Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand new series on heritage radio network called the culinary call sheet where we give a peek into the back kitchen of culinary media. I'm your host, April Jones,

and I'm your co host, Darren bresnitz. Part of why we started the show was to offer an unofficial mentorship for anyone who's interested in learning about all aspects of food and video, whether that's TV, social media online, or just something you want to do for fun.

Absolutely what was once niche or a little silly, as I'm sure you remember, Darren, when we started out, this man has now become such a massive playing field for so many creatives using food as the medium.

It's something that has driven us professionally and personally, for so many years. What excites me the most about this show is that we're going to sit down with some of the industry leaders to hear how they made it and what drew them into this industry.

With 20 years in the culinary production game ourselves. We're hoping we can give through these conversations an insider's view into personal stories from the field, as well as an in depth behind the scenes look into some of the most popular food programming. In today's evolving culinary media landscape.

We'll be covering everything from how to style your food, to how to license IP, to developing your own ideas, and some tips from the masters of how to host your own show.

Yeah, it's a little bit of conversation, how to and how do you do the things that you do in color media, which I'm so excited about? I love so many of the guests that are coming on this season. We have talent from Food Network from Vice media eater refinery 29,

we've met some of the best people in the world both in front of and behind the camera. And we're bringing them all together to share their stories, their delicious adventure and their unique journey into this crazy world.

So to be the first to hear our episodes when they launched this fall, go to wherever podcasts are streaming and hit subscribe and make sure to give us a follow at the Culinary call sheet on Instagram.

Today's program was brought to you by the Brooklyn kitchen a mom and pop operations since 2006. They provide the tools that shape our food culture, visit them at 100 Frustrating Williamsburg, Brooklyn or visit the Brooklyn kitchen.com You are listening to heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick Brooklyn, if you'd like this program, visit heritage radio network.org for 1000s more.

Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cookie cutters coming to you live on the heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from 12 to roughly one in the back of Roberta's pizza. We're in Bushwick, Brooklyn here again today with Natasha hammer Lopez Welcome back. And as usual, Jack and Joe over the engineering re howdy. By the way, this actually someone I said on the tweeter for today's program that you were going to be back and I said, you know the hammer is gonna be back and someone's like, is that your nickname? And like, no, that's mustaches nickname. And he's like, Well, what's her Twitter handle? And I was like, oh, oh, oh, no, no, no, no, no Twitter handle. I like what Mr. Shea only believes in anti social media. So I told him that Natasha refuses to have a Twitter handle until they invent anti social media and then someone else chimed in. It's like it already is friggin anti social media was like a point taken. Point taken. So yeah, so apparently like people are so mean and rough on Twitter, you might actually enjoy it. Like if you had a Twitter handle that had nothing to do with works he didn't have to be nice if you could just sit there and be incredibly vicious to people but people didn't know maybe who you were. You would love that. Yeah,

you can do that time investment for

us. Look, it doesn't that mustache will invest any amount of time to be vicious that is needed to be invested. Which is always typing on the computer anyway. Why not have it be like when I have it be towards Twitter.

So you know what you did last week while you're gone? Who shopped for shoes during the show?

Thanks for holding the torch. Oh, yeah, no one actually knows what Anastasia is doing on that computer. It's vicious. It's crazy. She's not anyway. Welcome back. Thanks. Yeah, how you doing? Good. You're with like, I'm sure the hammer is already taken. So you couldn't even have that Twitter handle if you wanted. I don't think you'd have to be like a secret name. So I can call out people like me. Yeah, you wouldn't tell me. Yeah, you would write it and be like, This guy doesn't know anything. He's needy is moron, right? Yeah, pretty much. Okay. COVID accordion is 271849721 to eight. That's 718-497-2128 We have one more show before the Valentine's Day, correct? I don't know. Yeah. Valentine's Day. You know, I am. You know, I love that. Oh, let me I don't really look. And now look, I have two kids an 11 year old and an eight year old. So I'm more worried about their Valentine's Day at this point, which you know, when at that age for me, man growing up Valentine's Day, get the already Jack. I know I won. Like, oh, like get ready to play DJ Khaled. All I do is win because I freaking won. Wow. But the point of the matter is like in order to become like the all time champion, like my wife is awesome, super psyched. You know what I mean? And we started going out on Valentine's Day. So Valentine's Day, almost 21 years ago, this Valentine's Day, my wife and I our relationship can go to the bar and have a drink. Because we've been going out we will have been together 21 years at that point. But But yeah, and we've Valentine's Day always sucked for me. I always hated it growing up. I'm sure my kids would be the same way. Actually, Dax. I bet DAX will have good Valentine's Days.

