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Liquid nitrogen suggestions and ideas

Lennard__34626

I've finally managed to find a source that will supply me liquid nitrogen. While the nitrogen itself isn't expensive, the rental of the dewars are(I am still sourcing for a place that I can buy a reasonably priced dewar), so my plan is to rent the LN2 for a week and do everything that I've wanted to do with it. So far this is the list of things that I can do with LN2, does anyone else have anything I can add to this?

1) making LN2 ice cream in a stand mixer

2) cryo frying/searing

3) cryo shattering (planning on doing a shattered salmon tatare)

4) cryo grating (planning to freeze smoked salmon and grate over an egg dish)

5) turning herbs into powders

6) turning protein into powders? (is this possible? My idea is to cryo shatter a chicken then grind it into a powder, and fold it into pasta dough to form chicken noodles)

7) separate berry cells/citrus fruits etc

8) freezing foams(like hestons nitro poached green tea sour / the carbonated foam on chefsteps)

9) frozen chocolate branch (I learnt about this from the LN2 primer on Dave Arnold's blog, iuzzini pipes tempered chocolate into liquid nitrogen in a thin stream that forms chocolate 'branches', anyone tried this? Is the chocolate stable after thawing, assuming it has been tempered properly?)

10) I want to try freezing oil just for the fun of it

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Chris_Young_80640

@Lennard — When you do this, please share lots of photos of the exploits!

Lennard__34626

@chris there will definitely be photos and videos when this happens

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Regarding frozen proteins...... I would imagine you'd want to freeze-dry rather than simply freeze. If you remove the water, you'll be left with a solid that can be ground to dust. But if you simply freeze, the water will eventually thaw (regardless of how small the bits are) and that may not lead to good results in the application you're contemplating.

I just saw a documentary called "Three Stars" and learned that at Arzak in San Sebastian, they freeze-dry proteins and then grind them to a powder for use as a kind of seasoning for that protein in their cookery. So like freeze-dried pork powder used to season a pork chop. (I doubt they serve pork chops at Arzak, that's just an example) Immediately struck me as a genius idea when I heard it.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Sounds like a perfect way to season food.

Lennard__34626

None of my family members were too thrilled to see this on the porch. But... Bad boys bad boys, whatcha gonna dooooo

Made a cryo fried steak

Lennard__34626

And I guess this would be a good time to serve a timely reminder, that liquid nitrogen is dangerous

Lennard__34626

http://youtu.be/sY1vwqmIAz4

Cryo shattered onion

Lennard__34626

Cryo shattered salmon belly, grapefruit, kombu braised in shoyu, crystallized flowers, lemon snow(from chefsteps!)

Lennard__34626

http://youtu.be/G1qq0rEQTIw

Cryo fried steak with Japanese fruit tomatoes, lettuce and yuzu vinaigrette

Lennard__34626

http://youtu.be/cdOX6llFWR4

That salmon belly dish

reub_50398

@Lennard Thanks for sharing your experiences with LN and the pictures and videos. Curious if you could share your thoughts on the 30L dewar size for kitchen applications in terms of convenience and ergonomics?

I've been considering getting a dewar, but given the cost, want to make sure to balance the size tradeoffs effectively.

* Too small and it needs to be refilled more often. Is 10L enough capacity that I'll be able to make a few recipes over a week or two?

* Too large and/or heavy and it could be difficult to pour from safely when full. It seems there are pricey liquid dispenser attachments for dewars, but curious if there are other decanting techniques here. At a weight of 75-100lbs when full, are you finding the 30L unwieldy? Weight is also a factor for those of us who'll have to transport it up stairs in apartment buildings to avoid the elevators.

Lennard__34626

@reuben It really depends what you want to use the nitrogen for but I think 20L or so is good for the home cook. 10L might get used up a little too quickly.

I do not have the valve or dispenser as you mentioned, although my dewar is only rented, the dispenser costs a fair but more. The way I get the nitrogen out is to simply wear a leather glove, hold the bowl at the edge of the dewar and tilt, I don't foresee this being a problem unless you are extremely careless with how you tuo

It would be difficult to transport a 30L dewar without a trolley of some sort, especially if you live in an apartment

reub_50398

@Lennard Thanks!

