Spinzall

So I just got a Spinzall a few weeks ago and just set it up. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it is a specifically designed Home/Bar/Restaurant use centrifuge. Created by Dave Arnold, owner of the former Booker and Dax Modernist Bar, Booker and Dax Lab, and author of “Liquid Intelligence.”

Instead of costing the $5,000-$20,000 of a lab centrifuge, the Spinzall costs $799.99, a huge difference in price. They also are much, much safer to use, don’t require weighing liquids into special containers, and accuracy of 0.1 gm., are kitchen counter sized instead of 2’x2’x2’, and weighs under 20 lbs. instead of 150-200 lbs. They can be batch run with around 1 pint, or set up for continuous run, with built in hoses and pumps. The first centrifuge to do so.

spinzall

The spizall is very simple to use, in regular batch mode you just set a timer dial. For continuous use there are additional dials for the pump time, and pump speed. Then there are the on/off switch and the unlock lid switch. Plus a manual unlock over ride underneath the unit. That’s it.

The unit comes with a instruction book with some starter recipes, and instructions on how to extrapolate the recipes to other uses. Including how to use enzymes. You can also get other items to use with the Spinzall like a starter kit of various enzymes to use in clarification of juices, etc.

Since I have a lab centrifuge I have quite a few centrifuge based recipes that I can use the Spinzall for. Mostly making clarified juices, syrups, and other cocktail ingredients, plus various fruit and vegetable purees from the solids from the centrifuge.

Now most folks will wonder what they might use a centrifuge in the average kitchen. Well, most folks won’t, but quite a few will. I haven’t explored all the possible uses, but one easy and rewarding recipe is making butter. Some of the best butter you have ever had.

I tried it as the second use of the Spinzall. The first was to remove bitter pulp from a ginger/turmeric/ginseng juice and syrup that I make and use as a homeopathic remedy for inflammation from arthritis, and to help with disabling neuropathy. (Also the juice tastes fantastic. I mix an oz or two into a tall glass of water and drink 2-3 times a day. It works for me.)

Set up was easy, the unit is extremely well designed and easy to use. I cleaned the working parts in warm soapy water. Put back togethr, about as easy as a food processor, and poured in one pint of cold heavy whipping cream. Just regular homogenized and pasteurized, not the ultra stuff. I got it for TJ’s for $2.99 a pint. I turned on the unit and set for 20 minutes.

Twenty minutes later it had stopped and I opened it up. Poured out the buttermilk carefully, and then removed the butter which came off easily as three sheets apx. 2"x4"x.5". They added up to around .5 lbs. (I didn’t weigh until I had used it for several things, bread, biscuits, panettone, etc. then weighed and it was apx. 6.5 oz. afterwards. I’ll weigh next time and post here.) The butter was a creamy white, a very nice texture, sweet aroma, and a very sweet, buttery flavor. Light, elegant, no off taste or hints of rancidity that you can get at times in commercial butter. And a much higher quality than premium butters like Plugra, Presidente, Kerry Gold, Kate’s, etc. for less cost. and much, much better than cheap commercial butter like store brands and Land O’Lakes.

I made the butter unsalted for the first try. You can also add salt to the cream ahead of time, or to the butter afterwards if you want. Also if you want to make a cultured butter you can add a bit of cultured commercial buttermilk to the cream and let sit to ferment, then make into butter. Full instructions are in the included recipe book. I will try that when I get around to it.

If anyone else has a Spinzall, or is getting one, please post any uses or recipes here. I’ll do so as well. It’s such a unique machine that I expect specific Spinzall recipes books from Dave Arnold, and others, within the next year to hit the market. I expect that some centrifuge based recipes from Liquid Intelligence, and Modernist Cuisine can be easily used in the Spinzall.

