Winston Shelton Recollections: History of the CVap Brand

[kgp]

Founder of Winston Industries, Winston Shelton, explains how CVap and the brand was developed:

[Ken_Griffiths]

Thanks for sharing that kgp👍 - I think this man is of huge importance to the success of kfc. A great engineer and innovator. It’s sad that he is no longer with us.

Shelton mentioned Tellicherry Black Pepper and the numbers 10, 20 and perhaps more importantly 13g in a 100g recipe that the Colonel dictated to him in the mid 1970’s… I still believe to this day he was an honest man and was telling the truth about all those numbers. I still do my level-best to account for the weights as part of my own recipe research.

All the numbers still appear in my latest published recipe - the number 10 I think could account for the 10oz of ‘combined’ Pepper in the mix. The number 20 I think was maybe a reference to the actual weight of the Tellicherry Black Pepper and the much referred-to missing ingredient that ‘unusually’ weighed 13g is the weight set of the current Fine Flake Salt - which equates to 13lb in the Colonels 100lb Barrel.

I could listen to Shelton all day and I love the fact that he took the recipe to his legal advisor, as he was concerned he had been given something by the Colonel that he knew/believed went against the licensing agreement with the KFC corporation. That’s the actions of a respectable and honourable man.

[cascader]

Re-reading the Louisville article, fwiw, the 20 is described as an herb, and the 10 as a spice. Not that one can say it is accurate, in description or values, but perhaps worth keeping in mind as to possibilities leading to the source of mythic original flavor, vs the later, corporate, somewhat less remarkable product.


archive.louisville.com/content/winston-shelton-colonels-corporal-food-dining

[Ken_Griffiths]

Jun 5, 2021 19:46:09 GMT cascader said:

Re-reading the Louisville article, fwiw, the 20 is described as an herb, and the 10 as a spice. Not that one can say it is accurate, in description or values, but perhaps worth keeping in mind as to possibilities leading to the source of mythic original flavor, vs the later, corporate, somewhat less remarkable product.

archive.louisville.com/content/winston-shelton-colonels-corporal-food-dining

Yes, like a lot of the research surrounding this recipe there is often discrepancies, mistakes, generalisations based on memory and ‘perhaps’ lies. So it’s difficult to know where the precise truth may lie. I see many things as pointers and possibilities. The number 13 is quite a specific number in the Shelton story and unusual enough (maybe) to attach more weight to that value - the numbers 10 and 20 appear more as a generalisations, but interestingly, both those numbers 10 and 20 are also in the early training manuals, but the number 7 is the real number that stands out for me in those manuals.

I find the numbers so unusual in some instances, that I think they ‘may’ stem from the ingredient weights (perhaps) …and swapping a herb for a spice might be where the mistake or incorrect aspect might appear to purposely mislead. 20g in a 100g recipe equates to 20lbs in the Barrel and 4oz in a seasoning bag - that seems to me like too much for the weight of a herb in the mix, but it is a possibility for a spice, like one of the Peppers, or perhaps Salt. Of course if we choose to set a herb at that weight in our recipes we most likely have to reduce one of the main Peppers, or Salt.

In my own recipe, I opted to set the Black Pepper at 20lbs in the Barrel and I put the Salt at 13lbs, as I thought that was more likely the number 13 that the Colonel missed off the list he gave to Shelton - plus that way I found that the ingredients that followed could then all be set at 7lbs (Sage, Ginger, Coriander and Garlic Salt) I often look at the recipe in terms of the Shelton 100g Recipe and the 100lb Barrel weights like this…

30g/lb WP
20g/lb BP (10 coarse/10 ground??)
13g/lb Salt
7g/lb Cor
7g/lb Garlic S
7g/lb Gin
7g/lb Sage
2.5g/lb Cay
2.5g/lb Clove
2.5g/lb Star
0.5g/lb Marj
0.5g/lb Sav
0.5g/lb Thy
Total Weight 100g/lb

In my case the number 10 is missing in the main list, but all the other numbers are present, particularly the number 7, so I still wonder if the 20lb Black Pepper may have been two separate types/mesh that weighed 10lb each… but like everything, this is purely guesswork based on numbers, but I have always thought it was worth exploring to help me then find the answers I was personally searching for.

