Real Kato Blog: 2008 March

Today's factoid: Fructose melts at 104°C (219°F). Dextrose and glucose melt at 146°C (295°F). Sucrose melts at 186°C (367°F).

The reason I'm interested in this is because I'm trying to figure out if the slow-cooking process I use for beef ribs will, in fact, allow me to use add barbecue sauce during the cooking phase. The sweetener in most bottled barbecue sauces is high-fructose corn syrup (a mixture of fructose and glucose). So presumably, if the cooking temperature reaches the melting point of fructose, you'll start to get carmelization in the sauce, and that will destroy the flavor.

Cooking at 200°F should be low enough to avoid that. But I think I may have to experiment with it before trying it out on my rib-loving friends.

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Posted by Ken in: food, interesting

Learn Something Every Day

Wednesday, 2008 March 26 - 10:27 pm

In the course of surfing the Internet (and researching answers for Yahoo Answers), I do several dozen Google searches a day. (There you go, a plug for both Yahoo and Google in one sentence.) And I find that I learn a few interesting things every day. So I'm gonna try a new regular blog feature: "Learn Something Every Day". I'll try to post at least one random fact I discovered or looked up that day.

Today I looked up a bunch of stuff about the cost of the Iraq war and the cost of U.S. energy consumption, but I covered most of that in my last post. So instead of those facts, I'll tell you about potatoes.

Did you know? Potatoes are very good for you. They're loaded with Vitamin C, potassium, B vitamins, and dietary fiber. They kind of have a bad reputation as a starchy food with empty calories, but a potato has half the calories of a serving of rice, and considerably more nutrients. So, enjoy that potato! Just go easy on the butter.

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Posted by Ken in: food, interesting

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