What silicone is, and why I don't love cooking with it (PODCAST E42)

[@AnonymousSam]

America's test kitchen recently wrote about silicone smells. They found that if you place them in a 350f oven for like an hour it largely removed the smells in silicone utensils and molds. I've tried this myself with silicone o-rings and ice cube trays, I have to say, it works very well.

[@Pjrdjf]

I hope the electricity is coming from renewable sources, because that seems like a lot of energy to just get the odours off.

[@correadoggsten]

@@Pjrdjf bruh who cares

[@kindlin]

@@Pjrdjf Like my mom using the oven for one, small, chicken pot pie. It's like an hour at 350, ridiq. But if you had a few silicone things, I could see you putting them all in the oven, like, once a year or something. Also, I think this makes a lot of sense, as many things we would consider 'smellable' will degrade at such high temperatures, and you'll be left with not much left that didn't burn away.

[@HesderOleh]

I am wondering if that is because the odor molecules would undergo chemical reactions to change the way they smell or if it would be because they would become more volatile in the heat and out-gas.

[@emma70707]

@@HesderOleh , a materials scientist elsewhere theorized that the odors from the dishwasher were a thing because the pores were opening up in the hot wash cycle and the closing up around the odor molecules. This may just open the back up and allow them to escape!

[@99sonder]

"If your kitchen is 700 degrees celsius, I'm not gonna judge your lifestyle" Thank you for being so understanding, Adam! Many people get weirded out when I tell them I live in a volcano and use the lava for cooking purposes

[@JetstreamGW]

Dammit, we get weirded out because your guests keep freaking DYING!

[@kindlin]

@@JetstreamGW Death is for the weak.

[@PlgDctr]

@@kindlin swimming in lava is the way true winners live

[@sarg_eras]

Ah yes, Reunion Island and its volcano cheese fondue.

[@doctorpanigrahi9975]

That will affect your sperm count.

[@georgechapman-brown9833]

My grandmother loves Silicone scrapers so much she wrote a poem about them. It leads with the line "I wholeheartedly extol the scraper that practically licks the bowl". She's over 100 and I think that's one of the stories that I'll be telling my grandchildren one day. Thanks for the video on the topic!

[@samma676]

Please share the rest of the poem!! It sounds like it would be great

[@archkde]

I'd like to hear the rest of the poem too!!

[@robertjohnpecayo8642]

poem please

[@MilwaukeeWoman]

Grandma is right.

[@chezmoi42]

She sounds like fun. If she has written other poems, be sure to collect them for the future, it's wonderful family history. 🤗 Hugs to her from me! (I'm a late-blooming poet with no kids, so I share them with my sister's family.)

[@jonahamosbuzzard-roberts5963]

i like to season my silicone spatula rather than my food

[@ReverendS3rvo]

God dammit. Lol

[@Broockle]

instead of soaking it in vinegar, how about whitewine? 🤔

[@Xsksnssjccxghb]

Same. 😊The cracks and crevices really help absorb the flavor then rerelease them on to the food.

[@oqasho.]

i bet Adam hates this comment 😂

[@ivonav3751]

Haha! I hope Adam sees your comment!

[@Michael-jg8pw]

My silicone spatulas have significantly reduced my food waste, particularly in thick sauces/dips (think mayonnaise or soups). You just can't get the last portion out of the pot with a wooden spoon. I think that's a good reason enough to keep using silicone to some extent.

[@ano_nym]

Just use your hand otherwise ;)

[@aaronandannelogan]

I have family members who I'd say throw out probably at least 10% of the food they buy, at least in part due to the fact that they don't use rubber scrapers to empty their bowls. With just spoons (and a lackadaisical approach to boot), so much gets left behind.

[@emma70707]

It really is astounding how much more you can capture!

[@cnendza]

Agreed! Not only food waste but also helpful for saving time cleaning. I don’t even bother washing my frying pan anymore because the silicone spatula cleans it so well… Even glass storage containers go weeks without being washed because I just reuse them after wiping the previous contents clean… And if you do have to wash something you’re also saving on soap and soaking time because you don’t have caked on food… It’s the one thing that annoys me the most about food cooking channels. I hardly ever see any cooks using them! So much waste of food, time, and teaching bad habits… To me, a silicone spatula is a no-brainer!