The recipe means that each portion taken from the Barrel for each seasoning bag was 20oz exactly, so the MSG (added from outside the Barrel, as per the museum sign) in this case was 6oz, which explains the weight of the 26oz seasoning bag. Another Interesting note to this, is that Accent MSG from Ajinomoto was sold in two different packs in the 1950’s for catering purposes - 10lb drums and a 5lb tin - the 5lb tins were sold in packs of six - covered in plastic shrink-wrap.

The 100lb Barrel itself at 20oz per portion would make exactly 80 seasoning bags
It follows that 80 x 6oz of MSG is exactly 480oz …or 30lb … and that just happens to be 3 x 10lb drums of MSG, or one shrink-wrap pack of 6 x 5lb containers of MSG.

www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0SGrq0zwGq3yag;AE307DF2-DC5E-48BA-A6B3-05255BC2D154

So these things, whilst not proof of anything, at least raises the possibility of the MSG being a weight of 6oz (with no waste).

Anyhow for the purposes of my own shared research, I find these numbers and weights a useful path to try to explore, perhaps in support of some of the answers to the original recipe.

[willy]

Winston L. Shelton was given a 100g recipe by CHS. He mentioned 20g for this herb and 10g for that spice. He was given a last 13g ingredient to equal 100g. No mention is made of the amount of salt to add extra. No mention of MSG. He said that the recipe would make KFC. Here are some things to ponder during this holiday weekend.

Only Ledington's contains enough salt on its' own to make a batch of chicken. The MSG has to have been added differently, which indicates that there must be "secret" additions somewhere, as listed in CHS's pocket.

CHS and KFC used, and still use two different suppliers. Is this because there are two parts to the recipe?

The last ingredient added was 13g, which leaves some ingredient, or group of ingredients at 7g. Maybe there are 7 secret ingredients that have to be added.

The numbers 7 and 11 are sacred numbers in the Bible. 7 and 11 are key numbers in the game "craps".

Is it possible that Ledington's is the actual recipe which requires 7 aromatics be added to round out the flavor?

Have a happy Independence Day, and remember that freedom is what matters.

[kgp]

It’s likely the order-taker at the Dairy Queen on Bluegrass Parkway doesn’t know that the gentlemanly senior chatting her up is the inventor of some of the most influential cooking machines ever built. She just knows he’s friendly, greeting him with a cordial, “Good to see you back again.”

When he orders his usual chicken wrap and chocolate milk, she repeats it back to him, which elicits a “Beg pardon?” from him, prompting a second repeat.

“I like coming here; they’re always so nice,” says 90-year-old Winston Shelton. Unwrapping his meager lunch, he adds, “I need to stick to my diet. I follow Weight Watchers.”

That he diets at all is ironic, given the body of his work as founder, chairman and lead engineer at Winston Industries, which makes fryers and holding cabinets for fast-food chains such as Kentucky Fried Chicken. The chicken giant’s food was anything but fast before Shelton created the pressurized Collectramatic fryer in 1969, an invention that radically altered not only his life and income but the speed at which food has since been served in the restaurant industry.

Employed then as an engineer at General Electric earning $280 a month, Shelton developed the fryer for his side business, Engineering Prototype Services (EPS). According to his eldest daughter, Valerie, now president and CEO of Winston Industries, already lean living for the married father of three got even leaner when he left GE in 1968 to devote his energies to EPS. The fanatical frugality of her mother, Dolly, during that time helped the family get by. “She saved every dollar. We had a $10 couch until I was 10 or 12,” says Valerie.

Forty-four years later and at the helm of a $25 million company, money is the last of Winston Shelton’s worries. But he remains driven as ever to produce machines born of “solid, smart engineering.” That goal had led him to GE, where he authored 50 patents, but it also led him away to, “as we engineers like to say, ‘bend the tin’ the way I saw fit,” Shelton says. By inventing the Collectramatic fryer, which helped store sales and unit growth surge at KFC, “I was doing quality engineering on my own terms, and that was very gratifying.”

Born in 1922, Shelton was the youngest of five children reared by Naaman and Opal Shelton, who owned a service station and small restaurant and three-room home in Clay, W. Va. Shelton recalls Clay idyllically as a place where he and brother Naaman Jr. — who also would become a GE engineer and help found EPS — fished, “stole a rowboat when we didn’t have one,” and mobilized ordinary wagons with abandoned engines they disassembled and rebuilt. “There weren’t the distractions of TV. We made our own entertainment,” he says. “Your teacher was yourself, burned fingers and skinned knuckles.”

