Would you like to know how to get the most out of your whipping siphon? Well today on WTF,
we're going to look at a bunch of different great ways that you can
use it and stick around for a very special offer.
Hello and welcome to WTF where we transform food here in the Modernist Pantry test kitchen.
I'm chef Scott Garren. And I'm Janie Wang, the owner of Modernist Pantry. Today, Scott and I,
we're going to be talking all about whipping siphons. You may have already seen them or you
may have already used them, but today we're going to cover what techniques you can do with whipping
siphons as well as do some easy, but still very impressive, demos and recipes that you can do in
your very own kitchen. So Scott, I mean, people might have already seen whipping siphons. Why
don't we start off with an explanation of how exactly they work? Sure. So what a whipping
siphon does is that you put a liquid or some food inside of the canister here. You'll seal it up,
and then you're going to charge it with either N2O or CO2. And those are two different types
of gases and they will give you two different types of effects. Okay and what exactly is the
difference between, let's say, an N2O charge vs. a CO2 charge? That's a good question that a lot
of people don't necessarily understand because they think that an N2O charge is going to give
them soda. But N2O is actually nitrous oxide so it's going to give a, like a nice, fine bubble
structure. And that's really important. So if you think, have you ever had a Guinness beer? That's
on a nitrous tap so what that is, that's gonna give you that nice kind of creamy foam head. And
the nitrous gives a nice like creamy, rich kind of texture. That's why you use it in things like
whipped cream. Right. If you're going to use CO2, that is carbonation. So that's where you would get
your sodas or your carbonated fruit, whatever you're attempting to do. And that actually will
give things a slightly acidic taste. And that's from the carbonic acid that is in the carbonation
itself. So when I add that, let's say, to a whipped cream instead of an N2O, it's going
to give it a sour taste. It's going to taste off. It's also gonna have those really harsh,
large bubbles, as opposed to the fine bubbles that you would get with the N2O. So you don't want to
do that. You want to make sure you know exactly what you're using. And they're color-coded,
so the CO2 charges are going to be gold most of the time, and the N2O charges are going to be
purple. So that's really easy, and also the soda charges will say "soda charges" so you'll know,
and the other ones will say "cream charges." So just double, triple-check just to make sure you're
doing it right. And then eventually, you'll just know. Yeah and I think just last week,
we did a WTF all about different types of sodas that we made with acacia gum, and we had used
a whipping siphon and CO2 charges to make our sodas. Yeah, exactly. So if you haven't already,
check out episode number 151, which will be in the description below. Yeah, so let's get into
a quick demo just to see how easy it is once you have a whipping siphon. You just make sure the
gas gets in there, that's very important. If this gasket is not in here, and you try to charge it,
the gas is just gonna come out. So make sure that is in there. So I have a nice little funnel
that you put on top. It makes it much easier, I suggest everyone try it, and I have some warm
prosciutto consommé here. Okay. Right. So I make the prosciutto consommé and I put it in here. And
we're making a hot and cold soup. So really, this can be ... you can use this for three different
types of dishes at a dinner party. So you have like an edible cocktail here, you have a nice
dessert, and then this could be your soup course if you're, you know, trying to impress. All right,
so it's versatile in that it can handle both hot and cold liquids. Yes, and that's really
important. It doesn't just have to be cold. There's always gonna be like a fill line or
recommended fill line. This here is a pint-sized container so if you put up to 16 ounces in it,
you're good. So I added that. I'm just gonna add in, to sprinkle in my Foam Magic™. Right. And now,
Foam Magic if you're not familiar with it, check out WTF foaming episode, which will also be in
the description below. So Foam Magic is wonderful because it creates this like creamy, stable foam.
So it's a great product. It works well with warm liquids, so that's important. And I'm just gonna
place the top on if I can get it. And what's in, what's in this cup right here? So I'll get
to that, just one moment. So once I get this top on, I'm just gonna show you quickly how to add the
gas. So once that top is on, you pull it until it is tight, you place the charger directly inside,
and you're going to charge it. With these, you want to charge them at least twice. It's always a
good bet to charge them twice. One quick thing is there was oxygen in here, correct? So when I add
that N2O, it pushes all the oxygen to the top. So I'm just gonna give it quick [release] and I get
out all the oxygen, it's that simple. So I'm gonna get rid of my spent charge. I'm gonna do a second
one. And what happens if you didn't do the second one? If you don't do the second one, it just won't
have enough of that bubble structure. Right, it's not going to have enough N2O in here to create
that beautiful foam. Okay. And also, if you're doing something obviously in a larger container,
it's not going to be enough to handle like up to a quart. So definitely start, you know, start
with two. I've seen people start with one, but it's not really necessary. Always try and start
with two charges. So I'm gonna give this a second after I give it a shake. So give it a shake. It's
a little warm, it's not piping hot but what we're making here is a hot and cold soup. So this hot
foam is going to sit on top of our chilled, it's cantaloupe and lychee soup. We make it similar
to kind of an old older fashioned dessert, which is prosciutto wrapped around cantaloupe. So this,
we do the same exact flavors in a soup form. And you get the hot and cold, you get the sweet and
savory, so it's all those kinds of effects that you're getting. So I'm gonna give this just a
second after I shake it up. Kind of let that a Foam Magic hydrate really well so I can make
a big beautiful foam on top of my soup. Okay. And so while we're waiting for that to hydrate,
can we talk a little bit about, you know, the different sizes? So we have pints, we have quarts,
and what's the difference and benefit of a pint versus a quart? Well, a quart is just double what
a pint is, so it's always going to take two pints to equal a quart. But if you're trying to do more,
say you are doing a dessert for you know 20, 30, 40 people, you could get away with doing
it out of two quart containers rather than having to, you know, have four of these pint containers.
