Syzygies

Re: Clamp and Seal Sous Vide It was exactly your comments on this forum that lead me to conclude that the Ary VP215C ($1,100 and up) was the most affordable chamber machine I'd actually want to own. Better engineering, oil pump... Some of the reviews on the $800 Ary VP112C scare me. There are reasons you went for the VP215C, and they're good reasons others should consider. I would have bought one by now, but for the analog controls. To reach an intermediate pressure, one watches a gauge, and at the right moment, hits stop. An oddly familiar protocol I feel I've practiced in various ways my whole life. I don't remember it always going well! In restaurants, part of sous vide cooking involves specifying a precise level of vacuum. The $1,900 minipack MVS 31X comes with digital controls, and reviews well. So I'm stuck. Meanwhile, I can live with the liquid restriction of "clamp and seal", if it saves me counter space and a couple of grand. What, I want to spend $1,900 because Thomas Keller says I sometimes want a medium vacuum? Why would I want to spend anything on a chamber machine, if "clamp and seal" is this easy?

Re: Clamp and Seal Sous Vide In Under Pressure, p. 29, Thomas Keller writes A chamber machine salesman aware of the usual repair issues put it differently: Your pump isn't designed to be used as a still. I sure don't want these vapors going through the pump oil, it can't be good, and I'm told it's not good.

Rolling Pin and Counter Edge A rolling pin and counter edge may be the easiest way to ready a bag for clipping. Keeps the bag very flat, with plenty of opportunity to tease all the air out.

CLIP-it Bag Clamps Just to summarize, this thread is about using oxygen absorber bag clips to assist in sealing chamber vacuum sealer bags, without a chamber vacuum sealer machine. They're a game changer.

Re: Clamp and Seal Sous Vide (The "Dead Greek Guy" Method)) This is a point of contention, and saying it doesn't make it so. Only some plastics are determined food-safe at cooking temperatures, and the major chamber vacuum sealer bag manufacturers offer two lines, one approved as food-safe at cookiing temperatures. If someone could thoughtfully explain to me what these specialists are thinking, they might be able to convince me to follow their lead in saving 2 cents per bag by not worrying about this. Otherwise, I'd call this another instance of Darwin stopping by to say hi. Friendly chap, but I'm pretty cautious around him. This question can get political, for sure. I remember my 60's friends despising microwaves, and one could see "fear of plastic" in the same light. It's interesting that FoodSaver bags are routinely used at home to simmer meals, yet (in many locales) you couldn't use them in a restaurant. One could spin many a theory on this one. For me this is moot. There's the faintest price difference between chamber bags designed for boiling, and not designed for boiling. I'm certainly not going to maintain two supplies. These bags in use are staggeringly more beautiful than any Ziploc or FoodSaver bag I've ever seen, in a clean, minimalist way. They look more like glass, while supermarket bags look more like jello. Sort of like the two grades of Cambro; the hard plastic rated for boiling is clear, while the cheap stuff is cloudy. I want my freezer filled with seven kinds of stock in one cup servings, in these bags. Fort Knox. I'm thrilled that I can seal these bags so trivially, without a chamber vacuum machine, or even a water bath. These bag clamps rock.

Look Ma No Bath n66962 It turns out that with enough liquid, and some manual dexterity, there's no need for the water bath. Archimedes can rest in peace. Ever run a toothpaste tube against the side of the sink, to cleanly squeegee the remaining paste toward the front? One can hold a liquid-filled bag flat against one of these bag clips, and slide the clip till there're no air trapped, and close the clip. Seal, remove the clip, and done. This is similar to how one burps a ziploc bag, keeping one end open while working the air out. Only, with this clip it's easier, and after the seal, the bag is more secure. I can see putting up a dozen bags of stock this way to freeze, in the time it would take a chamber vacuum sealer to cycle through three bags.