Shelton enrolled at Glenville College in 1941 to become a lawyer, but after two years he enlisted in the U.S. Army to serve in World War II. Upon taking the Army’s General Classification Test, which matched soldiers’ skills to suitable duties, Shelton scored so highly that, rather than join up with the Army’s 104th Infantry Division, he was sent to Princeton University, where, he says, “the Army told me I was going to be an engineer!” When he arrived by train in Princeton, N.J., there on the platform was the town’s most celebrated citizen, Albert Einstein. “He wasn’t waiting for us,” Shelton quips, “but he was a sight to see.”

Following his discharge in 1945, Shelton earned a master’s in engineering at West Virginia University and was hired by GE in 1948. When the huge company consolidated its major-appliances manufacturing operations in Louisville in the early 1950s, Shelton and his new bride bought a small house and 40 acres of land off Chenoweth Run Road, and he began research and development work for GE’s automatic washing machine division at Appliance Park.

Years later, when Shelton and his brother got the itch to strike out on their own, the initial plan to leave GE centered on the creation of a zero-radius-turn lawnmower, designs he penned and refined by rising at 4 a.m. nearly every day for two years. “Oh, there were days when I didn’t want to do that,” he recalls, “but I’d tell myself, ‘Shelton, you did this yesterday and it all went well. So just get your ass out of bed and get to work.’” When he and his brother started EPS, their focus was to build the mower. But they were so quickly overwhelmed with other paid work, the mower never materialized.

When one of their customers, a filtering-equipment manufacturer named Carl Mies, asked Shelton to help him with an idea for a pressure fryer for cooking chicken, Shelton toured a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise to witness what was then a perilous and inexact preparation process: Chicken was fried in 400-degree shortening under pressure in stove-top covered pots, then rushed across the kitchen and poured onto a screened basin that caught the food and let the molten shortening slip through. Cooks were burned regularly and the pressure cookers occasionally exploded. “I watched that madness and thought, ‘That’s an engineer’s dream, man!’” Shelton recalls with a laugh. “There were so many problems to solve, and that was just the low-hanging fruit.”

Shelton designed Mies’ fryer for him, then expanded on the idea and created a stationary, self-filtering fryer that would use precision time and temperature controls to produce Kentucky Fried Chicken to Colonel Harland Sanders’ legendarily maniacal standards. When the Collectramatic 519 was completed in 1969, “there were still some engineering problems to work out,” Shelton recalls. “But it was so much better than what they were doing that we were selling them into the system like crazy.”

Shelton’s device, says Fred Jeffries, the chain’s vice president of purchasing during those years, helped fuel KFC’s rapid expansion and success. “There’s no way it could have grown like it did without the Collectramatic,” Jeffries says. “Stores were doing about $200,000 a year in sales on average with the pots . . . but they could never have done the $900,000 a year it became without Win’s fryer. He helped set the stage for that with true engineering thinking.”

Widespread franchisee use of Collectramatics troubled John Y. Brown Jr., then the company’s president and half of the twosome that bought the company from Sanders in 1964. He had given tacit approval to a similar pressure fryer developed by L.S. Hartzog and wanted that to be the chain’s standard. His biggest concern about both fryers was, “We didn’t really know anything about either of them,” says Brown, who became governor of Kentucky in 1977. “Though those old pots were damn dangerous, at least we knew they worked! I was mostly afraid these new fryers would break down in the middle of business.”

Though Colonel Sanders publicly approved Shelton’s machine in 1970, Brown held his ground and warned franchisees they were in violation of their contracts if they used Collectramatics. Problem was, Brown’s father, John Sr., owned multiple Kentucky Fried Chicken stores in Lexington and all used Collectramatics. Informed of his father’s equipment choice, the fryer battle was over. “John Y. was not pleased to learn his father was using my fryer,” Shelton says, grinning.

