IMP and GMP, Umami (MSG) boosters question

[silver]

Many thanks jwoz ! An excellent summation.

[silver]

Aug 12, 2021 15:33:30 GMT jwoz said:

I think that MSG is very important to the OR but I don't think that it provides the "note." However, if you cook chicken using a recipe on here without MSG, it's taste will be much farther away from KFC OR than the same recipe cooked with MSG.

But, again, the MSG flavor is distinct and distinguishable from the "note."

Do you have an opinion as to the source of the "note"?  Eugenol perhaps. 

[willy]

My understanding is that at a certain point using MSG, a saturation point is reached and passing that point is like pouring gasoline into a full tank and thus onto the ground. For some reason, I use 7.2g of msg for most of my recipes.

[silver]

Aug 15, 2021 4:29:18 GMT willy said:

My understanding is that at a certain point using MSG, a saturation point is reached and passing that point is like pouring gasoline into a full tank and thus onto the ground. For some reason, I use 7.2g of msg for most of my recipes.

My family just fried a batch of chicken yesterday to test my latest recipe, and to which I added 15 grams of MSG to 200 grams of flour 'mix', and I believe the MSG was perhaps entering into the cloying zone.  Time to begin trimming down the MSG.  I'm going to reduce it in 10% increments until I'm happy with the results.  The chicken was very good, and our best to date, but my family decided that salt and Allspice both also need to be cut back 10% for our next attempt.  The most noticeable flaw was that it was too salty.  This was our first time using flour consistency salt, and it really seemed to boost the saltiness for this, our fourth recipe iteration.  Here is the recipe we made yesterday. Overall it was quite good, but there was definitely too much salt, and too much of what we perceived to be a cinnamon taste (which is why we will notch down the Salt and Allspice next time).

[willy]

I have read that so much msg replaces so much salt. For example, take Ledington's recipe which has mucho salt, but no MSG. Using math, how much MSG would it take to eliminate the salt from Ledinton's recipe? Is this what CHS did? This is a tough measure to determine the total salt needed to make the OR. Take the story of CHS instructing to use 6 cups of salt. Can't start here as a basis because you don't know if MSG was being used, and if it was, how much. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out the salt content, because the 1959 chicken I ate was not overly salty. My time is running short because that darn covid has really messed up my tastebuds. I simply can't taste the nuances any longer. I just hate to quit.

[silver]

Aug 15, 2021 15:32:02 GMT willy said:

I have read that so much msg replaces so much salt. For example, take Ledington's recipe which has mucho salt, but no MSG. Using math, how much MSG would it take to eliminate the salt from Ledinton's recipe? Is this what CHS did? This is a tough measure to determine the total salt needed to make the OR. Take the story of CHS instructing to use 6 cups of salt. Can't start here as a basis because you don't know if MSG was being used, and if it was, how much. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out the salt content, because the 1959 chicken I ate was not overly salty. My time is running short because that darn covid has really messed up my tastebuds. I simply can't taste the nuances any longer. I just hate to quit.

I've decided that I'm going to ratchet down the salt to 27.5 grams, the MSG to 12 grams, and the Allspice to 0.58 grams for our next go at it.

On a sodium balancing basis, each gram of salt (NaCl) has the sodium content of ~3.22 grams of MSG.  But I don't know if salt taste perception follows the sodium content linearly at the same 1:3.22 ratio.

[viper1431]

In most places I+g would need to be labelled in the ingredients.

[jwoz]

I've been so busy lately that I haven't been able to participate minute by minute on the forums. Apologies for that. But I wanted to respond to a number of points that were made above. I'll do that all at once here.

I agree with Willy that there is a point of MSG saturation where you can't taste more MSG. I think that MSG can be tasted in the OR in both the chicken meat and the breading itself. I haven't found the limit in the breading as being 7.5g - I can go higher than that, or use I+G, and taste the additional MSG flavor.

As Viper1431 says, I+G does need to be labeled in some places, but in many places it would be labeled as a "natural flavor" or some such. Many food companies have tried to get away from using MSG because it has to be labeled as "MSG" and this (irrationally, in my view) scares some people, so food companies have replaced some or all of MSG with substances such as yeast extracts, I+G, etc., that can be generally, and not specifically, labeled.

People think of "salt" as being "sodium" but it isn't. This is important to what we are doing, so I'll spend a second on it.

Salt is sodium chloride. It is equal parts sodium and chloride, but due to the different molar masses of sodium and chloride, NaCl contains 39.34 grams of Sodium and 60.66 grams of Chloride. Therefore, pure table salt is 39.34% sodium, by weight.

This is important because from time to time I've seen people read nutrition labels and see that something contains "1.325 grams of sodium" and assume that means that it contains "1.325 grams of salt" (they are thinking that salt is 100% sodium, which it isn't.)

The very first test I did when I set out to test 99-X was to test the "fine flake salt" sold by Marion-Kay to make sure it was pure "salt." If it had a lot of impurities, it could have affected some of the other tests. It was indeed pure "salt" insofar as it was tested to contain exactly the amount of expected chloride.

So, pure table salt is 39.34% sodium, by weight. Monosodium Glutamate, as the name suggests, also contains sodium. It contains 12.28% sodium by weight.

If you look at the relative percentages of sodium in table salt and MSG, you will see that MSG contains about 1/3 the amount of sodium that table salt does. (The real numbers are that table salt contains 3.2 times the amount of sodium as MSG does, and MSG contains 31.25% of the sodium that table salt does, but "1/3" is easier to remember and is accurate enough for most uses.) If you want an easy metric to remember, just remember that every gram of salt could be replaced with 3 grams of MSG and that would keep the amount of sodium in the recipe constant.

