Recipes
All Posts
Categories
Community Profile
Groups
Studio Pass
Home
All Posts
High quality foil and plastic wrap
Brandon_Byrd_40557
I recently started using consumer grade aluminum foil and plastic wrap for new some purposes and have been less than satisfied with their performance. When using Glad brand plastic wrap to cook egg "nests" (wrap raw eggs in plastic, tie off, and submerge in simmering water to create a poached egg with a tight shape) or using the microwave to fry herbs, I've had troubles with the wrap melting. When using foil (Reynolds wrap) as a container for wood chips to smoke meat, some of the foil burned up on the grill grates. My blowtorch can burn right through the stuff as well.
So I'm wondering... what do the pros use? Is foil inherently combustible given how thin it is? Is plastic doomed to melt at relatively low temps? I've even had problems with Ziplock bags melting in the microwave with relatively short cooking times (four minutes or so, but at 1100 watts). Should I just be more careful with the heat levels?
Find more posts tagged with
What About Tools?
Comments
lfmichaud
I don't know for the plastic wrap and i would like to know exactly which one is PVC, LDPE or PVdC. But for the foil i think there is no magic. The melting point of aluminium is 660C and the torch go to 2000C. Since it's less than 0.2mm thick it melt almost instantly!
Brandon_Byrd_40557
@Louis-Frederic
: Ah! I didn't realize that the melting point of aluminum was so low. I use a Bernzomatic TS8000 torch, so it definitely gets way hotter than the melting point. And you're right, it melts almost instantly. Glad I have a stainless smoker box as well (though that discolored a bit when I hit it with the torch... probably just fuel residue though). Still, it looked like there was a non-metal backing material on the foil that burned/melted at a different temp than the metal and that worried me a bit.
Like you, I'm also curious about which brands are made of each kind of plastic. I'll try doing some Googleing to figure out what types seem preferable (I know PVC is out!). I've noticed that on Iron Chef America they use Crystal Wrap in kitchen stadium, so that's something I'll be looking into. Anything a step above the consumer-grade versions will be a welcome addition to my kitchen.
Quick Links
All Categories
Recent Posts
Activity
Unanswered
Groups
Help
Best Of