[@laserflexr6321]

The combination of conformability and high heat tolerance of silicone is what I appreciate. I should really use a saucepan instead but I tend to use my favorite cast iron skillet for most everything, including wet stuff. I know, I know but as long as you dont leave it wet for more than a half hour or so it's fine. A silicone spatula is very helpful in that regard, when you take something thick and saucy out of the pan it leaves almost nothing behind and whatever is there is in such a thin layer will dry in minutes in the still warm pan. It makes cleanup easier. In short, silicone kitchen utensils are just more efficient all the way around aside from odor removal, which I have never noted to be a problem. Kinda wish I hadnt watched this episode now, will I be paranoid about stinky silicone now? Adam's vids are great cause he goes off on so many different vaguely related tangents that it helps understanding how everything is inter-related. He is the kind of teacher I always cherished. Hope he does an episode on why a random woven nylon scrubberwad is the best choice for a dish scrubber next. Why so hard to find is the question.

[@Randomness662]

“So why do you dislike silicone?” Adam: *lists a million reasons why silicone is one of the best and most versatile materials* Also Adam: haha, it stinky

[@Spymask-AoC]

Literally all you have to do to eliminate the volatile compounds responsible for the stinkiness is soaking the thing in diluted bleach for an hour. Adam *please* - Also this applies to his stimky cutting board

[@Ricecooka]

Is this the gist? Because I could really use a summary in a KZbin short or something.

[@Randomness662]

@@Ricecooka honestly, Adam’s podcasts are too good and rich in information to skip for a short answer. Listening to all the science behind everything is really really nice

[@SuperMrgentleman]

@@Spymask-AoC Yeah I use silicone bowls all the time and I've never had this issue. I also don't store moldy food in them for a month, maybe that has something to do with it.

[@kylegamer48]

That's why you use glass or metal sex toys for anal.

[@Libcio97]

As a chemical engineer, it was suprisingly pleasurable for me to hear about things I already know. It always kinda amazes (?) me how differently from chemists (or chemistry students) non-chemists gain knowlegde of chemistry while researching, well... basically everyday objects and phenomenons. You don't (and don't have to) learn about protons, electrons, bonds, bond energies, valencies, metals and metalloids etc. you just trying to explain what the hell is silicone, with great results I might add. This deep dive from general subject to detailed lecture, with your distinctive galore of digressions, seems to work astoundingly well from educational and entertaining point of view. Great work

[@evanramee796]

Try putting the silicone lid in the oven at 400 f for 15 mins or so, I have a silicon ice tray that often smells like freezer burn, but a stint in the oven freshens it right up.

[@JoshWebb]

Yeah, as hot as Adam's dishwasher may get, unless it doubles as a pressure-cooker, it's nowhere near 400 F. Oven is probably the way to go for off-gassing/destroying odors.

[@onodera3964]

That's what the manufacturers of anal toys recommend you do when they start smelling like ass.

[@KaitlinGaspar]

I THOUGHT I WAS GOING CRAZY - I haven’t liked the taste of my ice or water with ice in it for a few months and had no clue why- Especially because I haven’t had an issue with my water straight out of the sink

[@johnhpalmer6098]

@@JoshWebb That is true, even those that have a sani rinse or high temp wash, even the commercial dishwashers only top out at 180F and at that temp, the water flashes off so no need to dry things after a quick run through what it technically called a sanitizer in the commercial units, which is why they can get away with a 5 minute cycle and get dishes really clean for the next table serving.

[@Hathur]

Odd... I have an adverse reaction to wooden spoons. They stain easily, especially with sauces or greasy foods and since the food absorbs into the wood, no amount of washing ever gets the stain (or smell) out of the spoon. I find this happens a lot more slowly / less severely with silicone.

[@SilverHawk214]

Wooden spoons have to be cleaned promptly to prevent staining, even giving it a rinse immediately after mixing/stirring. They will still stain over time but a lot more slowly

[@raifij6698]

Maybe type of wood matter too

[@sarahmcdonough7713]

Yeah I find the same.. I don’t have a single wooden spoon in the kitchen because I hate how they stain and perpetually smell, and I just can’t become comfortable with them being so permeable. I’ve never once noticed a smell from silicone. I love silicone spatulas and cook with them everyday. I bake a lot too, but have yet to notice the smell or flavour transfer from silicone to fatty things (whipped cream, pastry cream, things I make all the time) that Adam described. Not sure why our experiences would be so different.

[@the_wiki9408]

Wooden spoons also deteriorate and crack if you wash them in the dishwasher. I'm lazy and don't want to handwash all my cooking utensils. As my latest batch of wooden utensils die from the dishwasher, I've been replacing with metal, nylon, and silicone tools.

[@poochyenarulez]

Yep. I hate wooden spoons.

[@person800]

You can buy jars with glass-only lids and they seal quite well. The glass lid is ground at a precise taper to match the grid on the opening of jar. They're used for long-term archival, because synthetic seals will break down over 10-20 years.