n68276 n68277 My shipment came, to test "Clamp and Seal Sous Vide". It works exactly as expected, and I can recommend it. Casual sous vide cooks have long plunked a ziploc bag in water to drive out the air, then cooked the bag contents in a temperature-controlled water bath, which could simply be a large pot of water and a watchful eye. This works, although supermarket zip pouches aren't food-safe at cooking temperatures. SousVide Supreme sells heat-safe zip bags; if this makes you happy, stop reading and buy some. They call this the Archimedes principle after the ancient Greek scientist. They didn't invent this application to sous vide, although a web search suggests they coined the name. The next step up is an external clamp vacuum sealer (such as FoodSaver) which requires special textured bags which aren't food-safe at cooking temperatures either. Liquids are a persistent problem, and the machines work poorly with seals that often fail. SousVide Supreme also sells heat-safe external clamp vacuum sealer bags (same link). Professional kitchens use chamber vacuum sealers, costing $1,000 to $2,000 for a quality unit suitable for home use. Liquids per se are no longer a problem, but hot liquids remain a problem; they'll come to a boil at low pressures, gumming up the pump. So professional chefs up-end the usual sequence for braising meats, with the sear after the long slow cook, because the usual sequence simply isn't possible with their equipment. I've been experimenting with sous vide, using a FoodSaver vacuum sealer, and a $160 Sous Vide Magic temperature controller (think BBQ Guru) with a hot plate and stock pot water bath. In my other kitchen I have a $300 SousVide Supreme Demi, which also works well, although the fixed water bath size is a nuisance. I crave an $800 PolyScience Professional immersion circulator, as does everyone who heads down this rabbit hole. The trouble is, I also crave a chamber vacuum machine, only I don't want this huge, heavy, expensive object in my life if I can avoid it. And I can't decide which one is good enough for me. Oil pump? Digital controls? Those chamber machines cost a fortune, but their heat-safe bags cost 10 cents each. They'd be wonderful for freezing stock, you name it. Oh yeah, got to let the stock cool down. Hmm... On sleepless nights I kept thinking how I'd design a clamp, so I could close a chamber pouch under water, then seal it using a bag sealer. I could picture exactly the clamp, and I wondered how I could convince a manufacturer to make them. Then I was flipping through a King Arthur catalog, saw these flour bag clips. Figuring someone was making them for King Arthur, I Googled and found that Sorbent Systems (a source for oxygen absorbers) sells bag clips and heat sealers. (I could use my FoodSaver to make a seal, but the dedicated sealers make 5mm seals.) The rest of the story is completely anti-climatic. These clips work exactly as expected. One has a water bath handy if one is about to cook sous vide; remember to close the bags before the water gets hot! Dry, this method won't get the air out. Divers know that 99 feet deep is 4 atmospheres, so half a foot deep ain't much. However, with even a modest amount of added liquid (stock? olive oil? melted butter?) one can close a bag this way and get almost all of the air out. The impulse heat sealer just works, not much to say. (I have frequent words with my FoodSaver, so this is a good thing.) The standard clips will close an 8" pouch; the large clips will close a 12" pouch. I bought 8" clips, and a 12" sealer for good measure. I posted this here, despite its possibly wider interest, as anyone who just saved $2,000 on a chamber vacuum sealer is probably our kind of folks, and might want a look around. If I had to choose, I'd take a Komodo Kamado ceramic cooker in a heart beat, over a PolyScience circulator and the chamber vacuum sealer of my dreams. But why not have both?

Re: KK extruded CoConut shell charcoal is Stateside Yo, Edison!

Re: Must Read "physicist-cracks-bbq-mystery" Of late I've been fervently (fermently?) studying sourdough bread. There's quite a literature. Tartine Bread is the single best and most effective reference. (Yes I have Hamelman, Reinhart x N, Beranbaum, Wood, ...) One could imagine a similar literature for brisket, if there was enough interest. In fact, it's an oral history we're recreating here. Bread reminds me of scientific research. One imagines research is technical, but it's in fact intently pyschological and philosophical. One needs the temperament to go around inside one's own head swinging a 2x4 wildly, to kill off intellectual conceits, and then one might see the truth. People bring all sorts of dogma and expectations to the table, and we can really never, never completely see how we're fish in water. Moreover we believe in simple explanations and single right answers. That built us the bomb, right? Reality is messy, with more than one right answer. That's why an amazing number of the best bread bakers in this country are self-taught. Commercial bread baking is impossibly long hours of time spent alone with the problem, away from all of our dogma and intellectual conceits, and bread bakers aren't prone to intellectual conceits in the first place. They'd make excellent researchers. Brisket is the same. There's no one right answer, and bad technique in attentive hands is good technique. Trying to classify technique as good or bad is blinding oneself with dogma, trying to take pictures with the lens cap on. Cooking is seeing.

Re: Must Read "physicist-cracks-bbq-mystery"

Re: Salting Steaks +1. I'd add, ordinary ziplock bags aren't food safe at simmering temperatures, though (like smoking, not wearing a seat belt) one can get by without obvious consequences, and people do. However, SousVide Supreme does sell suitable zip pouches for exactly this method. If the bag clamps work (I'll report when they arrive), even better. One can seal chamber vacuum bags (get the kind rated food-safe for simmering) using an external clamp "home" vacuum sealer, and these bags are impossibly inexpensive. I ordered a separate sealer because the 5mm seal represents a significantly better seal than my FoodSaver, and it was cheap compared to a chamber vacuum machine. The $160 SousVide Magic can control a hot plate or dumb rice cooker. It's completely understandable to us: It's a Barbecue Guru for indoor water baths! Hard to imagine regretting that purchase, even if one only cooks with plastic bags once or twice. I also use mine to precisely control simmering stock, and pots of beans, and braises. My favorite setup is to put a New England bean pot inside a giant covered pot of water, control the water bath, and braise in the bean pot. I can actually stick my hand in to move things, and taste for salt! Just try to do that if your dinner is encased in plastic. When I'm trying to rush a bread dough, I'll use the same setup, but with a 90 F water bath, and put the dough to rise inside the bean pot.

Re: Komodo Kamado's new review on AmazingRibs.com Nice. Hope he plays with it more, and reports back. Two comments: When my KK came, I rolled my eyes at the grill hook thingies, thinking them unduly fussy and one more thing to lose. I knew where my Orca gloves were, and planned to use them. In short order, I saw the point of this little Dennis invention, and I've used them ever since. Somehow, the reviewer missed this day in school? I don't miss "two zone" cooking. There's good bass and treble, and there's component stereo. My idea of component stereo is a small Weber (hey, tweeters are small, too) for direct cooking, keeping the KK fire down for indirect.

