09/02/2019

Modernist Cuisine and the Singapore Centrifuge

A heavyweight solution for a clearer soup

Heston Blumenthal and his like love to push the cutting edge of cookery and – like us here at AVMR – they don’t let modern convention or nay-sayers get in the way of breaking new ground. While liquid nitrogen as part of your pud is now practically commonplace, today’s innovation lies with the kitchen capabilities of that most heavyweight of lab gear, the centrifuge.

A centrifuge is basically a spin drier. It rotates (very quickly) throwing heavier contents further outwards with greater force than the lighter elements. The kitchen revelation is its ability to separate food into component elements for delicious (previously impossible) recombinations. Pulps such as tomato or soft fruit can be liberated from their water content – both products being desirable as new ingredients. Crystal clear consommé – 100% unencumbered by the foods actually used to produce it – is a breeze. And it is now possible to perfectly juice peas… Should you ever want to.

And if you’re one of the world’s biggest and best hotels you’re expected to do so on an industrial scale. Hence the need for one of the world’s largest commercial kitchen centrifuges, spinning at a five star hotel in Singapore. This kitchen devil was capable of rotating 100Kg of ingredients to an incredible 1500rpm (faster than your spin dryer).

However, immediately upon installation the unit made its presence known not through the clarity of the consommé but via the intolerable vibrations produced to the floor it was mounted upon – literally rattling the light fittings of the room below.

The solution was a custom one, designed and built by AVMR. Dense rubber directional mounts provided the heavy, gravity-producing unit with the support it needed to safely hit top speed but separated it from the fabric of the building which it was slowly destroying. The results were…. delicious.

If you want to defy physics, vanish machinery or if you simply have a similar ‘quest for peas’, then don’t hesitate to give AVMR a call.