Why Brick Ovens Bake Better Pizza

... or at least, the traditional, thin-crust pizza, rather than the Chicago-style deep-dish or thick crust pizza.

This is a fascinating article that reviewed a recent preprint uploaded to an e-print arXiv. The manuscript studied the physics of baking pizza, and explained, among other things, why baking thin-crust pizza in a brick oven is better than in a steel oven.

Chewing this over, the physicists realized the key difference lies in how much more slowly brick transfers heat to the dough compared with steel — a measure known as the material's thermal conductivity. A brick oven heated to 626 degrees will heat the crust to roughly 392 degrees, while the pizza top receives indirect heat from the oven and stays at 212 degrees as water boils off from the cheese and tomato sauce. Glatz says that after about two minutes, both the pizza top and crust reach perfection.

But pizza crust in contact with a steel oven at the same temperature will hit 572 degrees because the metal transfers heat far more rapidly than brick. That's much too high for dough, Glatz says, "so it simply burns." Unfortunately, because the top of the pizza must cook as well, simply lowering the oven temperature to 450 degrees doesn't work. While that will heat the crust to 392 degrees, the rest of the pizza won't receive enough heat to boil by the time the crust has cooked — resulting in cooked dough but undercooked toppings.

I think Elton Brown one time had an ingenious idea, which is to put a baking stone in one of those Weber dome grilling kettle and bake the pizza in there. This is where you can get the baking stone to be very hot, hotter than what one can get in a conventional home oven. I haven't tried this yet, but now, after reading this paper, maybe I will.

Zz.

Detection of Adulterated with Turkey Meat

Just ran across this paper. They are using a set of techniques called ultraviolet-visible (UV-VIS), near-infrared (NIR), and mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy to detect ground beef that has been adulterated with turkey meat. The three techniques here apply the same principle, except that each one of them detects different range of the electromagnetic spectrum (based on their names). It caught my eye because I'm familiar with this technique, but done on thin films of material that I was studying.

In a few of the thin films, the technique can be used to study both the reflectance and transmittance spectroscopy. I believe in this study, they obviously can only use the reflectance mode because they're sticking the probe right against the ground meat, so there isn't any transmitted spectrum to look at.

I must admit that in looking at the raw spectra that are shown in Fig. 1, I was expecting a distinct set of peaks for pure beef and another set for pure turkey. Yet, all the spectra appear to show the same peaks, only with different intensities. So obviously, detecting turkey in a sample can only be done upon subsequent analysis of the data.

Hey, it's something you can read to put you to sleep at night! :)

Zz.

Link Between Cancer And Sugar Getting Stronger

The "Warburg effect", which points to the effect whereby cancer cells needs sugar for growth, now has a stronger, newer evidence from the latest study.

"Our research reveals how the hyperactive sugar consumption of cancerous cells leads to a vicious cycle of continued stimulation of cancer development and growth," said researcher Johan Thevelein from KU Leuven in Belgium.

"Thus, it is able to explain the correlation between the strength of the Warburg effect and tumour aggressiveness. This link between sugar and cancer has sweeping consequences. Our results provide a foundation for future research in this domain, which can now be performed with a much more precise and relevant focus."

There has been a lot of effort in the US to regulate the sale and consumption of sugars. This latest result will probably add more fuel to the fire.

Zz.

Food - Delicious Science

The Public Broadcasting Station has started a serious on the physics, chemistry, and biology of the food we eat. Titled Food - Delicious Science, it premiered on May 17, 2017. You are able to view previous episodes of the series.

So far, it has been quite informative.

Zz.

Baking Soda Versus Baking Powder

This is a rather good article on the science behind baking soda and baking powder, especially in how each of these ingredients reacts with other ingredients and with heat.

Both baking soda and baking powder contain sodium bicarbonate. In fact, sodium bicarbonate is another name for baking soda, since that is the only ingredient in baking soda. On the other hand, baking powder contains other ingredients that provides the acid to react with sodium bicarbonate. The differences in content and how they react are the reasons why they are used for different recipes and purposes. In fact, in some recipes, both might be used together.

Of course, I use these two quite often at different times in making scones, biscuits, banana bread, etc. The whole family of quick breads depends on baking soda and baking powder.

Zz.

Mushrooms: To Wash Or Not To Wash?

I'm sure you've heard this before, especially when you watch cooking shows on TV. Inna Garten, the "Barefood Contessa", and even Julia Child, both have stated that one shouldn't wash mushrooms. To clean it, one should just use a soft, dry brush to get ride of the dirt. Washing it, they claim, will only cause the mushrooms to absorb the water and will cause your dish to be soggy (if that's something you don't want).

The thing is, this type of claim can be easily tested and verified. And that is what has been done by many. I remember seeing an episode of "Good Eats" on the Food Network (when Food Network was actually worth watching) where Elton Brown actually made a test on how much water was absorbed by whole mushrooms when they were left to soak in water, and when they were rinsed under running water.

Verdict: Not that much, or at least, not enough to ruin a dish.

Similar conclusion was drawn from this website, where they tackled this culinary myth. Would a 0.5 ounce of additional moisture in your mushroom out of a total of 8 ounces of mushrooms make or break the dish that you make at home? Not with me it doesn't. That's less than 6% of the entire weight. Is your cooking THAT precise in the first place?

The issue here isn't washing or brushing mushrooms. The issue here is if the effort is justified for the result that we want. Here, brushing each mushroom is time consuming and tedious. Giving these mushrooms a quick rinse under running water is so much quicker and more convenient. The tiny amount of water being absorbed here is insignificant for the average home cook. The additional effort is not worth the small difference at the end.

For the record, I rinse my mushrooms under running water, and then I slice them for use in my dishes.

Zz.

Thermal Properties of Food

OK, so here's the physicist in my comes in. I found this a couple of weeks ago, and I intend to do something with it in my future posts, but I thought that I should post it here just for future references, and so that I'll know where to find it.

This paper lists the major thermal properties of various types of food ingredients. Thermal properties such as thermal conductivity is actually important because it tells you how fast heat travels through the ingredient material. The heat capacity, for example, explains why it takes so long to cook a 16-lb turkey versus an 8-lb turkey.

I'll do some simple analysis in future posts using the information in this document. But for now, let's all just sit back and marvel at all those numbers! :)

Zz.