Sanders’ interest in the Collectramatic led to a friendship with Shelton, a relationship that came in handy when an employee at Shelton’s bank embezzled “a considerable sum of money from me,” he recalls, “and nearly drove us out of business.” When Shelton sought a loan in 1970 to shore up his young firm, Sanders told the lender he’d guarantee it. But no blessing from the Colonel topped the gift of confidence given one afternoon in 1975, when Sanders arrived unexpectedly at Shelton’s factory and summoned the inventor to his car. Shelton says he got in and Sanders asked him, “Do you have anything to write on?”

“He basically started telling me to measure 20 grams of this herb and 10 grams of that spice and so on,” Shelton says. “And when he got through, he told me it would all add up to 100 grams. Then he said I should take that and mix it with a certain amount of soft winter wheat flour and that would be it.”

Aware that he’d been given the coveted secret recipe for the Colonel’s blend of 11 herbs and spices, Shelton returned to his office and checked the Colonel’s math: The list contained only 10 ingredients and totaled just 87 grams, which Shelton found puzzling. Then, several days later, an employee called to say, “‘I just ran into the Colonel, and he said you need 13 grams of this,’” Shelton recalls. He says he called his attorney, knowing that the fabled recipe was the exclusive property of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and was advised that “I didn’t want that recipe.”

[kgp]

Ever in pursuit of food-preparation efficiency, in 1980 Shelton created a cabinet for holding cooked food at optimum texture and temperature so restaurant drive-thrus could deliver meals faster. Dubbed CVap (due to its use of Shelton’s patented Controlled Vapor technology), the cabinet not only held food perfectly for extended periods, but chefs and engineers at Winston Industries soon realized it was exceptional for cooking foods very slowly, safely and at temperatures so low that shrinkage was drastically reduced.

Internationally recognized fine-dining chefs such as Charlie Trotter (Chicago’s Charlie Trotter’s), Wylie Dufresne (Manhattan’s wd-50) and Norman Van Aken (Orlando’s Norman’s) saw CVap’s ability to cook any cut of meat, poultry and seafood to unusual degrees of tenderness and scooped up the machine for their operations. Even the 2012 James Beard Award-winning Modernist Cuisine — a $500 five-volume set of glamour-tech cookbooks published in 2011 — recognize CVap’s virtues. Louisville chefs Kathy Cary (Lilly’s: A Kentucky Bistro), Edward Lee (610 Magnolia) and Dean Corbett (Equus/Jack’s Lounge and Corbett’s: An American Place) are CVap users.

“Not only does CVap work like nothing I’ve ever used, but Winston is just a fascinating guy,” says Corbett, who cooks his beef brisket for 24 hours in a CVap. “He’s this genius who mixes science and food, but not in some freaky way. He makes the best of both, and he’s very passionate about it.”

And perfectionistic as well, say friends and colleagues. Save for the casters mounted to the legs of every Winston cooking unit, every part is manufactured in-house at the Bluegrass Industrial Park plant. “The technology is unique to us, and we like it that way. When we build it, it meets our standards,” Shelton says.

Barry Yates, Winston Industries’ director of innovation and a 20-year employee, recalls a time when Shelton refused to fill a profitable order for Collectramatic fryers destined for Japan because buyers there insisted he modify it for their peculiarities, and at his cost. “Mostly he didn’t do it over the principle that such a fundamental change shouldn’t be done to his equipment,” Yates recalls. “By doing that he lost the whole Japanese (KFC) market, which was just about to take off, but it was his decision.” Japan’s KFCs would use other manufacturers’ fryers.

Shelton’s latest compulsion is the CVap Protein Pasteurizer, a recently completed machine he believes can slash the number of food-service-caused foodborne illness outbreaks in the U.S. In most cases, he says, food safety is a manageable issue, but where human disciplines fail, “I have created a device that can solve the problem with precision. Every year in this country, 300,000 cases of foodborne illness are reported, and some of those people die. That’s unacceptable to me. I may not be here much longer to help solve that problem, but this is a good start.”

Such statements about her father’s mortality make Valerie Shelton chuckle since her grandparents, aunts and uncles also lived long, vital lives. She says good genes, combined with her father’s drive to continue creating and working, play equal roles in his extended longevity. “None of them ever rested on their laurels; they were hardy, healthy outdoor people, like him,” she says. “My biggest fear is I’m going to retire before he does.”