[@420basco]

cork lids are pretty effective too

[@kilianortmann9979]

They can seal really well, and sometimes also too well, meaning you can't get them apart anymore. You have to be a bit careful not to heat them up and let them cool back down with the stopper in place.

[@jasonslade6259]

@@kilianortmann9979 Yep, as a chemistry student I'm all too familiar with glass on glass joints that essentially fuse together into a single piece of glass when heated without some grease in the joint. They're nearly impossible to separate at that point.

[@kindlin]

@@420basco I don't think cork has the desired properties we're looking for in this thread.

[@ConnorNolan]

@@jasonslade6259 can you do the trick where you ice the inside and heat the outside? Usually works with stuck glass on glass in bongs

[@deliriumzer0]

This silicon/silicone confusion.... I mean, it's almost to the point of being a linguistic merger and it's MASSIVELY confusing to most people. I'm genuinely glad you cleared that up, because it's a MASSIVE pet peeve of mine. (In animal crossing they called a silicone baby bib a "silicon bib" and I just. UUUGGGH it kills me every time I see it XD) I feel like the explanation of silicon vs silicone should have come FIRST, but that's probably some sort of pet peeve bias happening there. lol

[@person800]

Tbh, I'd love a video about silicon-based cookware. I'm not sure what you'd use a semiconducting spatula for, but I bet it would be really cool.

[@kdaviper]

@@person800 you have to dope it with bacon grease first

[@DocTime56]

@@person800 wouldn’t silicon-based cookware be just glass cookware?

[@jayplay8140]

Ironically Adam goes on to pronounce silicon incorrectly despite clarifying how silicone is pronounced

[@morgan0]

@@kdaviper b-type semiconductors

[@Levian-Durai]

I wasn't expecting a tangent into prosthetics, but here we are! I work in the prosthetic industry and am an amputee myself, and yea silicone liners getting smelly is a bit of an issue. It's more of of a bacterial issue in this case. There is a general problem of people not properly washing them daily, and that's by far the majority of the largest reason for a lasting smell. However, there can still be some faint odor on a liner that has been washed daily. I've seen some new products for this issue specifically in the last few years, but we're a niche market so there is rarely lots of R&D specifically for prosthetics - we typically just adapt things developed for other larger markets for our own use. These new products are ozone cleaners. It's a sealed container that will hold a liner upright and "wash" it with ozone, to kill any bacteria. It works amazingly well, completely removing all traces of any odors. I'm not sure if something similar would work on silicone kitchen utensils that have absorbed smells. I guess that depends on what exactly the ozone does, and the exact cause of the odor on the utensils. I'll have to see if I have any smelly silicone cookware and try it out.

[@Br3ttM]

Ozone is O3 that really wants to be O2, so it's great at oxidizing things. That disinfects and deodorizes by ripping apart organic molecules. The two downsides to ozone are just if it reacts with the material you are trying to clean, and degrades it, or if any escapes into the air, and damages you by breathing it or its products in. Since it's unstable and reactive, you just want to use it in something enclosed, and let it sit for a while after the ozone is turned off, so it reacts or breaks down on its own before you open it up. You could use it to clean some smell out of a car or room, but you really shouldn't do that with people in it.

[@tracematson385]

Does rubbing alcohol work? I know it's a silly question but in theory, it should work its effective at killing bacteria and has much smaller molecules than say soap. Plus a quick google search didn't give any chemical reactions.

[@Levian-Durai]

@@tracematson385 I think it works to some degree, not sure if it works as well as the ozone - at least not just spraying it with a spray bottle. Maybe if I soaked it, but that would get expensive. I think the alcohol tends to dry out the liners and cause it to start breaking down sooner than normal though.

[@tracematson385]

@@Levian-Durai Interesting, I don't have any silicone cookware, but I would not have thought of that, i just double checked to make sure it wasn't gonna melt or cause a toxic gas or something.

[@Muskoxing]

As a geologist, I'm loving these random rock x cooking crossovers.

[@aragusea]

Did I get the rock stuff basically right?

[@Muskoxing]

​@@aragusea Pretty much spot on! The only thing that stuck out was at 23:35 - silicates are a class of minerals, where as granite is a rock type. So it's made of (almost entirely) silicate minerals, but you wouldn't call granite itself a silicate. But I'm only including that because I know that you'd want to be exactly technically correct! All the actually important stuff about chemical weathering and such was spot on and presented very well as always. I'd also never heard of those natural pure silicon ("native silicon") inclusions in volcanic halite crystals before - that's super exotic and rad!

[@aragusea]

@@Muskoxing nice! www.nature.com/articles/375544a0

[@blotto3422]

@@aragusea I'm not a trained geologist working an a geologist role (it's complicated). And this vlog really connected a lot of dots for me. I was expecting a cooking video and I really didn't expect this to be so interesting.