Yeah, it doesn't really matter until like, what 1413

No, you know what, dude, you're in the thing. I mean, even before then even like 11 to 1112 you have to buy the carnation So is this just in the east coaster we all is everyone in the world have this where like you buy carnations and you write stuff on it and the money goes to the school like to the to the school body. And they go around a Valentine's Day in the handout. The carnations may just be it's just east coast. Yeah, Jackie did that stuff.

I never did that, Joe. But

no, no. Anyway, horrible, horrible. And I always they always if you've never if no one bought you one if your friends didn't buy you one and you would buy different colors like red was I love you and Green was I don't know. I don't know what the hell Green was anyways like because who the hell they're fake these carnations they just dip the dip the stems in coloring and the colors of the carnation ridiculous. And you watch these crappy carnations that give carnations, which by the way, are a fine flower. It took me it took me about 12 years or 13 years to convince my wife that the carnation was a legitimately good flower. Because she was like they suck because she was only used to shitty cut. Whoo. crappy, crappy carnations. Sorry, folks.

Hey, we've got a call. Wow.

All right. Anyway, I got the secret admirer one, which means no one bought me one. Now you can play the off. Okay. Caller you're on the air.

Johnny Carson from Memphis. Hey, Dave, how

you doing? Doing all right.

I'm doing good. I got picked up some stainless steel tubing yesterday. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, about four and a half feet up and had it cut into one inch sections and leveled it off and everything. And I was trying to figure out the best way to keep the I was making like a savory cheesecake. And I wanted to cook it in a circulator. Right. And I was trying to figure out the best way to keep it in there because it started pouring out. And, you know, when the vacuum was pulling, it's pouring out.

Yeah, it'll pour out when? So you're bagging how many tubes per

one two per large.

Here's, here's the awesome thing. Did you let the vacuum cycle complete?

Ah, no, I didn't It's it seemed like it was going to come up on the bag.

Yeah, here's, here's, here's, this is awesome. Now there I mean, the one problem with courses at cheesecake has some air in it. But assuming you have a fully dense product, let the vacuum cycle complete. Here's what happens when you vacuum something with a with a tube like that. First of all, you got to make sure that you have enough liquid to fully fill the tube. Because if you don't, the bag will go in and puncture itself on the tube. But if you have enough liquid to fill the tube, all of the liquid will be smashed back into it's a miracle. Well, how liquid is it semi solid or what? Well,

it is cheesecake, but it's made with like a 75% muscular bone. And it's pretty much like a muscular pound consistency.

Right? Right. So here's what's awesome, like, like, when you suck a vacuum on a straight liquid. I've never tried it with something. It's a pace consistency. Everything's gonna boil out of your container. And then as soon as the vacuum comes back in, the force of the vacuum will smash it back into the tube.

Okay, so it'll do that with dense liquid as well like the cheesecake you're paying

as long as it can move. I mean, you might not get 100% back but you'll definitely get like 95 I mean, I used to that It used to be one of my favorite things to do. Because we would vacuum I would vacuum pack liquids in bottles, you know, like doing that I would like I would pour all the liquid into the bag and then like, have the cap on very loose and then put it on a bag and then suck a vacuum and then the vacuum would shoot all the liquid inside the bottle. Yeah, you know, as my I used to do that. That's fun. I mean, your point is well taken on something, it's thick. I mean it eventually we'll work the way back in there. Because otherwise there's going to be a lot of excess force on it, because there's going to be now the question is, will the product get forced back into the tube prior to the bag feeling enough force on the in the, in the cavity on the inside of the tube? Prior to that shattering? Right? I mean, that's the real question. But another thing you could do is, I mean, do you need the vacuum to get the air out? Are you having problems with air in it without the vacuum?

I was shot. Now, it does find that a conventional oven, but I was trying to I wanted to try this to lead to segments because I wanted I wanted the consistency to be like, you know, no air whatsoever? No pocket? No, nothing like that

shirt. Well, then I Yeah. Okay. So if you're looking to come make it much denser, then definitely vacuum is the way to go. And just do it and see whether or not it all gets forced back into the tube, I think you have a very good shot of it all being forced back into the tube, you might have to clip the two ends, because they're going to be a little concave or convex, depending on whether you slightly overstuffed or slightly under stuff, too. But I would definitely go that way. If you're not worried about the density issue, if you're just using it as a temperature control issue, then I would, you know, if you had access to a C Vapp, obviously, I would just cook it and see Vapp or a combi oven. But if not, I would try wrapping the tube after it's stuffed with saran with plastic wrap doing, you know a couple of layers of it. And that should be watertight enough for you to push on it that way. But if you're looking to actually remove all the air and de densify, I would say that vacuum is the way to go. And it'll all get shoved back in in fact, me in fact, the reason that it's puffing out is not just because of the water leak, the water and liquid inside are turning to a vapor, oh, that's causing it. But any air pockets that you're having in there need to push open and push the product out of the way to get out of the tube. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, so you think as you're putting like, foreign forints hotel pan and and run it through a couple of cycles.

