pardigm shift

[cafeandy]

i've been making the perfect, smoothest, sharpest, richest lemon curd for close to 20 years now. obviously i use a double boiler. it's a holiday tradition with us and the family looks forward to the lemon meringue tartlets.

...but something has gone awry. one of my daughters brought her boyfriend who is a VERY finicky eater [he didn't know if he wanted to eat the cornish hens because he had never tried them before]. anyway, he made a comment that the curd had a metallic taste. the problem is that he is right. all these years i have never noticed it, but he's right. the lemon juice is leaching the metallic taste from the double boiler. PARADIGM SHIFT [that's so 90's but it still sounds cool].

has anyone out there safely used a pyrex bowl in a double boiler set up? i really don't want to invest in an expensive porcelain double boiler set so i'm looking for answers.

marmalady?

 

[marmalady]

Sure, you can use a pyrex bowl over a pot of - BARELY - simmering water; make sure the bowl isn't touching the water, and don't let it boil. If the bowl's allowing steam to escape (a trial run here would be good!), wrap a kitchen towel around the bowl, then set it on top of the pot.

Just curious - what kind of pan had you been using?

PS - I hate it when that happens - something you can just about make with your eyes closed, and all of a sudden the stars aren't aligned right or something, and you've got a flop!

 

[cafeandy]

thanx...i'm going with the pyrex bowl on something less vital as a test.

it is still the best lemon curd i've ever had but now i can taste that metal. and it's funny looking back...the idea of putting all that lemon juice in a stainless pan sort of made me twinge a little way in the recesses of my better judgment.

by the way, i've always used the same revereware copper-bottom stainless steel double boiler that i owned when my wife and i got married 29 years ago.

 

[norgeskog]

I do not own a double boiler, I place my glass bowls over a pot of simmering water and I make lemon pudding all the time, but have never made curd.

 

[lindatooo]

lemon reacted with Stainless Steel????? I thought that was non-reactive! Am I nuts????

 

[cafeandy]

lindatoo-
stainless steel is NOT non-reactive...it just won't rust or well, stain. acids are highly reactive with metal. non-reactive is generally considered to be glass, plastic, coated, anything that ISN'T metallic.

 

[scott123]

It'll take a little getting used to as glass is quite a bit less conductive than metal, but pyrex glass bowls work wonderfully as double boilers.

They have a tendency to retain the heat after you remove the bowl from the saucepan - more so than stainless steel.

So, they take a while to get hot, but once they do, they stay hot longer. Just something to be aware of.

As far as safety is concerned, pyrex bowls are pretty much indestructable at double boiler temps.

 

[lindatooo]

Well I'll be darned if I don't manage to learn something every single time I come here!!!!

 

[PA Baker]

Well I'll be darned if I don't manage to learn something every single time I come here!!!!

I agree, lindatoo! Cafeandy, while I don't wish cooking problems on anyone here, I'm glad this came up as I think we all learned something from it! Thanks!