[@sudazima]

@@aragusea silicon the element is not silvery at all, its rather dark purpleish. it is reflective which may give the illusion its silvery.

[@mc-nar]

The scripted solo episodes are by far the best way of doing the podcast, imo. Also I have to say that your style of investigation and explanation is perfectly suited to long form content - I love your videos too, but the podcast is really where you shine.

[@shadowgirl]

Agree so hard with that last sentence.

[@DoozyyTV]

48:30 you can't melt silicone, even at high temperatures, if it does, it's not silicone. Silicone turns to ash when you burn it with a flame.

[@bearbin]

An interesting point regarding silicone ingestion is that it's a very common food additive. Silicone oil is added to lots of commercial frying oil (in the order of magnitude of 1% of the base oil), which reduces foaming and extends oil life. If it turns out to cause some chronic problem, everyone is already eating it already, so leaching from silicone cookware at orders of magnitude less than is in oil already seems like a non-issue. That is, unless the cookware is made out of something very different from the oil, biologically.

[@LARKXHIN]

"Can you help me, Adam?" "I don't trust you." 😂

[@singerofsongss]

_uhh mom said it was my turn to endorse the quality of the adam ragusea podcast_ Adam, my background is in Materials Science, which means that this episode is right within my area of expertise. I wanted to say that not only did I learn new things from this podcast (as per usual), but also that the things I knew already were very well-communicated and conveyed detailed understanding of the underlying science, with your trademark thoughtfulness and even-handedness. Materials science comes up surprisingly often in cooking, so you’re always helping me find new ways of looking at my field, sometimes from unexpected angles! Anyway, I’m glad I get to be an “expert” (heavy air quotes) in the comments this week, since I really believe in your ethos as a content creator and I think you deserve to hear that over and over again. Cheers, pod nerds! Editing to add that I have a baseless conjecture if you’re interested. It’s possible that your dishwasher is contributing to the smell absorption problem by keeping your spatula at a high temperature, thus expanding the pores that trap aromatic compounds. Then, when you take the spatula out of the dishwasher, the material contracts as it cools. I know being dishwasher-safe is a big plus for silicone tools, but I wonder if hand-washing them would help prevent the smell.

[@nathanlamberth7631]

I have some background in chemical engineering, and I remember when I lost all respect for a different channel I will leave unnamed when they did an episode involving chemistry. They were so wrong, and I don’t think of myself as being unforgiving. The problem is that I trusted them to be right on topics I wasn’t familiar with, so when they were dead wrong on topics I knew, I knew I couldn’t trust them anymore. (Btw I commented that they were wrong, video stayed up with no change)

[@oatmilk9918]

I also have a material's science background (currently final year of a master's degree) and its surprisingly useful in outside of academia and industry. Like you said, a lot of the aspects of cooking are fundamentally materials issues, and i have found the same with hobbies like LEGO, mechanical keyboards and mice, food and product packaging etc. A lot of the reasons around 'why can't they just do this?' or 'why does this happen?' are materials issues, whether it's in regard to manufacturing processes, mechanical/thermal/electrical properties, cost, recyclability etc. It's like seeing the world in a newl light, and feeling sad when so many seemingly basic things (i.e. silcon vs silicone, why some plastics are good for some things but not others etc) aren't common knowledge

[@Crokto]

@@nathanlamberth7631 yeah this is something ive struggled with in the past, and there are very few content creators who are able to be a reliable source of information about subjects that they are not an expert in. its where adam and his journalism background (and willingness to research primary sources) come in handy

[@SwedishSword]

@@oatmilk9918 really cool to see a peripherals enthusiast in here. If you've delved into mousepads at all there's a lot of discussion about how certain materials suit different climates or pair with certain mouse feet as well. Another thing is that many pads have some form of chemical treatment, and depending on the pad this is either irrelevant to the long term durability, or makes the pad unwashable (else the coating wears off and destroys the surface feel).

[@oatmilk9918]

@@SwedishSword mousepads arent something i have gone too deep into (yet). i am much more famililar with mechanical keyboard side of things. i have heard some things about climates (humidity) and mouse feet compatibilty though. i might take a look into this discussions the bit about the coating wearing off sounds reasonable, not sure on the coatings though, i would assume ptfe

[@nonsequitor]

As someone with specific industry knowledge I can confirm that's the best Silica breakdown on YT . You missed the silicon cycle in nature and monosilicic acid (the way that Silica is eventually weathered in certain specific circumstances) but it's not relevent to your point - thanks for yet another insightful head's up !

