How to alter (or completely rework) a drinking shrub recipe
November 7, 2024 10:53 AM Subscribe
I make a shiso shrub that needs to be altered or maybe even converted to a flavored syrup or some other variety of beverage concentrate. Details below the fold.
I used to make a shiso shrub like so: bring rice vinegar to a boil, stir in chopped shiso leaves, let steep until cool, then strain out the leaves and add sugar to taste. No measurements, just eyeball it. Once cool, I use the concentrate in sparkling or still water. However, lately it seems my tastes have changed and I find it too vinegary.
Please note: Applied food science replies only, please. I want specific information, not guesses or suppositions. If you have food science-y training and knowledge and/or significant hand's-on experience, this request is for you.
#1:
I think the rice vinegar contributes to making the drink a beautiful deep, rosy color - does that track with your knowledge? When I subbed water for some of the rice vinegar, the color was not as clear, nor as beautiful. I would like to keep the beautiful color, but not at the expense of having such a sharp taste.
#2:
There appears to be no amount of sugar that will disguise the acidity from my taste buds. Sweet might balance sour/acid in some foods, but for me it just ends up too sweet and too sour/sharp/harsh, even after diluting.
#3:
Might this work better as a shiso simple syrup, and adding a bit of rice vinegar or lemon juice when diluting into a drink? I might lose the lovely color, but if it makes the concentrate more drinkable, then it might be a fair tradeoff. Shiso is a delicious flavor to me.
#4:
I’ve always wondered about the optimal amount of liquid to extract maximum flavor in preparing concentrates. What do you know about this? Is there a way to determine the best amount of liquid for a given ingredient one’s extracting flavor of, other than trial and error? Of course, it will vary since different shiso plants will have different growing conditions, etc., etc.
I used to make a shiso shrub like so: bring rice vinegar to a boil, stir in chopped shiso leaves, let steep until cool, then strain out the leaves and add sugar to taste. No measurements, just eyeball it. Once cool, I use the concentrate in sparkling or still water. However, lately it seems my tastes have changed and I find it too vinegary.
Please note: Applied food science replies only, please. I want specific information, not guesses or suppositions. If you have food science-y training and knowledge and/or significant hand's-on experience, this request is for you.
#1:
I think the rice vinegar contributes to making the drink a beautiful deep, rosy color - does that track with your knowledge? When I subbed water for some of the rice vinegar, the color was not as clear, nor as beautiful. I would like to keep the beautiful color, but not at the expense of having such a sharp taste.
#2:
There appears to be no amount of sugar that will disguise the acidity from my taste buds. Sweet might balance sour/acid in some foods, but for me it just ends up too sweet and too sour/sharp/harsh, even after diluting.
#3:
Might this work better as a shiso simple syrup, and adding a bit of rice vinegar or lemon juice when diluting into a drink? I might lose the lovely color, but if it makes the concentrate more drinkable, then it might be a fair tradeoff. Shiso is a delicious flavor to me.
#4:
I’ve always wondered about the optimal amount of liquid to extract maximum flavor in preparing concentrates. What do you know about this? Is there a way to determine the best amount of liquid for a given ingredient one’s extracting flavor of, other than trial and error? Of course, it will vary since different shiso plants will have different growing conditions, etc., etc.
1. I can't think of any reason why rice vinegar as opposed to another kind of vinegar would have a characteristic impact on color. Rice vinegar tends to be on the low side when it comes to strength, being somewhere between 2% and 4% acid. This compares to distilled vinegar at around 5% to 7% and sherry vinegar at around 7% to 8%. Adding water will raise the pH, however, and the lower pH of the undiluted vinegar is better at inhibiting the action of browning enzymes which likely results in better preservation of color. Rice vinegar already has a higher pH than most other kinds of vinegar, coming in at around 4.0 to 4.4 compared to around 2.5 for other vinegars.
2. Sugar can balance out sourness but won't have an effect on your perception of acetic acid, which is distinguished from other sour foods by smell.
3. I wouldn't recommend it. Syrups made from tender green herbs are usually swampy and/or have an unpleasant "cooked" flavor. Sure, sugar is a preservative, but it's the low pH of a shrub that helps maintain those bright and lively flavors. Also, in my experience syrups made from tender green herbs lack in intensity of flavor and you have to use way more of it that you'd like.