[kgp]

Winston Shelton and CHS:

Attachments:

[kgp]

When he says “He basically started telling me to measure 20 grams of this herb and 10 grams of that spice and so on,” Shelton says. “And when he got through, he told me it would all add up to 100 grams. Then he said I should take that and mix it with a certain amount of soft winter wheat flour and that would be it.”

I believe that his 100 grams (3.5274 oz) to be exact. However, when he says 20 grams of this herb and 10 grams of that spice it might be a figure of speech. But did anyone contemplate how much flour is needed for 100 grams of herbs and spices?

[silver]

Nov 8, 2022 11:05:14 GMT kgp said:

When he says “He basically started telling me to measure 20 grams of this herb and 10 grams of that spice and so on,” Shelton says. “And when he got through, he told me it would all add up to 100 grams. Then he said I should take that and mix it with a certain amount of soft winter wheat flour and that would be it.”

I believe that his 100 grams (3.5274 oz) to be exact. However, when he says 20 grams of this herb and 10 grams of that spice it might be a figure of speech. But did anyone contemplate how much flour is needed for 100 grams of herbs and spices?

I worked it out to be 1,250 grams (10 level USA Measuring Cups, or 9-1/2 level Metric Measuring Cups) of Flour required.

Further to this is my progressive steps to the solution of the Shelton mystery, as follows:

Step #1: I began with a 32 Ounce Bag compliant recipe proposal:

6 Oz. MSG
6 Oz. White Pepper
5 Oz. Black Pepper Grinds (of which ~1 Oz is Coarse)
4 Oz. Mild (aka, Sweet) Paprika (1)
3 Oz. Coriander Seed (2)
2 Oz. Ginger (3)
2 Oz. Sage (4)
1 Oz. Anise Seed (5)
2/3 Oz. Allspice (6)
1/2 Oz. Cayenne Pepper (7)
1/2 Oz. Mace (8)
1/2 Oz. Thyme (or) Summer Savory (9)
1/2 Oz. Garlic Powder (10)
1/3 Oz. Clove (11)

Step #2: I converted this Recipe directly into percentage by weight values:

18.75% MSG
18.75% White Pepper
15.625% Black Pepper Grinds
12.50% Mild (aka, Sweet) Paprika (1)
9.375% Coriander Seed (2)
6.25% Ginger (3)
6.25% Sage (4)
3.125% Anise Seed (5)
2.083% Allspice (6)
1.5625% Cayenne Pepper (7)
1.5625% Mace (8)
1.5625% Thyme (or) Summer Savory (9)
1.5625% Garlic Powder (10)
1.042% Clove (11)
---------------------
Sum = 100%

Step #3: I massaged and rounded the results of Step #2 as above to fit the scant few clues provided to us by Winston Shelton (as highlighted here):

20% MSG
18% White Pepper
15% Black Pepper Grinds
13% Mild (aka, Sweet) Paprika (1)
10% Coriander Seed (2)
6% Ginger (3)
6% Sage (4)
3% Anise Seed (5)
2% Allspice (6)
1.5% Cayenne Pepper (7)
1.5% Mace (8)
1.5% Thyme (or) Summer Savory (9)
1.5% Garlic Powder (10)
1% Clove (11)
---------------------
Sum = 100%

Step #4: I converted Step #3 to grams:

20 grams MSG
18 grams White Pepper
15 grams Black Pepper Grinds
13 grams Mild (aka, Sweet) Paprika (1)
10 grams Coriander Seed (2)
6 grams Ginger (3)
6 grams Sage (4)
3 grams Anise Seed (5)
2 grams Allspice (6)
1.5 grams Cayenne Pepper (7)
1.5 grams Mace (8)
1.5 grams Thyme (or) Summer Savory (9)
1.5 grams Garlic Powder (10)
1 gram Clove (11)
---------------------
Sum = 100 Grams

Step #5: I computed the amounts of flour and salt which need to be added to Step #4:

Add Step #4 in grams to ~1,250 grams (exactly 10 level USA Cups) Pastry Flour + ~90 to ~100 grams (exactly 5 level USA TBSP) Table Salt (ground to a flour only post volume measurement).

I estimate that the above 100 gram recipe should coat ~100 pieces of chicken.

Note1: It turns out that Paprika is the mysteriously missing 13 grams.
Note2: Might I wildly speculate that the 13 grams of Paprika was initially not told to Winston because by then Paprika was already being left out.

