Doing the Infusion Dance
Alchemy, the science of transmutation, to change the very properties of a substance!
Okay, fine, that’s a bit dramatic, and counting the title I’ve now done two anime references before we’re even in it. I suppose a bit of meandering is fitting for a blog about booze though.
To back up a bit, last year for Christmas I received a sous-vide machine, one of the newer affordable models that can be placed inside a pot, bucket, cooler, really any thermally resistant item that holds water. While I messed around with a few recipes here and there, I was far from making full use of what this culinary tool could accomplish. And then a pandemic hit, giving me ample opportunity to explore more around the house hobbies, such as really getting good with my various kitchen tools. I already did a blog about figuring out the best way to use an air-fryer in the early lockdown days.
For the sous-vide machine, I’ve been messing around with a lot of cuts of meat I didn’t generally enjoy before. It makes the first pork loin I’ve had that didn’t taste dry as hell, a chicken breast that can hold its flavor, and the easiest poached eggs I’ve ever seen. In truth, I already liked poached eggs, I just hated the effort of making the damn things. It’s also great for already delicious dishes like steak or crème brûlée, helping to hold them in that thermal sweet spot.
But I opened by mentioning booze, and I’m sure your wondering how the hell that comes into play with a sous-vide machine. It’s not a notion I’d have even thought up, however thankfully Alton Brown did it for me. While watching the new Good Eats season, he did an episode covering immersion circulations, which is the fancy term for a sous-vide machine. Aside from teaching how to make a roast and cheesecake with one, he also did a segment about how this tool allowed for the rapid infusion of flavors.
The original program is worth watching, assuming Good Eats is your thing, but to do a lot of condensing of concepts: because you can hold the alcohol and ingredients at a stable temperature, you can infuse flavors in hours instead of days, or even weeks. And that part really blew my mind. I have friends who mess around with homebrew and making their own stuff, a hobby that requires patience for weeks on end. The notion of just making a batch of flavored booze like I was putting on a stew… this was one I had to try for myself.
Once I had decided to run the experiment, the question became what ingredients to use. Research told me that vodka was the best neutral spirit for infused liquors, and since the point of this is to taste the other ingredients, neutral was ideal. I had some small mason jars left over from trying crème brûlée, which took care of vessels. All that remained were the flavors themselves.
However, as Texas covid cases are still spiking hard, one of the conditions was that ingredients had to come from things already around the house. Thanks to a mix of fresh and frozen fruit, I was able to come up with 5 test flavors for my first batch. They were:
-Pineapple
-Dragonfruit
-Green Apple
-Green Apple/Cinnamon Stick
-Green Apple/Cinnamon Stick/Nutmeg
I may have had more green apples than any of the others, if that wasn’t obvious from the list. On the vodka front, I selected a nice middle-range vodka. This was a test, after all, so I didn’t want to lose anything too good, and how much would it matter after the flavors were added? Go ahead and mark that last line down as “foreshadowing.”
The actual process of making an infusion is almost unbelievably easy. Add ingredients to jar, pour in booze, seal lightly, add to water, bring up to heat (temp varies based on ingredients) for 3 hours. Then it’s cool down, chill in the fridge, strain and you’re done. In that process, the only point where things can go super wrong are if you forget to put the jars in before you get the water heating. Glass and thermal shock don’t play well together.
The infusing process went off without a hitch, by the afternoon my fridge had five jars of varying hue waiting to be consumed. Being sure to mark their new containers, I ran them through a coffee filter and mesh strainer, then commenced to tasting. Here is where that vodka choice came back to haunt me.
When doing infusions, as much as the flavors will add, they don’t alter what’s already there. Think of the booze as your foundation, and all the flavors are built on top of it. If the foundation is poor, it’s going to impact everything else. I used a vodka that I don’t mind tossing in a cocktail, however it was ill-suited for having the spotlight shined on its smoothness and taste. These weren’t all bad by any means, some I’ve got fun plans for, but the quality of the vodka was a factor in every sip. While that’s not a terrible outcome for small-volume test batches, when it comes time to try again I plan on using something a little nicer.
Outside of the vodka itself, the flavors of the ingredients infused to varying degrees of success.
-Pineapple: Best of the bunch. Very good, citrus goes with the vodka burn nicely. This flavor is going to be the basis for my next batch of test-runs.
-Dragonfruit: Strong infusion, but just didn’t make a great booze. I may try this again with another spirit or spice paring, I feel like it needs more.
-Green Apple: Weakest infusion of the bunch. Barely got any apple. Next time, I’m planning to try some red ones.
-Green Apple/Cinnamon Stick: The cinnamon had a very strong infusion, and a bit of the apple got through too. Not bad, but off-balance.
-Green Apple/Cinnamon Stick/Nutmeg: Second best of the bunch. This one was much more balanced than just apple/cinnamon, though it could still use work.
After this test run, I’ve decided my next attempts will be Pineapple/Cinnamon, Pineapple Cinnamon/Nutmeg, and Pineapple/Cinnamon/Brown Sugar. Going to take my best elements and see how well they play together. If you’ve taken up this hobby as well and would like to share your favorite recipes, please leave them in the comments below! I’m having a lot of fun with this, and definitely on the lookout for new flavors to try.