Here is the site and there are videos posted. (which I haven’t watched yet.)
https://www.modernistpantry.com/spinzall.html

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I bought one during the initial funding drive when they were $699, so far have only used it for a few things, spun cream for butter, spun solids out of pureed strawberries and tried to spin solids out of fresh orange juice. The butter works great, clarified strawberry juice was good but couldn’t get the orange juice clarified (solids wouldn’t hold together as a puck). Mine was pretty loud when I first used it, they suggested putting some tape along the inside of the lid as a temporary fix until they come up with something permanent. The tape trick did significantly reduce the vibration sound from the lid. Still thinking of ideas for Thanksgiving.

Might be interesting if you did something with cranberries maybe?

Their spice-oil apples sounds interesting as well.

They did a few minor changes for the second release to fix issues. Mine is very, very, quiet. Just a warm hum.

I don’t understand what you mean by “(solids wouldn’t hold together as a puck).”

Solids in the Spinzall don’t form in a puck. They form in a layer on the side walls of the rotary chamber.

What enzymes or hydrocolloids did you use for the clarified Orange juice?

9 posts were split to a new topic: Alcohol, wine and centrifuge

My only experience with centrifuges is with the lab kind where the solids compress into a puck at the bottom of the vial. I was just playing around and didn’t use any additives with the OJ, after 20 minutes of spinning most of the solids did not stay on the wall of the rotor and came out with the liquid.

I have a question … so does this type of centrifuge assume there are only two layers after being spun - the solid and the liquid? Just curious, mechanically that is the only way my head can wrap around some of the features you’re talking about.

“I bought one during the initial funding drive when they were $699, so far have only used it for a few things, spun cream for butter, spun solids out of pureed strawberries and tried to spin solids out of fresh orange juice. The butter works great, clarified strawberry juice was good but couldn’t get the orange juice clarified (solids wouldn’t hold together as a puck). Mine was pretty loud when I first used it, they suggested putting some tape along the inside of the lid as a temporary fix until they come up with something permanent. The tape trick did significantly reduce the vibration sound from the lid. Still thinking of ideas for Thanksgiving.”

So you have confused me with what you said in the two posts. Are you talking about lab centrifuges? Or the Spinzall? Did you read the manual for the Spinzall? It sounds like you either didn’t. Or didn’t understand how it works.

If you had researched anything about citrus juice clarification you would know that you need either hydrocolloids or enzymes or both to clarify citrus juice in a centrifuge.

Well it does separate things into layers. For some of their more interesting things that I haven’t done yet like their herb oils (page 26 on the manual):

It should do various gradients, with the most dense items on the bottom followed by whatever layers. For herb oils, it should separate the solid herbs at the bottom, water in the middle which should displace the oil which is on the top.

Thank so for the link. So it does seem to work as I thought (which isn’t good or bad, just trying to understand the mechanical difference between this type of machine and a lab style centrifuge).

I like to think of it as a giant electrical salad spinner haha.

Prior to buying the Spinzall the only centrifuges I had used were in biology labs, this is my first try at using one for culinary applications. As for the orange juice, I was playing around so no I did not do any in depth research prior to the attempt.

Actually, that’s a good description. Add in the words 4,000 rpm or 2800-3200 times gravity to be more exact.

I don’t know about gradients. Spin of 2800-3200 gravities horizontal vs. 1 gravity vertical.

It really does more of a solid vs. liquid. It doesn’t do a break of liquids per se. Oils vs. water, you have to pump in water to pump out oil.

It really is a different system. It can do much of what a lab centrifuge does, but not as exact of multiple separations per process.

I made another batch of butter last night, using one pint of heavy cream. This batch I added 2 tsp. of kosher salt to the cream.Shook it for 20 seconds, then poured it into the Spinzall. I spun it for 25 minutes. At first I thought it was too much salt. But today I tasted the butter and it was only lightly salty tasting. The buttermilk was undrinkable though. The butter by weight from one pint was 9.2 oz. That would be $5.20 a lb. retail price.

I’m too lazy to work the salt into the butter afterwards, but I think that may be the way to go for salted butter.

Now I have to do some cultured butter tests. Test one will be using cultured buttermilk as a starter. test two will be using yogurt. Test three will be using food grade lab lactic acid/yogurt cultures. (If I have any still left in my deep freezer.) Test four would be using wild lactic cultures from the air. Not sure when I will try this.