Oh, you can do that. And that'll get rid of a lot of the air too. But I have a strong feeling I would say I'm more than 50% positive, that if you just stick the tubes with the mixture in the vac bag and make sure it's packed in good. And you suck a full vacuum on it, that it will all boil out. But it'll go back into the tube I'll give you maybe I'll give you a 50% odds on that working for you. And if not, I would just put the mixture in the hotel pan like you say, blasted a couple times in a vacuum to get the air out then do a dense pack into the tube and then wrap it in plastic and then do it in the either either low tamper, do it in the you could do it in an oven if you're having good luck in an oven.

Even though it's open in both hands.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. As long as there's as long as there's enough. I mean, try it. I mean, like that the the issue is, is that is it going to move fast enough to get back into the to? That's the real real question. But I mean, you can try with water, you'll see if you if you put just enough water to exactly fill that tube and just throw it into the bag with the tube and vacuum it all the water will end up in the tube, all of it. But it's you know, but it's a question when it's so thick. Whether or not it's going to move well enough. But like I say, that's why I'm giving you like 50 I'm not giving you 100% Odds I'm giving you like 50.

All right, understand, and what do you suggest? 170 Fahrenheit like that

of cheese cakes? No, no, I usually do things like that. I can't do the Fahrenheit conversions. I usually do them up. I used to do in like the low 80s. Somewhere in there like the low 80s and Celsius, probably somewhere around product or about. Yeah, I mean, usually I think I have to go back and look at my number has been a long time. But anyway, tell us tell us how it works. You're just here to say a Twitter or whatnot. Tell me how it works.

All right, thanks, David. YouTube,

by the way on Twitter, you know what if you ever want to insult Natasha, she'd cease all of my emails but not my Twitter. Just saying.

Just kidding. Patrick Martin's also not on Twitter. I think you guys are the only two he's not on Twitter. or Facebook or anything. Wow. He's, you know, I don't know. Too too exclusive.

Wow. Wow. All right. Okay, well Freeman writes in at rebel cat at Heritage radio and Dave Arnold, could you please discuss sparkling water served with espresso Theory and Practice word Anastasia Jack and the crew again, that's a an an arrest reference from the first Gilligan's Island. Remember that name? I won't go into again So, carbonated water was seltzer I enjoy it you don't you don't mean sorry carbonated water with with espresso I enjoy you don't drink espresso right says any of you guys over there espresso I'm into it. Yeah you like the carbonated I actually have never had the carbonated but I like okay so when you get it when you order an espresso in a lot of nicer joints, they will give you a water back right a glass of water with it. And then a lot of the places that I like like in San Francisco, for instance like blue bottle and other places, they'll give you a carbonated water back. And it seems kind of strange at first, you wouldn't think that carbonated water unnecessarily go well with coffee. I mean, there's very few carbonated coffee drinks Manhattan, special soda being the one obvious. You know, that's the only really carbonated coffee thing I can think of. So it's not necessarily. And by the way, Manhattan doesn't refer to our Manhattan the stasher first of Manhattan Avenue here in Brooklyn. So it's like, you know, it's actually a broken product, so you can't drink it. Yeah, we saw the factory. Yeah. Anyway. So I don't know. I mean, like, I like it. And I put it this way, what is it there for espresso is gone. And like 13 seconds, especially like a modern American espresso, you're drinking like 13 seconds, because of the incredibly short shots that they're pulling these days, it used to be that a double was, you know, like an ounce and three quarters or so or an ounce and a half now, like a double is, you know, almost not even coating the bottom of your cup at some of these places. I think it's gone a little far in that respect in some ways, but but you have a strong tasting thing and you need something to clear your mouth out at the end. So in general, what I do is I drink the espresso, and then I pound the water and regular water doesn't clean your mouth out or make you feel refreshed the way sparkling water does mean straight up. Right? So I don't think I don't know if there's any theory other than I'm sure that people who started doing it were offering a sparkling mineral water as as a thing and that just happened to be the water of their of their of their preference. But I didn't find anything on the kind of history of it. All I'm saying is I enjoy it. I'm assuming you enjoy as well at rebel cat. Anyway. Ben writes it. Oh, caller you're on the air.

Hello. Hi, I'm Steven bunting. I'm a big fan of your show. Thank you. I had a quick question about juices. Okay, good.

What's the question?

I need a juicer that can also use greens effectively and extract as much as possible out of the green. And I was looking for one in a reasonable price range. And if that's if that's not possible, then is there any way to modify a cheaper juicer to be able to do that?

When you say greens? You mean like kale? Yes. Okay. All right. Okay, good. So, what do you have now?

I don't have one yet. I'm working them in the market.