[@DoozyyTV]

I use 2 silicone spatulas, one for sweet, one for savory, that way the mixing of flavors isn't as offensive.

[@Hathur]

Yep, exactly what I do as well, I find it works well.

[@toin9898]

Yup. I've got my Curry spatula and my whipped cream spatula.

[@Broockle]

ye if u'r the only cook, these rules are much easier to uphold 😆 I wonder about the smelly tupperwear tho, once you turn the pizza dough to pizza do you still notice any of that oder from the former leftovers in the tupper? 🤔

[@kindlin]

The smell that people seem to have the most problem with is a dishwasher-type smell. I think I agree with another commenter that said the hot water and long duration of the dishwasher is the prime environment to expand silicone pores and hold onto smells.

[@Hathur]

@@kindlin On this note, I want to personally add that as someone who doesn't have a dishwashing machine (nor have ever had one) and have only washed my dishes / utensils by hand with liquid dish soap and a sponge or brush, I have NEVER had soap smell get into my silcone spatulas so long as I rinse the soap thoroughly. As you point out, this is almost certainly because manual washing doesn't get the water hot enough for long enough to essentially bake the smell of the soap into the silcone. People should try washing their silicone utensils by hand with regular dish soap if they are concerned about having it take on soap smell that comes from the machine.

[@jperin001]

Gotta love the long and winding road of Ragusea answering a question! His kids will soon learn, if they haven't already, to clear their schedule and pack a meal before they ask dad a question. There ought to be a Ragusea equivalent of Siri for the lonely and really curious.

[@bertilhatt]

My dad is like that. We don’t learn, we just find patient friends to take over while we wait for an answer.

[@themikeroberts]

That's why I stopped asking my dad questions at a young age.

[@JohnEZang]

"Hey Ragusea...." (reclines chair/cracks beer)

[@hanlonn]

I went and sniffed my silicone spatula and lids and they had no discernible scent -- maybe a hint of dish soap. I think a lot of the problems that Adam identifies can be minimized if you don't put the stuff in the dishwasher. Adam is always looking for ways to make things more practical, and has said in a number of contexts (e.g., discussing cast iron) that he wants to be able to throw everything in the dishwasher, but you really shouldn't use it for plastics or silicone. I wouldn't even use is for non-stick pans if I owned any. Even if the concerns about leaching chemicals are "fear mongering" it just doesn't hold up as well. The fact is you just gotta hand wash some stuff (including the alternative that Adam suggests -- wooden spoons).

[@Phizev]

I've found that my bamboo cooking utensils have held up to dishwasher use without issue for a couple years so far. It was a pleasant surprise. Wooden spoons do not hold up as well, so I will not be getting more of those. If all of my kitchen equipment is dishwasher safe, I'm not going to start adding handwashing outliers.

[@chaon93]

I've never had issues with silicone in the dishwasher. Adam's example is an outlier because he ran a lid that was compromised by direct exposure to moldy food for days and needs different care. As others have said if silicone DOES get smelly, some time in the oven or toaster oven is generally the easiest fix as its possible to "cook" the odors out.

[@Ensensu2]

Seasoning on cast iron is basically a thermoset plastic that you bake on from a number of fats, preferably with a higher smoke point, that can thicken into a very smooth layer over repeated exposure to more heat and more fat. So, yeah, I wouldn't trust non-stick stuff in the dishwasher either, if I even bothered with it in the first place.

[@None_of_your.business]

So Im studying chemistry and the explanation we learned for why metals are shiny is the following: all the metal atoms make up a huge bond with different energy levels (this is the band model and uses complicated quantenmechanics). However, whenever you have an electron in a lower energy level, it can be elevated by absorbing electromagnetic waves like light. When it is falling back, it emits light. Since the energy is really low, you can see that as shine. Personally, this explanation makes more sense to me even though this whole theory is so much more complex and I barely understand the basics of it And I am often times impressed how accurate your explanations of chemistry are and I am often learning something new :)

[@Steven_Edwards]

Your marriage Pro-tips are golden nuggets. The young folks have no idea they are in some ways of more value than the rest of your content and your content is already pretty damn good.

[@chezmoi42]

Yes, I'd only suggest that he monitor the leftovers more frequently in order to make his task less disgusting, and perhaps (if it's actually comestible) provide usable food, for the kids if not for the grownups. He sounded a little disdainful of poor Lauren's kitchen efforts... 🥺

[@dionysusnow]

A successful relationship is predicated on the proper cultivation of perception.

[@joshuagoodsell9330]

I'm always impressed by how you make your chemistry explanations easy to understand without making them incorrect. That is legit hard to do.

