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Chili Oil Notes

uptointerpretation.com

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Re: Chili Oil Notes

#91

Post by ehnto »

jonahhorowitz wrote: post #68
elhudy wrote: post #58

I love nerding out on food as mich as the next person. On food and cooking is one of my favorite kitchen tools. Sichuan chili oil is a staple condiment in our house. That said, i find the following to be an oft-repeated bs phrase parroted across the internet. You can find it tracing back to reddit threads over ten years ago. > You can end up with what are called fines and boulders, fines being tiny, dust-like pieces…

A friend of mine started a company based entirely on the premise that grind quality matters. They did many blind taste tests and found that they could taste a 50μm difference in grind size when they controlled the other variables. Can you tell the difference between a $50 spice mill and a $200 burr grinder? Yes, absolutely. Can you tell the difference between that and a $1,500 expresso grinder, probably. His little s…

I don't know if there is a taste difference that's meaningful, but the consistency is probably the real difference between grinders.

With a spice mill, it's a total crap shoot if a grind will pull properly, blast through or block up completely. It is a challenge to always get a good grind.

A burr grinder? If it's the same beans, it is set and forget. Always the same grind, same pull, easy.

If there is any taste difference, I suspect it is down to consistency of the grind and not much else.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#92

Post by ChrisKnott »

nycdatasci wrote: post #64

The discussion here reminds me of the lady tasting tea experiment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_tasting_tea

I'm struggling to believe this can be done by taste; I could understand it if you went milk+teabag, then added water, but this seems like brewed tea in a pot added to milk in cup v.s. milk added to brewed tea in a cup, which will get totally mixed either way...?

The only difference I can think of in these situations is the temperature of the bottom of the cup. Can this really detectably affect the taste? Maybe she was subconsciously feeling this?

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#93

Post by raylad »

I am going to take this opportunity to share the chili oil that is so good that I'm sure I could never make it: the most delicious chili oil made with sesame oil from the best sesame oil producer.

Yamada Seiyu Goma ra-yu (spicy sesame oil)

Ingredients are: sesame oil, red pepper, spring onion, ginger, sansho (zanthoxylum piperitum), cinnamon, star anise, mikan tangerine skin

Here is the manufacturers site: https://sesamepaste.jp/en/#Products

Although it's not on the Nijiya Market website, it can often be found there, mixed in amongst the lesser sesame chili oils. It's a favorite gift of mine to give, and nearly everyone who receives it mentions later to me how much they enjoyed it.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#94

Post by metachris »

dendrite9 wrote: post #67
ciceryadam wrote: post #19

There's another kind of chilli oil, pressed from Hungarian spicy paprika/capsicum seeds: https://rubinpaprika.com/magolajok/fuszerpaprika-magolaj-csi... It has a deeply nutty flavor and the spiciness is a bit sneaky, but it's a great addition to finishing oils.

Interesting, does it go bad quickly? Kurbiskernol is one of my favorite oils for special uses but it seems to spoil faster than some other oils. And I don't always travel somewhere I can pick up a good bottle. I suppose thinking of oils as more like a juice might be a good approach.

Kürbiskernöl (pumpkin seed oil) should be stored in the fridge, there it lasts pretty long.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#95

Post by c0pium »

andy_ppp wrote: post #79
c0pium wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an important insight. Some people don’t have much experience in making repeatable coffee, and whether you make the coffee well is more important than how good the grinder is.

But once you have repeatable steps and that are good (water, quantities, temperature etc.) the grinder becomes the most important piece even in espresso.

Not really, almost everything else matters more. Bean quality and water quality in particular are at the top of the list. Good beans bad grinder > bad beans good grinder. The grinder is the last place to look, even though it does matter.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#96

Post by [deleted] »

metachris wrote: post #94
dendrite9 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, does it go bad quickly? Kurbiskernol is one of my favorite oils for special uses but it seems to spoil faster than some other oils. And I don't always travel somewhere I can pick up a good bottle. I suppose thinking of oils as more like a juice might be a good approach.

Kürbiskernöl (pumpkin seed oil) should be stored in the fridge, there it lasts pretty long.