Okay, so the now there's all sorts of juicers that I myself don't, don't own and haven't even tested my main experience it with juice style juicers are with the smaller the smaller like weird baskets and tropical guys, and I've never had much luck with them. I don't really never been so happy with them. The majority of my experiences with a Champion juicer champion juicers is a masticating juicer. And so it's what it does is it's got a long nose, and it's got little teeth on that long nose and you shove stuff down and just grinds it up with them. And then the juice spits out of the bottom through a mesh screen, and then the chaff comes out the front, right. And the champion can juice just about anything. With the exception it can't do sugar cane. I don't I don't think it's very good at wheat grass, right? But it does. Apples, it'll do kale, do all those things. Ginger, anything. Carrots, loves carrots, it loves to do carrots. Now, the one gripe people have with the Champ and The champion is relatively reasonably priced. Right. It's like I think we pay what 200 For something like that. And it's and it's a monster workhorse right? You You can beat the heck out of it all day long and nothing it's not going to die. I think I said on the show. If not, I've said elsewhere that I had one once that I ran so long and so hard juicing apples that the surface of the case was boiling water and the actually melted the electronics on the inside of it the safety circuit, but it's still juiced. I mean, that's kind of how sturdy these suckers are. Oh, wow. But the one gripe that people have about the champion is that it can heat up your products. Okay, and so we've greens and certain other things. That can be a problem. By the way when you're juicing something. If you do something that has a tendency to turn brown after it's been cut up. You what you want to do is put ascorbic acid vitamin C actually into the pan that you're juicing into, and that's going to, that's going to really retard the Browning that happens versus apples or anything else. But the kale stuff is no problem. But if you need something that's more gentle, right, and for things like greens you can get, there's a juicer called the Green Star Juicer, that's, that's it runs with two gears and the two gears, crushed the product as it's going through, and that produces the juice and that juice is at a much lower temperature. And so people like it, it's a little more expensive than a champion. I don't have any personal experience with it. But Sam Mason, you know, when he was opening, Taylor had a champion and a juice GreenStar. And he said he really liked the Green Star, but he said the yield was a lot lower. So I don't know how important the yield is. So that's another thing to look at whenever you're looking at a juicer is how much you're leaving behind.

Okay, I'm a chemist, the yield is actually pretty important to me. Okay. And I was also I was also curious. So I'm going to be making every juicers sometimes as well, instead of using a score, but can I use some type of vinegar or citric acid or something like that instead, make sure the running doesn't occur.

Okay, well, it depends. So so if you're like, there's two ways to retire Browning, right. So you're, you're a chemist, so like, but well, for everyone was one you lower the Browning is caused by an enzyme enzymes that are present in the juice, right? I believe they're poly phenol oxidase is that are that are agglomerating things together into things that turn brown that look brown, and that anyway, that make things takes oxidized. So and other oxidation reactions are happening. In fact, I think the Browning is only the only one of the things is going on for the oxidation reactions. So but they're mainly enzymatically caused, which means you can retard a lot of that Browning by simply lowering the pH to the point where those enzymes no longer active right? One mode, or to add something that is actively an antioxidant, like ascorbic acid, right. So the other acids are only going to act insofar as they're going to lower the pH whereas they're not as effective as actual antioxidants, as you would have in something like ascorbic acid. Now, if you didn't want the ascorbic acid taste, right, but although ascorbic acid is very light on taste, you could move to something like sodium bisulfite or something like that as an antioxidant and a lot of people use that but the problem is, is that if you overdose on, on one of the sulfite things, you start to taste that vaguely sulfurous note but you won't taste it in smaller quantities. Okay,

thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. Let us know how it goes. I will Alright, wait so should we go to our first we're going to have a break

we'll be right back. A true mom and pop operation since 2006. The Brooklyn kitchen provides the tools that shape our food culture. They stock a curated variety of pots, pans, knives, small appliances and other kitchen essentials. The grocery department works closely with local farms and food artisans to bring you the tastiest fresh produce dairy and pantry items. Their teaching kitchens allow them to offer a wide breadth of cooking classes, from knife skills to pick butchering, from cooking for couples to pickling and canning from home brewing to pie making something new is always happening at the Brooklyn kitchen. Visit them at 100 Frustrating Williamsburg, Brooklyn or visit the Brooklyn kitchen.com

You guys put some scary music to that.

Yeah, right.

I feel like I'm gonna get butchered.

That's the point.