[@escapefromny2012]

But, they are often incorrect.

[@VulcanGray]

I find you can remove the odors by coating the silicone thing in baking soda for a while and rinsing off. You only need to do that every few months, which isn't a big deal.

[@rotwang2000]

Just have a tin full of baking soda, put the utensils in them and let nature do its work over a day or two.

[@mjack96]

My life changed forever once I discovered baking the smell out of silicone. 350°F (or really whatever) for as long as it takes for it not to smell anymore, usually about 10 minutes. Highly recommend trying it out ONLY FOR 100% SILICONE-PLASTIC WILL MELT.

[@lukeo5908]

Hi Adam - In Australia, we call that kind of question (one that has been crafted to illicit a particularly interesting or impressive answer) a ‘Dorothy Dixer’. The more you know 😀

[@carlosgonzalez2706]

Pro-Tip Adam For getting absolutely stubborn smells out of silicone, use sanitization liquid. I brew stuff at home, so I have StarSan. But baby bottle sanitizer works as well. Old Shaker bottles, silicone, thermoses that had stuff in them for too long. Almost anything that can aquire a "smell" can have it quickly erased with a sanitizing bath. Star San is pretty cheap, and a bottle of it can go very far. I'd highly recommend adding it to anyone's cabinet of cleaners.

[@Maker0824]

I hate using wooden spoons. I just hate the texture of it on my hand. That's why I love silicon the most, it feels nice. I have noticed when I do eat right off of it (for some reason) it tastes like dishwasher. I have a really bad sense of smell, so I've never noticed a smell.

[@arjangoenagacastillo9689]

yea that was really tripping me out for like a week until i found the source of that taste, never used it again I hate the dishwasher taste it ruins the food in my opinion.

[@Damalycus]

I hate rigidity in spatulas. And wood also takes in smells of things.

[@ano_nym]

Um, you know there are different types, right? I have ones with rounded handles that are smooth.

[@emma70707]

...do you all use scented dishwasher soap? Because I've not had an issue with unscented. There's really no reason to buy scented (they're dishes, not clothes) and this is a huge point against it.

[@themikeroberts]

@@emma70707 It it the soap fragrance that gets into silicone for me, but none of the unscented detergents work well for my water/dishwasher - and no unscented detergents rank well on Consumer Reports

[@debrucey]

That spatula is so goddamn blue. The camera can't even properly capture just how blue it is. It almost looks like it was added with CGI.

[@debrucey]

@@dancingbanana627 no, it’s the spatula. It’s the bluest of blue spatulas that ever did blue.

[@abdelnasermahmoud1259]

I didn't know you are a material 😂 I'm a pharmacist, chemist , and I learned a few things listening to your video. Thanks for a good teaching class.

[@evanchartrand6663]

I just took a forth year plastic chemistry course, here are my opinions: -Siloxane is a plastic -chemically, siloxane is quite similar to fats in the sense that the outer layer is a very non-polar chain. This allows for non-polar fatty acids to dissolve it, but very very very slowly due to the very strong intermolecular packing interactions in the siloxane

[@tomhalla426]

In California, Silicon Valley is the Santa Clara, while Silicone Valley is the San Fernando.

[@Purplesquigglystripe]

Heh

[@Eternalsunshinejewelry]

Lauren's leftover habits are hilarious and I feel very called out hahaha

[@acctsys]

As long as there's space in the fridge, it's an attempt to save an honest failure, and it's good IMO.

[@derryXDINES]

This episode is dear to my heart since my graduate research was studying physical-analytical properties of silicon containing polymers. I'll spare everyone the boring details, but good job breaking this down, Adam.

[@dROUDebateMeCowards]

Run the silicone through the dishwasher when doing the cleaning cycle with the descaling tablets or solution. I put my silicone sink mats in that way when they get stinky. Comes right off.

[@TheLittleHomestead]

If you're having a hard time getting residual smells out of silicone implements, you might try giving then a soak in water that's had unscented Oxyclean (if you can find it). I used to use that stuff to remove odors from food buckets that I'd get from restaurants. They were free, but would have NOT have been cleaned for long enough to be growing mold. I was using them to ferment wine and hard cider, and I don't know what the chemical was in the Oxyclean was, but it would remove the odors from the plastic. I'm assuming that it was oxidizing the chemicals that the odors were made of so that I couldn't detect that musty mold smell. But it was a pretty good product. Now all I can find is scented product, so no point in using that. Anyway, I'm enjoying this podcast as always.

[@TheLittleHomestead]

Also, for anyone interested in what a proton is: a stable subatomic particle occurring in all atomic nuclei, with a positive electric charge equal in magnitude to that of an electron, but of opposite sign.