[kgp]

9.61 cups of flour being 1250 grams. Question I have is why did CHS give him the recipe? Winston Shelton was not in the chicken making business. Was it so he could make it at home or practice with it for his CVaps?? We know CHS did give it to him since Winston Shelton is an honest man. It doesn't make sense. What year do you think he gave it to him? Think about this. He did write it down. If he did not destroy the paper his family has it today.

[silver]

Nov 8, 2022 14:05:53 GMT kgp said:

9.61 cups of flour being 1250 grams. Question I have is why did CHS give him the recipe? Winston Shelton was not in the chicken making business. Was it so he could make it at home or practice with it for his CVaps?? We know CHS did give it to him since Winston Shelton is an honest man. It doesn't make sense. What year do you think he gave it to him? Think about this. He did write it down. If he did not destroy the paper his family has it today.

A USA Measuring Cup holds only about 236.6 mL of water, whereas a Metric Measuring Cup holds 250 mL of water.  CHS developed his recipe in the USA and would not have been using a Metric measuring cup.  Early on he may not have had a clue as to what a metric measuring cup even was.

[Ken_Griffiths]

One thing I would like to quickly add here and that is almost all the OR seasoning bags I’ve seen during my own research, appear to have some Salt mentioned on their labels - the Salt level on the early 99x label also mentioned having no more than 11% Salt in its 25oz container - the 99x recipe weighed 25oz in 1976 and was recommended for use with 4lbs Salt and 25lb flour.

The early Colonels trainee franchisee training manuals mentions the colonels original recipe was to be used with 3.75lb International Sterling Salt and 25lb (A & P Sunnyfield Flour) and by all the information I can discover the Colonels seasoning bag weighed one ounce heavier at 26 ounces.

That leads me to think there was likely some level of Salt in the colonels original recipe seasoning bags, besides the main Salt bag added to the overall mix - er perhaps?

[Ken_Griffiths]

Quite a few numbers were mentioned by Winston Shelton - the number 20 is mentioned a number of times in the early training manual and so is the 7-10-7 system of coating the chicken in the breading lug. I think those numbers 7-10-7 are ‘perhaps’ also an indicator to identifying the weights of some of the ingredients in the recipe. The number 7 & 10 are all over the place in the manual and 20 is also mentioned as part of the chicken preparation - just as an example, the 7-10-7 could be indicator, something like this …

7oz MSG —> 10oz Pepper —> 7oz herbs & spices

So that’s perhaps worth exploring too,🤔perhaps?

[Ken_Griffiths]

An example perhaps would be (and I can think of others too)…

7oz MSG

10oz Pepper (6oz White Pepper (Indonesian Muntok) & 4oz Black Pepper (Indian Tellicherry))

1oz Salt (International Sterling)

7oz of Herbs and spices:

2.625oz Garlic Salt (2.25oz Salt & 0.375oz Garlic Powder - 6:1 ratio) - no more than 11%
11/8oz (1.375oz) Sage (Dalmatian)
1oz Coriander Seed (Romanian)
1/2oz (0.5oz) Cayenne
1/2oz (0.5oz) Ginger (Jamaican)
3/8oz (0.375oz) Clove (Madagascan)
3/8oz (0.375oz) Star Anise (China)
1/8oz (0.125oz) Marjoram (Egypt)
1/16oz (0.0625oz) Thyme (Spain)
1/16oz (0.0625oz) Savory (USA)
Total Weight = 25 ounces

The above perhaps taken from the Barrel to which the Colonel/Claudia then also added 1oz International Sterling Salt to each seasoning bag

In fact if you take the 1oz of International Sterling Salt stated in the mix and then add that to just the Salt mentioned in the Garlic Salt - it gives the 25oz mix a salt level of 3.25 ounces, which if you multiply by 4 (because that gives a 100 ounce recipe) it means the Salt weighs exactly 13 ounces 

So by simple scaling, that would infer the Colonel missed out 13g of Salt in the recipe mix that he gave to Shelton… probably because he never used the Salt himself when making his own recipe for personal use.

So that’s another way to perhaps look at these things when exploring the Shelton story.

(Edit: the Salt in the mix above may also account as for the reason why the Colonels original recipe was used with only 3.75lbs of Sterling International Salt too, rather than the 4lbs Salt used with 99x - er..maybe?)