It's not a scary place. Yeah,

I was asking the Stasi before the show has ever been in Brooklyn kitchen. But then I forgot She's never really been to Brooklyn outside of Roberta's so oh yeah,

she makes a beeline directly for the subway when she gets out of here like slapping the hipsters off for like mosquitoes that she's running. which one your job? It's your job. You tell it? No, it's nostalgia you? How much does the hipster weigh? How much an Instagram wow thank goodness she's measuring at class rates in and cooking issues. What starch? Have you found to be the least cloudy when using as a thickener for hot sauces? Or do you have any non starch ideas? Okay, well, it's an interesting question. And he wants something it's hot soluble. So you heat it up and to coat the back of a spoon with thick coat that could the back of the spoon as they say a nipple, as they say in the trade, or maybe a little bit thicker. So if you're interested in starch clarity and the theory behind starch clarity, you can look at the 1989 article called starch paste clarity by essayez Craig, it's available on the internet, and you can look it up. But in general, if you're looking for a regular starch, you know not a modified if you want to modify not even a modified but a very highly tuned starch. You can go to national starch Corporation, and they have any number of starches that are already there. They're made specifically for things like clarity. In fact, they have gel they have starches that have the word clarity and purity in their name that are intended to be very highly clear. But if you're looking to get kind of a more normal, just like a grocery store situation with starch, the way the reason starches are went and started becomes clear, typically means that the starch is swelling rapidly. And the starch granules break rapidly. And the starch goes completely into solution rapidly. And that makes for maximum clarity, right. So the starches that have that are ones like potato starch, or tapioca starch route based and tuber based starches, these starches tend to swell extremely rapidly. The granules rupture rapidly, at which point it becomes very clear. So you know those, those are going to have higher clarity because things like potato starch, also starch that's higher like other type starts like waxy corn starch, not corn starch or waxy corn starch, which is high in amylopectin tends to be a more clear because amylopectin tends to be more clear, and it's easier to paste out and also Retrogrades less now any starts you have, is going to have the issue that when it cools down, it's going to thicken significantly, I think less so probably for potato starch, but I haven't I didn't have a chance to look it up. If you want to move just to a hydrocolloid for thickening with clarity, then obviously, you can add a little bit of xanthan at the end of your cooking procedure, and it will stay it will add its thickening capability, whether it's hot, or it's cold. The problem was it then is if you add too much Xanthan, your product thing gets snotty, and it looks really like snot and very jiggly. So you want to add low percentages, you never want to add really more than about two a sauce more than about a quarter of a percent up to about a third of a percent. If you go over that. You're gonna start noticing some Xanthan characteristics to it. You can go up to half a percent, some don't. But I wouldn't you know what I mean, you start and you know, we hate the Xanthan, you look at things right that Gigli that JAYLEE look, in a sauce that's going to be eaten as a lot of sauce. In certain applications. It's okay to have that texture because you're not having a large quantity of it there where you can see the motion on the surface. It's mainly the motion on the surface. I mean, there's some snotty texture to the actual mouthfeel but mostly it's the way it looks. That is so horrible, right? Yeah, yeah. But you might want to move to something like not a regular locust bean gum, but a you know, a purified locust bean gum, they're hot soluble, they need to be heated up, but they can be very good clear locust bean gum and you can buy that from I'm sure monitors pantry carries it or if not, you know, CP Kelco make some a bunch of people make clear locust bean gums, but they're highly refined, they're good thickness, also, purified guar is very clear. And so you can get a good purified guar gum guar is cold or hot, so you can add it and then you know, use it as you go. And maybe those will be useful. We got to make sure that you don't get just regular cruddy guar because regular recording guar tastes bad. And regular karate guar also is not clear because it hasn't been purified to have only the hydrocolloid, the active polysaccharides in it, I believe. What are they glucomannan is whatever I can't remember. But anyway, so you get a hold of those. Of course we all know the price of guar has gone up due to fracking. Thanks, fracking. Thanks a lot. Thanks. You know, you know, I heard there's an environmental problem with it, too.

I haven't heard that.