So you're going to get more volume out of the quart. That's really the biggest benefit of
having the quart, it's just double the size. Okay, and are there any differences in the
minimum amounts of charge that you need between a pint and a quart? The quart's always going to take
more because there's more space to fill within this. So you always start with two, like I said.
I always do a test. Is this to my liking? Is this how I like it? Is this the texture I want? No?
Add more. You don't ever want to just keep pumping charges in here because that is dangerous. The max
I would ever go with is three. Yeah. And I always make sure to get off that oxygen so even then,
it's not necessarily three full charges. Okay, cool. And then I think in our store, we know we
carry the two different brands: obviously our own Modernist Pantry brand, and then we also have the,
I guess I call them iSi, some people call them EC. Yeah well I guess we'll never really know. It's a
mystery of the world. So go on their website. We have two different types. The best part is that
there's a bunch of different attachments, but they work on all the types. All the attachments
can work on any whipping siphon that you have, so that's really great. Right, and the same thing
for the chargers as well. So the ISI chargers will work when any of the Modernist Pantry. So they're
basically universal, which is really nice. You don't have to worry about, oh is this tip going
to work on here? Is this charger gonna work? No, they just work. So that's the best part. Okay. Do
we want to go over any of the attachments before we jump back to the demo? The attachments are,
I like these attachments right here just because they're all stainless steel. They're super easy
to clean and you kind of bypass the little extra nozzle. They just screw right on. And that's just
for shaping, right? Basically, like if you're doing like a whipped cream? Yeah, so if you have
the plain circle, it's just gonna come out like a plain foam. If you have the big balloon tip on it,
it's gonna be like that whipped cream that you're used to with the, you know, the star ridges on it,
so that's what that's for. This is really cool. This is a decorator tip so you can actually get
like square and like a flat line, so if you're really making a really beautiful dish you can
hone it to exactly what you want. That's a really cool kind of decorator tip. We also have the finer
tips over here if you want to grab that for me. These are the injectors. Yeah, the injector tips
are cool because then you can inject directly into meat. You can also inject fillings into,
yeah, all sorts of different things. So éclairs, any type of pâte à Choux. So that's really nice,
really easy to use as well. And then we have this one. Yeah, of course. So we kind of saw
this in action earlier. There's a sieve and then a funnel, so that makes it very easy to get things
inside the canister because it doesn't have the widest mouth on it, it has kind of a narrow mouth.
So this is really easy and you're not spilling stuff all over the table and it comes with a
sieve and we could always use those. Do you want to talk about the rapid infuser? Because we did
something with rapid infusion. So the rapid infusion is really nice if you are making,
you know, an oil or vinegar, you would put in all your herbs, whatever you're infusing into the oil
or vinegar. You place this right on top and it fits, you know, flushly to the top of this. So if
you're going to pour it directly out, you don't have to worry about anything coming out. Also,
it has this offset nozzle so if you're going to pump it out that way, directly into a bottle, you
don't have to worry about all the sediment that is in here going up and then clogging. And that is a
big thing that people have an issue with, is they think they can put anything in here and it's gonna
come out this nozzle. It's not. It's going to clog it because it's a very fine hole that it's trying
to come out of. Think about all the pressure that's in there. You can't have this giant, you
know, clogged up hole, so it's gonna get clogged in there. And then it will eventually just leak
out all of the gas. This little strainer here that fits on the top will stop that. Okay. And now, how
does rapid infusion work compared to a traditional infusion method? Okay, so traditional infusion
method, you're gonna put the stuff in there. Maybe you heat it up. And then you let it sit, sometimes
a week, sometimes two weeks, sometimes a month. Right, so it's gonna take a long time. With this,
when that, let's just say, N2O gets in there, it separates all those cells, right? It kind
of breaks up the intracellular airspace, which gets all the juice out into the liquid. And then,
with this case, you're getting the liquid back in. So these right here are little jungle bird,
kind of like a bowtie cocktail, edible cocktail and all that cocktail gets into the fruit. And
I made these earlier today. As you can see, they look like they've been, you know, marinating for
a day or two. Right, so kind of simply put, we're saving a ton of time by just having this little
attachment on there. Yep. And we also have a recipe on the blog for chili oil that we've
made. And you just make it in and takes a few hours and you have this big, beautiful batch of
chili oil that generally takes weeks on end. Yeah, and speaking of what we have here, what do we have
here and can I eat it? You can eat it. What is it? We actually can both eat it. So it is a pineapple,
cherry and another pineapple kind of set up like a bowtie. And then it has some Campari,
some lime juice and some dark rum and it's a jungle bird cocktail, so it's like a tiki
cocktail. If you smell it, it smells just like a tiki cocktail. Okay. And then I put some lime
sugar on top and you have this really beautiful dessert cocktail, or a tiki cocktail, that you
can eat as a dessert or you can just have it as hors d'oeuvres or just hanging out at a party.