If you look at some of the early recipes (yes, I know that there are disputes about those) you will be struck by how much MSG they use. Of course, you can use much more MSG than you could use of table salt (about 3 times as much, by weight) without reaching an unacceptably high sodium level.

I've always thought that sodium is an interesting guidepost since it is one aspect of the OR that we absolutely know (sodium content has to be disclosed by KFC all over the world). I have lots of spreadsheets that calculate sodium content in various recipes. With respect to Ledington, Willy has referred to it as a "seasoning salt" recipe. At first I didn't understand what he meant, but then I realized that if you run the sodium numbers with respect to Ledington based on Tablespoons and if you take the "2 cups of flour" notation at its word, you end up with sodium that is massively out of range on the high side - more than double the sodium of the modern OR, which is very high in sodium already. Simply using logic, that leads us down certain paths with respect to these early recipes, but my point here isn't to debate the Ledington or Eula Gordon recipes, but to point out that using the sodium content of a recipe as a guidepost as to whether the recipe makes sense on its face or not can be helpful.

With respect to the "note," I'm a bit of an outlier on here and, of course, for me, the "note" is the main point of what we are after.

I slice and dice the OR, from a sensory/taste/aroma standpoint into four specific and distinct segments.

For me:

There is the herb and spice flavor and aroma.

There is the MSG flavor, which also contributes some to the aroma.

There is the appearance/sensation/mouthfeel of the chicken and the breading (tender/crunchy/moist/sticky)

There is the "note" which is present in large quantities in the flavor and the aroma.

So, when I taste my chicken vs. the modern OR, I try to break out each of these aspects separately. Does my chicken have the right amount of MSG in both the breading and in the meat? Is my chicken as tender as the OR? Does my chicken have an appropriate herb and spice combination? Does it have the "note?" I view each as a separate consideration.

But in the end, I am skeptical that all of the "note" comes purely from the herbs and spices and/or MSG. I believe it has another source, or at least an amplifier. I don't believe that it is possible to match the "note" without an appropriate herb and spice combination, but I also am skeptical that, without something else, simply having the correct herb and spice combination will yield the "note" in the same quantity as KFC OR. The "note" simply doesn't taste like an herb or spice to me.

So, while I do believe that pepper (the appropriate types and ratios of white and black) and eugenol are critical parts of the recipe, I am skeptical that some magical combination of them, without something else, will yield a sufficient amount of the "note."

[silver]

Aug 16, 2021 12:53:49 GMT viper1431 said:

In most places I+g would need to be labelled in the ingredients.

I don't believe that to be the case in the USA, but it is the case in South Africa, and in South Africa E627, E631, and E635 are listed as potential allergen ingredients in OR Chicken.


order.kfc.co.za/addhope/Download?filename=KFC_Allergens

[willy]

Well put jwoz. This is the process. This is what I've been doing for the past three years. That's why I don't have a settled recipe, per se. My view on the salt is what angered Yves, who left BruceB's forum. There are so many "little" things that are difficult to put your finger on. The size of the ingredient particles, the cooking techniques, and the condition of the chicken. I am beginning to think that certain items of information have been nothing but misinformation, since way back. What was the cause of all of this activity? Kind of like the old shell game, which confuses the viewer.

I tried for years to find information about what the commercial chicken environment was like during the 80s that instigated the creation of those vials. Competitors? An authentic recipe found? Government regulations? Blackmail? Why did they do it? Commemoration of a hidden secret recipe doesn't work for me. IT WAS SECRET! It is similar to a magician's trick. Look here! The $1.00 bill is now a $20.00 bill! The 11 Vials; The Eula Gordon recipe; Ledington's; Twitter herbs and "5" spices; Leaked comments; 99X, following the lawsuit; Foreign techniques; Grace; Winston Shelton; etc.

What was the the only OR ingredient (that I can recall), besides oil, salt, flour, egg and milk, uttered out of CHS's mouth? Tellicherry black peppercorns.

[willy]

I might add that the story about CHS complaining about the lack of Jamaican ginger was pure hearsay. It was printed in a book, supposedly about some discussion from CHS, but without naming witnesses who heard it. Even Hebrews required two witnesses to prove or disprove an event. If he said it in a room full of people, OK. But idle talk printed in a book? The person who heard the discussion is not specifically named. The calculated amount discussed has thrown all of my recipes off, when trying to emulate the 26 oz seasoning bag.

[MarkWinston]

This might be useful but I personally use ~40g of msg for 1kg of flour in the fried chicken I sell at my shop. I also use the same amount of table salt for 1kg of flour. I dont blitz the salt and msg for my shop. It might sound overkill but that tastes very balanced to me and the thai people. On top of that I brine my chicken for 1 - 3 days with a 2:1 ratio of table salt to msg, saltiness of the meat dont change much after 24 hours. My ratio is 1 liter water, 2 leveled tablespoon table salt and 1 leveled tablespoon msg.

Oh and I forgot to mention, I double coat all my chicken, all dipped into plain water. This might increase the total amount of salt and msg but Im not sure by how much as I suspect some salt and msg might be washed away during the dip.

[silver]

I've finally ordered I+G. 45 grams. Enough to supercharge 5 Lbs. of MSG.

[silver]

My I+G flavor (or rather, MSG) enhancer (IMP & GMP) has arrived, as has my Star Anise, and this is therefore where my recipe now stands in relation to a nominal 200 grams of flour mix:

[silver]

I should add that the recipe seen in my post above this one is an evolution of my note hitting recipe #4. I have tremendous expectations for this derivation, and hope to cook it 'next' weekend.