Anyway, we listen to cooking cache. Exactly. There you go. So anyway, so take a look at that. Hopefully, that will work out for you. Yeah. Okay. We have a question in from Zoey. At 69 Cobra grill, our friend Tony conigliaro has place and the drink factory and they hope we're doing well. Are we? Yeah, yeah. Okay. We're looking to do some work with calcium oxide. And I'm wondering if you had any advice. Also, this may sound a bit strange but knowing it, it can be quite an aggressive chemical. Is there a foodsafe version of it? Or is it a case of just being careful, as always, any information is greatly appreciated. Okay, calcium oxide I've not heard. So calcium oxide is ca o, right? quick lime. And the main use of calcium oxide that I know of in food is actually to make self heating cans because you add, anytime calcium oxide is added to water, it's going to have a very, very strong reaction where it absorbs the water and turns into calcium hydroxide. And that reaction liberates a boatload of heat. So if you go to the Wikipedia, this is what they quoted. So I can't verify it. Because it's Wikipedia. You know, I didn't start you could go in there and enter that, you know, whatever she wants, right? In fact, she's doing it right now. I think that's actually what she's doing all the time. What she's doing is she's actually just loading in like, she's updating. Like, really like random facts. She's like, you know, she's like, Elliot, Elliot Gould, Wikipedia that you have written on Elliott Gould with the PDF page. Awesome. Awesome. I love myself. I love Elliott Gould. He retired me about him like over Christmas. Oh, man, I love my name is Elliott Gould. What happened to Elliott Gould. I don't know, I loved him. I love myself medical anyways. So you know, don't trust anything on Elliott goes with the PDF page. Because he noticed that she just put her fingers in there. Like all of a sudden, you know, Elliott Gould is going to be friends with Elton John, all sorts of terrible things are going to happen anyway. According to them, one liter of water will combine with 3.1 kilograms of calcium oxide to give calcium hydroxide and 3.4 mega joules of energy to put that into perspective, that is an entire kilowatt hour or the same amount of energy it takes to run 1000 Watt thing for an hour or in calories, 846,000 calories, and it can deliver it at a fairly high heat. So that's a very high heat interaction. So I don't know of any use for calcium oxide itself in in food, but calcium hydroxide is extremely interesting. So calcium hydroxide, which you can get as form of pickling lime, you can get it in Mexican places as as cow, which is what was used for next embolization. It's also available, membrane just arrays, but it's also available on a couple of other names. But you know, that stuff's great. And it's, oh, Ty redline pace and tideline pace, you can get it as you know, it's calcium hydroxide base. And it that's really interesting. It has a faint cement the taste on its own. It's not very soluble, but it's also used to do things like next amortization, which changes the taste of things. And anything that requires something that's either as basic or that has calcium is one of the reactions. So we use it a lot. It's also used in sugar production, because they have for a number of reasons. And this is interesting, this is I did not know, I knew that they have to keep sugar on the relatively basic side when they're processing it to prevent it from inverting, right, because if sugar is even a little bit acidic, if sucrose table sugar is even a little bit acidic, as it's being processed, it will invert into glucose and fructose separately, which is a problem for sugar manufacturers because then it won't crystallize out. And they don't sell fructose and glucose, they sell sucrose, they sell table sugar, so everything is kept on the neutral or slightly basic side. But when you're doing when they're doing beet sugar, they go through a process and I learned this this morning of not carbonation, one of my favorite things on the earth, but carbon notation. And what they do there is they put they put calcium hydroxide into the mix with into the into the juice, and then they shoot co2 carbon dioxide into that and what happens is the carbon dioxide reacts with the calcium hydroxide to form calcium carbonate and calcium carbonate isn't soluble. So it what it does is it forms particles of calcium carbonate, and as it forms those particles, it traps other things in it and so it can be used as a clarifying aid. So anyone out there, I wonder whether there's a way to do an inexpensive, you know, centrifuge free clarifier quick, fairly quick clarification using calcium hydroxide, maybe interesting someone check it out. Someone tells me what's going on anyway. So there you have it, right. Yeah. Okay. Milk cult wrote in, can you guys cover real butter milk, the byproduct of butter production and acidified buttermilk and impacts on hydrocolloid. Well, okay. So here's the thing. So when I use whenever you go buy buttermilk in a store, you're buying what's called cultured buttermilk, and it's not really buttermilk. It's just a low fat milk that they treat with a culture that's I guess, you know, similar to what would be in a culture in real cultured cream right now. So what you're getting there is the actual milk, the casein is there, you know, everything is there and the normal proportions is would be for low fat milk, only it's been cultured with bacteria. So it's tart, it's acidic, and it's thicker, right? In buttermilk, what you do is you take cream and you make butter with it, and the stuff that's left over is buttermilk. That's what real butter milk is. And what it's mainly composed of is the whey proteins. The because you know, the casein is what's the the milk solids go with the oil when you're making butter, but you you have some you have casein, some casing is the casing comes out to but some of its trapped as milk solids and the thing but me all the whey proteins are basically in there. I guess some casein, some fat, some little bit of fat that's leftover and a lot of like great emulsifiers and lactose and water. If you use sweet cream to make it and I was just like right away, you buy it from the grocery store, then that cream it will not be tart will not be acidic. So most of the recipes that you're using buttermilk for in, you know pancakes and whatnot, you what you're really using them for is the acidity, you're counting on the acidity from them. That's why you add baking soda to those recipes because the baking soda is interacting with the acidity in the buttermilk to leaven your products, like let's say pancakes, you know they also sent tend to make it more tender crumb things like biscuits, not that NuSTAR should know because she hates biscuits. Very similarly, sourdough starter is mainly used in pancakes, not for its leavening capability, and that's why you can use an old nasty sourdough starter for pancakes, you're using a sourdough starter there for its acidity and that's why a lot of those buttermilk pancakes or sourdough pancakes will have soda in them baking soda in them, because they're actually doing an acid base reaction and not leavening in a traditional way or they're augmenting the nutritional leavening with an acid base reaction. However, when I make buttermilk, I typically take my cream, I will buy buttermilk, and you have to make sure that the buttermilk that you're using is has active cultures and so the one I get from Whole Foods is usually very active. I've had bad luck sometimes with the one I get at my local supermarket culture not being active enough. And then you take your cream and to like your quart of cream you can add you know, like a half a cup or so of buttermilk, and then I let it sit out in the kitchen overnight. And then my cream is cultured and then I get real buttermilk from and that's the way you would make cultured butter to be let it sit however long you want for the culture developed for the cream to ripen and then you make your butter with it that buttermilk is acidic and that buttermilk so that buttermilk has the like the best of all the world has they interesting, awesome tastes of buttermilk. It has the emulsifying properties of you know that are in a in a traditional old school buttermilk. And it also has, which I guess mainly come from probably the whey protein I'm not sure and it also has the acidity. So what do you think? Good. Good. Okay. And I guess it's time for a second commercial break already. Sure. Yeah. Second commercial break couldn't issues.