[deleted]

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#97

Post by ciceryadam »

dendrite9 wrote: post #67
ciceryadam wrote: post #19

There's another kind of chilli oil, pressed from Hungarian spicy paprika/capsicum seeds: https://rubinpaprika.com/magolajok/fuszerpaprika-magolaj-csi... It has a deeply nutty flavor and the spiciness is a bit sneaky, but it's a great addition to finishing oils.

Interesting, does it go bad quickly? Kurbiskernol is one of my favorite oils for special uses but it seems to spoil faster than some other oils. And I don't always travel somewhere I can pick up a good bottle. I suppose thinking of oils as more like a juice might be a good approach.

It's pretty shelf stable. I have one opened sitting on my shelf for three months and it still smells/tastes good.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#98

Post by chongli »

elhudy wrote: post #58

I love nerding out on food as mich as the next person. On food and cooking is one of my favorite kitchen tools. Sichuan chili oil is a staple condiment in our house. That said, i find the following to be an oft-repeated bs phrase parroted across the internet. You can find it tracing back to reddit threads over ten years ago. > You can end up with what are called fines and boulders, fines being tiny, dust-like pieces…

I make my morning coffee on a Lelit espresso machine. I use a Niche zero espresso grinder. I can easily tell the difference between grind sizes a mm apart on the dial, when it comes to taste in the cup (and even with milk). The espresso machine can tell the difference too, because even a minute difference in grind size can make a significant difference in the coffee puck’s ability to withstand the water pressure.

You see, when you make espresso there’s a pretty narrow range of grind sizes that produce acceptable coffee. Too coarse, and the water gushes through the puck without building much pressure. Too fine, and the puck essentially turns into coffee cement and the machine isn’t able to squeeze out more than a drop or two of (very bitter) espresso.

Within that narrow range you can find the needle on the water pressure gauge hitting numbers anywhere between 4 and 10 bar (I’ve set my machine’s overpressure valve to 10 bar so that excess water pressure is shunted away and circulated back into the brew circuit). I find the coffee tastes best when I can hit the sweet spot between 9 and 10 bar without the OPV kicking in. This is subject to uncontrollable factors such as differences in tamping but generally occurs at a very specific grind setting that I find after dialing in a new coffee.

As for differences in flavour? It’s all about extraction. Underextraction (from failure to reach a high enough pressure) results in sour, thin coffee. Overextraction yields very dark, bitter coffee with a powdery mouth feel. Proper extraction avoids both of these problems and tastes sublime, nutty and chocolatey (with medium-dark roasts) or fruity and juicy (with lighter roasts).

There may be a lot of gadget-headery going on in the espresso world but I can confidently say that correct grind size makes an enormous difference in the quality of coffee. Whether you need a $2000 grinder to achieve that is debatable, but you absolutely will not achieve it with a $40 blade grinder (which cannot control grind sizes at all).

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#99

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

c0pium wrote: post #95
andy_ppp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But once you have repeatable steps and that are good (water, quantities, temperature etc.) the grinder becomes the most important piece even in espresso.

Not really, almost everything else matters more. Bean quality and water quality in particular are at the top of the list. Good beans bad grinder > bad beans good grinder. The grinder is the last place to look, even though it does matter.

The mistake you’re making is that not all variables are under your control.

Getting better and better beans is very hard. You’re stuck with what is available. You’re stuck with what water is available (if you’re a reasonable person). You’re stuck with the local roasters.

So of the variables you can control, the grinder is the most important piece of equipment you can buy.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#100

Post by RugnirViking »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #92
nycdatasci wrote: post #64

The discussion here reminds me of the lady tasting tea experiment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_tasting_tea

I'm struggling to believe this can be done by taste; I could understand it if you went milk+teabag, then added water, but this seems like brewed tea in a pot added to milk in cup v.s. milk added to brewed tea in a cup, which will get totally mixed either way...? The only difference I can think of in these situations is the temperature of the bottom of the cup. Can this really detectably affect the taste? Maybe she wa…

I do know that brewing tea with not-quite boiled water (70-80 degrees C) instead of boiled water 80-90 is recommended because otherwise the leaves go bitter.

Perhaps if they were using water fresh from the kettle the milk-first way was preventing the "scalding"

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