[@123370]

Unscented oxyclean is very common in the brewing scene, you can buy it as "onestep" in most brewing stores. I use it all the time for silicone stoppers.

[@lailahuang4575]

Oxyclean mixed with water is essentially hydrogen peroxide, so that should also probably work. The active thing in Oxyclean is sodium percarbonate, which breaks down into hydrogen peroxide when mixed with water. Sodium percarbonate can be pretty easily bought on amazon, you just have to use less than if you were using Oxyclean since Oxyclean isn't just sodium percarbonate, it is mixed with other detergent powders I think.

[@DianeH2038]

I don't know why anyone uses round containers in rectangular refrigerators. I met the illustrious Diana Kennedy years ago and she gave me the best cooking tip of my life -- use square or rectangular containers in a refrigerator to maximize use of space.

[@td_kdname5197]

I use Saran wrap under the silicone lids to put a layer between the leftovers and the lid to block odors from getting in the lid. This works for me.

[@josepiornos8857]

Hi, flavour scientist here! When we want to analyse aroma compounds in the chemistry lab, we "trap" them by exposing an adsorbent polymer to them. One of the most commonly used polymer for this end is PDMS, polydimethylsiloxane. Exactly, a type of silicone. Why? Honestly I don't know. What I do know is that when we want to re-evaporate the trapped aroma compounds, we use heat. Usually around 250°C. Will cookware silicone survive these temperatures?? Don't know either

[@Sirmooshalot]

Okay but that's an amazing marriage tip. I had to think about it for a second, but the idea is not to let your partner be wrong about something - it's that if you point out that they're wrong, it will only lead to an altercation. Your partner isn't making a point that you do a specific thing that upsets them; it's that both of you sometimes do stupid things that could be upsetting, but you mutually agree the juice probably isn't worth the squeeze.

[@chairthrower]

Our Williams-Sonoma spatulas still smell like the Short Hills Mall from where I bought them several years ago. The Short Hills Mall smells like fancy, powerful perfume.

[@apoc235]

I bought an InstantPot last year and it came with two silicone rings, one white and one red, so you can use one for stinky dishes and one for delicate things.

[@catladyfromky4142]

I use one ring for sweets and the other ting for savory dishes.

[@windriver2363]

If I stick my nose right up to my silicone cookware I can smell some off odors, mainly soap, but I've never once been able to discern anything in my food. I suppose everyone has different sensitivities to that sort of thing.

[@OldBaldDad]

Some people say you can remove odors from silicone by baking it at 250 F for half an hour (or longer). Have any of you had success with this?

[@mattv5281]

It works fairly well to deodorize my instant pot seal. Not 100%, but probably better than any other method.

[@SilverHawk214]

Works ok for the instant pots sealing rings. Haven't tried anything else and also doesn't remove the odor, just reduces it a lot.

[@PaulSkeptic]

Quick googling gives that you can "bake" the smell out of silicone (at ~120°C, 250°F for several dozen minutes is suggested), probably boiling should work too. Did you try it?

[@rpfour4]

4:07 Omg! That's my wife and me having to toss them out, but I only have to wait a few days rather than a month. My wife doesn't follow recipes for traditional Filipino food, but the reason for large amounts is because of the size of the pot she cooks in. I have since told her to cook in smaller pots for a reasonable serving for one dinner.

[@ano_nym]

Why do you simply not eat it? I always eat my leftovers. It's even stranger in Adam's case since I know he usually promotes cooking big batches then eating over the week from the fridge, or freezing it and keeping for longer.

[@rpfour4]

@@ano_nym We do eat it, as the next day's lunch and dinner again. Past that, we get tired of it. It's a lot of food, and even my wife agrees. I don't really know how she ends up filling a large pot. I guess she just keeps adding more ingredients.

[@aluminiumknight4038]

Did she come from a large family? It might be a force of habit

[@haydenhoes]

39:25 For the younger generations, i think this is the opposite way around. I tend to associate rubber with silicone and its plastic qualities, even though rubber is a natural material. I was speaking with a few friends of mine and they had no idea that rubber was natural. They thought it was synthetic like silicone.

[@markholm7050]

Before silicone, the popular plastic for cooking spoons and spatulas was nylon. Nylon is stiffer than silicone, that makes it less good for scraping the last smears of food out of a container, but it is still soft enough it won’t scratch your Teflon or glass. In stiffness and hardness, it is similar to wood. Unlike wood, it is non-porous, does not noticeably absorb odors and is less likely to harbor bacteria or fungi. I have nylon utensils I have used for decades.

[@ano_nym]

Instead they leach chemicals into your food. Especially likely if they are old.