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And welcome back to Cooking issues and from Hungary wrote in thank you for covering my questions last week and clearing up my dulci deletion recipes and processes. I made those single issue without the water this past weekend and stirred almost constantly and it did work previously I thought the water was there to prevent the milk or sugar from burning while they interact and the water is just slow in the process I read more on the My reaction I learned a lot anyways, I want to say thank you for giving me a heads up and now we're ready for flavors and perfecting the recipe. Well, thanks. I love to hear feedback if something actually worked. Right. Right. Feels good. Okay, In from Nick in Seoul, Korea, and he is writing to Eunice Dasha because he doesn't really care what I say. Sorry, Missy this week. I'm Nick from Seoul Korea call about cold smoking bacon, I just want to follow up my inquiry day says I'm not going to get the desired effect, which by the way is to reduce the emissions into positive harmful substances while preserving the good smoky flavor of bacon, because the good smoky aroma that we love is released at the combustion temperatures along with the various possible carcinogens and other nasty stuff. Well, that is unless I make major major modifications to my setup. What if you go low and slow? Woods essential oils and aroma compounds are also released at lower temperatures, say 200 to 300 Celsius? No, wouldn't keeping it under the combustion temperature of two or 300 Celsius for longer duration, more or less produces our effect? And also, do you have any experience smoking with herbs, grains, flowers and pollens or any mixture of them? Are there any things that should be made aware of before giving it a whirl? Looking forward to hearing from you Best regards, Nick. Okay, so we have to separate what's going on here. Woods essential oils and aromas do go out at lower temperatures. But you gotta remember these are compounds that are already in the wood themselves. So things like the aroma of cedar, or the aroma of sandalwood or any of those aromas or pine, those those things are in the wood, and relatively easy to volatilize. In fact, they're there you can smell them, right. So they're clearly they're fairly easy to volatilize the other things in them, like you know, the phenolic things like the one that you always think of as being associated with smoky flavor is glycol. And that is not in the wood to begin with. It needs to be produced and it's produced by the pyrolysis of lignin at high temperatures. Now, is there a way maybe to produce it really long, it's not I don't know, I haven't wasn't able to find anything in the literature to to make to figure out like what those flavors to produce those flavors at a lower temperature. In addition, remember that the temperature at which the smoke is produced in even in the in the higher temperature range, which is where we're talking about the actual flavors that you're produced, the actual reactions that take place are dependent on that temperature. So the flavor of a particular smoke is going to depend on the temperature at which it's created as well. So it's not like even all high temperatures are created equal, but I don't know of a way that you can get traditional smoke flavors at lower temperature now like I say, getting the volatiles out of it and making those kinds of flavors I think would be very, you know, be easy to do at those lower temperatures but not the traditional smoky flavor if someone tells someone call back and or write me and tell me of a way to do it, but I don't know of any way. Okay, hello cooking issues team from Matthew. I hope everything is good with you guys in 2013. I decided to add some xanthan gum and soy lecithin to my vinaigrette recipe to help it stay emulsified. Now, Xanthan is of course the you know one of the magic hydrocolloid that comes from bacteria. And it's awesome because you can use it in very small quantities so it doesn't mask flavor. It can go into almost any recipe whether it's acidic or not acidic, it can go it can be heated it can be cold. It is it suspends things like pepper because it has what's called a yield point so it forms a weak gel unless it's being agitated. So it's amazing stuff. Problem before we said to use too much of it and things get snotty but it's really kind of amazing amazing stuff. So unless it then of course is lecithin, which is a phospholipid that's derived from a soybean processing. Less than is in a lot of recipes anytime we use egg yolk as an emulsifier we're also using less than than but remember less at the end of from an egg yolk is not the same thing as less than from soy very related though. Anyway, that was just a that before we get to the full thing. So you know Okay, the first recipe I use for reference was here on HTTP modernist cooking made easy.com And they made a maple vinaigrette recipe it called 4.6 0.6% less than 0.2% Xanthan. I made a vinaigrette that was about 840 grams and then out of five grams or less than and 1.7 grams Xanthan and spun the whole thing in a vital prep but it preps always a good call by the way love the vital prep. Alas it broke almost immediately and shortly after a completely separated after