4. When you're extracting flavors from solid matter into a liquid. what you're doing is transferring molecules from the solid matter into a solvent, which can be water, alcohol, acid, water + alcohol, water + acid, etc. Some solvents are better at this than others. It's not possible to give an optimal ratio of solvent to solid material because there are too many variables. Let's say you extract 5 shiso leaves into a cup of vinegar and 5 shiso leaves into a quart of vinegar. The quart might transfer more aromatic molecules out of the shiso, but the cup will have a stronger shiso flavor because it's more concentrated. Which is optimal? It depends on your goals. If you want intensity, you should extract into the smallest amount of solvent possible within reasonable parameters (i.e., don't try to extract the 5 shiso leaves into a tablespoon of vinegar). There's no reason to use heat in making this shrub, by the way. Heat does speed up the rate of chemical reactions, but in this case cooking the shiso greatly diminishes its fresh green flavors. Try infusing at room temperature.
Getting down to your specific issue, I wonder whether you might have used a vinegar with a higher % acidity for this batch of shrub. Or you could have increased the acidity by boiling it too much (acetic acid is less volatile than water). That would certainly explain the increased "vinegar taste" compared to previous batches. It's also possible, albeit unlikely, that for some reason you have become more sensitive to the aromas of acetic acid.
* Not a food scientist, but I did contribute some "sciencey" articles to the Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails. and I could be considered an OG of the cocktails revival.
posted by slkinsey at 1:23 PM on November 7 [4 favorites]
2. Sugar can balance out sourness but won't have an effect on your perception of acetic acid, which is distinguished from other sour foods by smell.
3. I wouldn't recommend it. Syrups made from tender green herbs are usually swampy and/or have an unpleasant "cooked" flavor. Sure, sugar is a preservative, but it's the low pH of a shrub that helps maintain those bright and lively flavors. Also, in my experience syrups made from tender green herbs lack in intensity of flavor and you have to use way more of it that you'd like.
4. When you're extracting flavors from solid matter into a liquid. what you're doing is transferring molecules from the solid matter into a solvent, which can be water, alcohol, acid, water + alcohol, water + acid, etc. Some solvents are better at this than others. It's not possible to give an optimal ratio of solvent to solid material because there are too many variables. Let's say you extract 5 shiso leaves into a cup of vinegar and 5 shiso leaves into a quart of vinegar. The quart might transfer more aromatic molecules out of the shiso, but the cup will have a stronger shiso flavor because it's more concentrated. Which is optimal? It depends on your goals. If you want intensity, you should extract into the smallest amount of solvent possible within reasonable parameters (i.e., don't try to extract the 5 shiso leaves into a tablespoon of vinegar). There's no reason to use heat in making this shrub, by the way. Heat does speed up the rate of chemical reactions, but in this case cooking the shiso greatly diminishes its fresh green flavors. Try infusing at room temperature.
Getting down to your specific issue, I wonder whether you might have used a vinegar with a higher % acidity for this batch of shrub. Or you could have increased the acidity by boiling it too much (acetic acid is less volatile than water). That would certainly explain the increased "vinegar taste" compared to previous batches. It's also possible, albeit unlikely, that for some reason you have become more sensitive to the aromas of acetic acid.
* Not a food scientist, but I did contribute some "sciencey" articles to the Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails. and I could be considered an OG of the cocktails revival.
posted by slkinsey at 1:23 PM on November 7 [4 favorites]
I infused some shiso leaves in brandy, and it was delightful. I can't remember if I used the nitrous oxide method -- but I wanted to impress someone, so probably. Of course, the result was alcoholic. That might or might not work for you.
You could also consider using a different acid -- you can just buy a tub of citric or malic acid and adjust as needed.
posted by novalis_dt at 5:11 PM on November 7
You could also consider using a different acid -- you can just buy a tub of citric or malic acid and adjust as needed.
posted by novalis_dt at 5:11 PM on November 7
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
The etymology according to dictionary.com:
1740–50; < Arabic, metathetic variant of shurb drink; sherbet
posted by falsedmitri at 11:23 AM on November 7 [1 favorite]