Lennard__34626

Hojicha ice cream made with LN2

http://youtu.be/VxpEuqdDLAk

http://youtu.be/AAFhseDOrW4

Lennard__34626

Cryo poached green apple yakult foam, green apple powder garnish

http://youtu.be/t_D6DYXsmEI

KitchenNinja_68341

@Lennard great documentation of your work. Did you do this at home or work?

Lennard__34626

@kitchenninja home. I don't cook at a restaurant. Thanks! Hope people find it useful

Brendan_Lee_56950

I know you're located half the world away from me but how much did they rent you the dewar for? I'm debating, the same as Ruben, about getting a dewar vs. renting one.

Lennard__34626

Paid approximately $135USD for 30L of nitrogen plus the dewar. I would strongly recommend you rent it first... I think it's very fun for the first week or so but you might not necessarily utilize it as often as say... A chamber vac or a vita prep of another piece of expensive equipment

Cryo poaching and grinding are incredibly useful and the uses are limitless, but the ability to churn out ice creams efficiently and very quickly is one of the great uses of LN2 IMO. I made two batches of ice cream in one day, if I was using my cuisinart, there would've had to be a 2-3 day gap between them at the very least

Lennard__34626

Sorry $135 USD for rental of the dewar for a week plus 30L

Mira_63004

@lennard Nice! I see your having fun. You could always use it to make an anti-griddle too

An oldie, but interesting one is deep fried mayo.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I have a chamber and a high power blender. Now I need the LN to have more fun with them! That's not too bad, I was thinking it was going to be a lot more. I guess renting it for more than 2 weeks would end up costing more than a dewar on ebay though.

ren_74229

Did you have a chance to see how much of the dewar evaporated? Or were you aggressive about making use of all of it quickly?

Lennard__34626

There is no gauge of any sort. I think you could take the sounding of the dewar with a wire or pole of some sort, but everytime I tilt it I can sort of roughly estimate how much is left

As for the evaporation, I personally think it's minimal, I haven't been rushed to use it, and I have had it for exactly 7 days now. This is how the dewar is capped:

http://youtu.be/h4kMcM4QN44

reub_50398

@lennard you should be able to determine the amount used by weight. Check to see if you can find the "full weight" and "tare weight" printed on the dewar.

Lennard__34626

That's true... You could easily leave it on a weighing scale but I am not using it for commercial use so I am not too concerned with that

Lennard__34626

Strawberry cryosicle

Green apple yakult foam with green apple powder(Recipe from CS)

Cryo shattered Onion, not particularly interesting, just to follow up on the video

El Bulli "dinosaur egg', tried to recreate this based on my memory of the dish, I think the original is coconut creme, dusted with curry powder. Didn't have a recipe so I decided to go with coconut-white chocolate creme dusted with curry powder. I had a lot of trouble with this, but this was my best effort

Rob_Connoley_68489

I use LN on a fairly regular basis. I did buy my dewar used but in good condition on Ebay for around $200. My refills are $30 so its not as pricey as it sounds above. My LN will last me about 4 days at max...more around 2 days of active use. My favorite technique besides ice cream is to freeze a small ladle of alcohol and then dip in cocoa butter then insert into dessert (mousse or whatever). But, all of the shattering things just don't work in a restaurant setting because the item thaws and then...so what? I did do citrus segments that way for a while to get the individual cells but again...so what?

Lennard__34626

The shattered salmon tatare is an idea i got from modernist cuisine, they mentioned it had to do with a difference in texture from a normal tatare, I personally didnt find anything great about the cryo shattered tatare, the sizes were inconsistently sized and to me thats not a good thing.

The citrus segments I would say depends on the kind of plating the restaurant is doing, to my memory, Fat Duck and Arzak has done dishes using individual segments, separating the segments by hand would be... not impossible... but it would make for a very sad looking stagiare

I think the greatest technique I played with, or at least the one I had the most fun with, was freezing then grinding into a powder. It is incredibly satisfying to grind meats into a powder. The one application I used was grinding smoked salmon and using it to season scrambled eggs, the eggs have the flavor of smoked salmon throughout and you never get the texture of actual salmon, it also looks very pretty close up because you see tiny orange specks.

I can think of other applications for this like say... making pulled pork, then grinding it into a powder and adding it to simmering water, I would think this is the closest youd get to an 'instant' homemade stock without the use of freeze drying, although the clarity would be pretty terrible

Chris_Young_80640

@Lennard — Separating grapefruit drops at The Fat Duck did make for A LOT of sad looking stagiares.