this. I consulted Martin Laroche is chemosis Texturas hydrocolloid cookbook, and it's recipe called for 0.2%, less lecithin and 0.1 to 0.4% Xanthan again I started with 840 grams of vinaigrette and then add 1.7 grams of lecithin and point eight five grams of xanthan, also a complete failure. I'm not really sure where I went wrong named my inferior maths skills contributed. In both cases I completely ignored the recipes and use my own vinaigrette recipe and just added the hydrocolloids in the proportion specified. Could this be the issue? I assume that with the additives and the ratio was the with the additives the ratios the other components weren't as important. Any other suggestions or ideas on using less and less than Xanthan or other stuff to keep dressings nicely emulsified? Thanks. Okay. We tend to use of when I think any salad dressings, I typically use something called a ticker, Lloyd, you know, 310 or 210, or two, a one or three one, I think they're all very similar. They're mixtures of gum arabic and Xanthan, because I have a lot of them around because I use them in drinks. So they're using a gum arabic slash Xanthan system to thicken and stabilize. And those things lasts forever forever. And both of them are very good at different a different acid levels. So here's a way I there's a couple of things that can be going wrong there. First of all, I looked at the recipes, and both recipes state their percentages in a way that is normal for cooks to state them but not really accurate. hydrocolloid, the the the thickening power of a hydrocolloid is based strictly on how much it's interacting with the water in a system. So I looked at the maple vinaigrette recipe, it was 45 grams of balsamic vinegar, 15 grams of lemon juice, and 20 grams of maple syrup and 90 grams of olive oil. So when they were doing the recipe calculations for that they added all of those numbers up to get the percentages. However, the xanthan gum isn't interacting with the 90 grams of oil, so that shouldn't factor into your percentages, right? It's just not it shouldn't. Also, the balsamic vinegar is mostly water, so that's okay. The lemon juice has mostly water, so that's okay. And the 20 grams of maple syrup, though, is only 1/3 water. So that's like seven grams. So if you look at it, this recipe, they says that one gram of lecithin is point 6%, it's actually using 1.4% of less than on a water basis. Now, less than you can't really count as a water basis alone because it's interacting with the oil because it's an emulsifier. So like they're the the water the total amount and the water oil part is is important. I don't really know how to work it out from an accurate standpoint. But anyway, but back on the xanthan gum, he says he's using point 2% xanthan gum, but on a water base. He's really using point four 5% xanthan gum, okay. So one one problem is is that when you're looking at it, you should look at the amount of water in your recipe for your Xanthan. And in fact, he's adding point four, five, I went and analyzed Martin lashes recipe and he's using I have it here somewhere I'm here he's using actually much more than than, than he would because he's not counting the oil on his aunt then either. So you could up your Xanthan or make sure your percentages are in line with what they want for the liquid. Another problem you might be having is maybe your lecithins no good and your lecithin is are using powdered lecithin or you're using the one that's in granules, the granules might not be dissolving properly. The good way to figure out whether it's the lecithin that's the problem is you can figure on a general basis that egg yolks are roughly 10% less than. So if your recipe works just by adding 10 times the amount of egg yolk as you added less than right. So in your case, let's say you're using the one gram of less than if you're adding 10 grams of egg yolks, it should have roughly that same amount of lecithin. But it's not going to be a problem hydrating so that one if you added the egg yolk and it worked, then bang, it's probably your lecithins not going in there properly. Could be you weren't hydrating the Xanthan properly, remember, you're doing it a very acidic environment here, if you're using some of these recipes, so just take a look at it another. So I would look at your hydration even though you're using a vital probe and make sure everything's getting hydrated. I don't know about lecithins performance in extremely acidic environments. I don't know how acidic your environment is, but look at the actual water content of what's going on. Test it with a yoke to see whether that's the problem up the Xanthan slightly, because the other way the percentages are being calculated is is a little bit wonky or switch to something like take a Lloyd 310, which I know works in these situations because I've done it all the time. No one more thing is that you might want to whisk the lesson thing into the into the oil if you can. And if you have a water that's in there that isn't very acidic. If you're using something that's not very acidic, I would put the hydrocolloid as much into a non acidic thing as possible before you start the hydrate faster and easier. Yeah, what do you think? Good, good. All right. Okay, we'll see find another good question.