Re: Salting Steaks

Savory sticky buns That helps a lot. Savory sticky buns, lots of soft pillowy bread goodness, with toppings.

Re: Flashback With airflow there's no flashback. I'd restore airflow (lots if one is paranoid about a repeat performance of the flashback) and take out the steak.

Re: Of all the nerve! Ask the FibraMent-D pizza stone folks about heat soaks. It takes longer than 20 minutes to heat soak anything of substance, even their 3/4" pizza stones. On the other hand, one can get a raging fire going in an oil drum, or ceramic cooker of any quality, with enough fuel and air flow. I'd rather get one going in a KK, for all of the reasons given here. That other company can generate lots of very hot air, let's be fair here.

Charcoal fired bread oven

Re: Some truly valuable information..... I made frost shelters for our citrus trees out of my crate scraps.

Re: Bronze Behemoth Game On! 2 I know Steve Sando from when he (and we) came regularly to the SF Ferry building farmers market. He's the real deal, and his beans are the best available. It makes a difference. Pretty much any bean from the Xoxoc project is an almost vanished Mexican heirloom variety that he's rescued, with much more character than a bean variety one already knows. To fill out his flat fee shipping, load up on extras. Calling in for advice couldn't hurt, they don't list everything. But his Piloncillo: Evaporated Cane Juice is the best sugar I've ever tasted (imagine it in a rub!), and they have this dried cactus candy that's incredibly addictive. Etc., Etc.

This is prior work, published in 'Modernist Cuisine' Here is the AmazingRibs blog entry:Understanding And Beating The Barbecue Stall, Bane Of All Barbecuers It refers to this page by Greg Blonder, July 2011: BBQ stall explained Here is an interview with Nathan Myhrvold, February 17, 2011: Modernist Cuisine's Nathan Myhrvold on Culinary Myth-Busting, Bacon, and Barbecue Modernist Cuisine was published in early 2011. I wrote Greg Blonder to ask about priority. He's adding a footnote to his post. He claims that this idea was not original to Nathan Myhrvold, as many people including himself had made the connection years ago. He only wrote this up recently at the prodding of AmazingRibs. See this thread: Bronze Behemoth Game On! 2 I just saw this the other day, but from a different source, which I suspect is the original: Modernist Cuisine's Nathan Myhrvold on Culinary Myth-Busting, Bacon, and Barbecue

Re: Finishing side tables n66951 n66952 Sutherland Welles The Real Milk Paint Company Penofin Verde ADD-2 PREVENT mildewcide So I've gotten rather into this question, and the outdoor furniture that I make (redwood tables, etc) are weathering California rainy seasons just great. Of course, any time I oil anything, my main redwood "work bench" table (by the KK) gets the spills, which I then rub in. Sutherland Welles is the real deal, and their polymerized tung oil does yield a stronger finish. However their outdoor blend can only be shipped to CA in quarts (it takes a week and then they bill you, real old school), already with paint thinner and mildewcide. Penofin Verde is based instead on rosewood oil, with natural antimildew activity, to which they add a mildewcide and a natural solvent. It's thicker than Sutherland Welles tung oil (economic death if they can't claim with a straight face that deck contractors can apply it in one coat) and I wanted to thin it for better penetration. They wouldn't play along, giving no good reason but no advice. Lately I just buy pure tung oil, and citrus solvent, from the Real Milk Paint Company, and thin anything I have with citrus solvent. Nice for me and CA to go green, no downside that I can see. For outdoor finishes I add mildewcide, available at any paint store. I'm giving up the added polymerization of Sutherland Welles, for blend-it-myself control. Our puppy licked up some spilled Penofin. I wouldn't cook with it, but no need to call poison control. Puts a nice spin on "green" methods.

Re: Limoncello Rosemary

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Kung Fu KK The notion that one "needs an idea" is deeply embedded in our collective psyche. This may be true for radical moments in science or the arts, but clarity comes as often through subtraction as through addition. Everything you need is right in front of your eyes, you just need to see which parts matter. Like so many of us, I worried about everything, my first few years with ceramic cookers. Most of it really didn't matter. WIth a bit of experience, the many right ways to use a KK are dream-easy to execute. To see this, it helps to have weekends too busy to fret over KK technique. I learned this subtraction principle for food in college. I got this idea that I wanted to supplement our dull food plan with the best cheesecake ever, for those late-night times when one gets really hungry. A maven friend (I still wonder what makes someone track such things) immediately named the four people at our school who felt they had mastered cheesecake. Straight out of a Kung Fu movie, I climbed each of their hills to learn their wisdom. Each recipe had some good, obvious ideas, and some ridiculous nuances. (Ok, maybe they didn't specify the sock color, but that's what I was hearing...) Averaging the parts that made sense, and taking the whole situation a lot less seriously, I ended up with good, classic cheesecake.

Re: From Fresh to Ham at Home... Yum!!