular cooking process. Right, but not, but not so not heavy in the same way that like applying a heavy smoke would make it acrid because it's a different. Anyway, check it out. See whether one of those lunatics at the university can rig one up for you. I'd love to hear someone who actually could play around with it. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Really interesting. Well, anyway, thanks so much. Thanks so much for the answer. They're going to rip me off the air in about in about 30 seconds. We love you guys at the underground food and meat collective over there. All our, you know, love out to Madison, what's going on right now. I got more questions I didn't answer. We'll get them next week on cooking issues. Thanks for listening to this program on heritageradionetwork.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website or as podcasts

[36:54] 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. HeritageRadio Network is a 501C3 nonprofit. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.