Obviously, no kids around. But I'm gonna eat this right now, so take it away, Janie. All right,
so it's super refreshing. Very, very light and very tasty. So the recipe for this is on the blog.
Get it in the link in the description below and you'll be able to do this yourself. And this took
like no time at all I would imagine, right? Yeah, it's an extremely simple recipe. The hardest thing
is taking them out and putting them on toothpicks, and I think everyone could do that. And I know
you have a few other exciting demos and kind of fun demos for us. What else do we have going on?
Alright so the dessert portion. We have a white chocolate mousse. It's very simple. It's white
chocolate, milk, gelatin, vanilla. You're going to take it, you're gonna pump it into or place
it into a charger and you're gonna charge it with N2O. If you want to see anything charged with CO2,
watch our soda episode. But we charged with N2O and we let it sit until that gelatin sets. You
give it a good shake, and then you're able to pump out some beautiful mousse without
having to do all the work of whipping whipped cream, whipping meringue, folding, you know,
one after another until you have this beautiful mousse. So I'm just gonna give us a quick shake.
And then I'm gonna pump it into this glass so we have white chocolate mousse that took no
time at all. And then I have some raspberry spheres here that are Christine Le Tennier and
you can just garnish with those and you have a super simple dessert. Everyone loves mousse,
I mean it's true. It's really one of the easiest things. You can do this with chocolate, as well,
like a regular milk chocolate or dark chocolate. We like the white chocolate
because of how it contrasts with the spheres. Yeah, this would be like a really great kind
of weeknight dinner or dessert for, especially if you have kids like us, who are super picky,
but you know they always love chocolate. They always mousse. Easy! And this recipe is actually
from our Alchemist's Notebook. So you can wait for that, it's gonna be coming out very soon.
But just stay tuned, because you'll eventually see little tidbits of it coming soon. Yeah,
and if you do want to be one of the first people to be notified about the Alchemist's Notebook,
the best thing to do is go on our blog and sign up for the newsletter because that's actually where
we're gonna launch it, so you can get it before anybody else can. Oh great. So we're gonna finish
this but, quickly, I think we should talk about a little promo that we have. Okay, promo man,
take it away. So it is going to be if you enter the code "whipitgood" that's W H I P I T G O O D,
whip it good, at modernistpantry.com, you'll get 20% off of any of the Modernist Pantry whippers. I
almost made it all the way through without messing up. But yes so it's "whipitgood," W H I P I T G O
O D, that's all one word, and you'll get 20% off one of these whippers which is a great deal. Yeah
because already, you know, the Modernist Pantry whippers are way cheaper than the iSi whippers.
I believe one of our core whippers, so this big one here, it regularly retails for $99.99. The
iSi whipper I believe retails for $149. Okay so that's already 30% off. And then an added 20
because you're getting the "whipitgood" code. So you're going to be getting it for $79.99,
which is going to be awesome. Great! So let's finish up with this. This is our warm foam, right?
So I'm just gonna give it a shake and then I'm gonna pump it directly on top of our melon soup.
Look how great that looks! Great. Now I'm gonna just garnish with a little bit. And you said it's
parmesan in that? No, it's prosciutto. I'm just gonna set a piece of crispy prosciutto. You just
pretty much bake it in a low-temperature oven. We have this beautiful soup that is hot and cold,
sweet and savory. And you could serve it to your guests. You can take it, you know, just drink it
right out of the glass. That sounds really nice. I'm gonna drink one of those after we get off the
air. All right, so is there anything else that we want to leave the folks with today? No, I think we
pretty much covered everything for our whippers. So yeah, what I think hopefully we've shown today
is the whipping siphon is a really versatile tool, right, so you can use it to make soups. You
can use it to make foams. You can use it to make cocktails. You can use it to make mousses. Yeah,
I'm sure there's other stuff that we probably missed that you can do with a whipping siphon.
I know people have done some crazy stuff. I always say the coolest stuff hasn't been thought of yet,
so it may just be up to you to find the new cool thing to do with a whipping siphon. And if you do,
please tag us on social media and we would love to see when you come up with. So from
here in the Modernist Pantry test kitchen, I'm Janie Wang. And I'm Scott Garren.
Thank you so much for watching. If you haven't already, like, comment and subscribe, and turn
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