Month: March 2013

by Ben Reade. “Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived” Helen Keller (Harman, 2006)[1] Aroma can be captured in a number of different ways. As explained in the previous post this should be taken seriously in the modern kitchen as it allows great scope for innovation. In our quest to get the most of aroma, we wanted to be able to capture the aroma which fills the room when heating ingredients. For this reason apparatus was developed as a system of aroma capturing, based on a crude distillation still. While we have breifly mentioned the aparatus in a previous post, now I’ll tell you exactly how to use it. BUT, pressure cookers and heat and vapours can be dangerous, and if you are careless, the whole contraption could blow up in your face, while I see this a pretty … Read more

by Ben Reade. The principle result of acetous fermentation is vinegar. Vinegar, frequently considered a poor cousin in the realm of fermented foods can, when made with the right knowledge and aims, produce a high quality and expensive product (sometimes reaching prices of US$1/ml). Flavours of vinegars available on the market are generally quite limited and for this reason a need was felt at NFL to develop delicious vinegars with novel flavour combinations. For this reason, and the ease and high success rate of this type of fermentation, vinegars have become a favorite area of investigation for NFL. Historically vinegar has been used principally as food preservative, medicine and flavouring agent as well as a cleaning product, mordant or for odor removal. (Diggs, 1989) Many acetic acid bacteria (AAB) are fastidious, meaning that they can be difficult to culture in laboratory situations. For this reason, as well as the complexity, … Read more