[@OrbObserver]

All true, but they are also more sensitive to high temperatures and prone to melting.

[@markholm7050]

@@OrbObserver You have to get nylon cooking utensils pretty hot to melt them. Touching them to a hot burner surface will do it, but not ordinary cooking pan temperatures.

[@OrbObserver]

@@markholm7050 It usually happens in situations where a wooden spoon would be preferred, like scraping the bottom of a pot while cooking sauce.

[@markholm7050]

@@OrbObserver Has never happened to me. There are several different types of nylon polymers with a wide range of melting temperatures. All of them are well above the boiling point of water, so to melt a nylon utensil in a cooking pot would mean you are really getting the pan hot.

[@izzy4bitney]

I've seen the 50/50 method of vinegar to water for silicone smells, but I find boiling silicone spatulas and ice trays in water for about 2 mins with some lemon juice does pretty well.

[@robertcameronjones]

It's perfect for use on nonstick, and I won't stop using it. For stainless or cast iron or enamel, bamboo is the ticket. Silicone won't retain odors if you wash it in a dishwasher using the sanitizer setting.

[@turun_ambartanen]

Having studied material science I can't not comment :D - pretty decent description of metals. Personally I would almost entirely define it via the "free electron" property, but shiny-ness and ductility (compared to other materials) are definitely key characteristics and I'm biased towards hard physics definitions, lol. - Wikipedia says malleability is ability to change shape and not shatter under compressive stress, whereas ductility is the same but for tensile stress. - I sure hope most people on the internet call silicon a semiconductor and not a metaloid, lol. The "most electrons are bound" is a good description for the expected level of expertise of the audience. - Plastics not only differ in additions to the side groups, in fact I would expect those side groups to be pretty uniform and fall into only a few categories (e.g. PP, PE, PS as shown on the recycling label). Most changes are made by adding stuff in between the chains, like adding sauce to spaghetti noodles. - I would expect silicone to simply have enough space in between the Si-O-Si chains to capture odor molecules. Volatile organic compounds can be ridiculously small, compared to other molecules. Simple diffusion would then lead to the capability to store smells and release them into the next food you're cooking with your silicone utensils. This would mainly be a temperature activated process, efficiently storing smells until the next cooking. A dishwasher would not reach high enough temperatures to make the smell diffuse out of the material. Pores are very efficient at increasing the surface area, which would explain the correlation of porous = more smelly silicone. Not sure if this would hold up to thorough investigation by the grad student you mentioned though.

[@rpenm]

I find wood (bamboo, beech, teak) about as odor-absorbent as silicone. Perhaps the best solution is to use different utensils for different things. Though I think there's real merit to the idea of heating the silicone to drive odors out more quickly.

[@jennrodriguezdaluz]

while i can attest that a pressure cooker ring retains smells, i'm personally not so sure it transfers flavors as much as people say it does. it was one of the things i worried most about when i first got an insta pot style cooking device, especially after that first time making chili and it forever smelled like chili. i even bought a second ring for mild/sweet stuff because of this fear. well i am also a very lazy person (that's why i bought a pressure cooker) and would rarely change out the ring, and even forgot to do so when i made cheesecake. while the ring forever smelled like a spicy fiesta taco, the cheesecake or plain rice never did, not effected the taste. perhaps it depends on the recipe/ingredients, but it's never been an issue for me.

[@emma70707]

It really depends on what you make I think. When I was gone one time, my old roommates made pulled pork in my InstantPot. The rice I made next tasted distinctly of pulled pork and we had to soak the ring a few times in vinegar. :/ But I've had the InstantPot for years now and my usual curries and steamed veggies don't seem to impart flavors. Maybe something to do with the fattiness of the dishes?

[@ZanHecht]

No amount of soaking will really help, but if you stick the ring in a 350F oven for 20 minutes or so, and all the smells will come out.

[@chromberries7329]

Gotta remember aroma plays a big part in how we perceive taste.

[@clickclackclank5753]

Great episode! I’d wonder if another reason that it picks up smells is that it’s lipophilic. You mentioned that property of silicones but I don’t think you linked back to it when discussing smells. Since lipids (e.g. butter) tend to pick up smells and those lipids are attracted to silicones, it seems like a reasonable hypothesis.

[@jayerscios]

I caught that too. I do use butter, ghee, and oil in my cooking and my main beef is that any smooth and shiny silicone utensils as well as the (ATK recommended) microwave lids are difficult to wash and effectively remove those oils. I have resorted to baking soda/water paste yet oily stains remain. So do hard water stains. I do have a couple of cooking spoons that are very matte texture surface which are no problem with fats. I want to say they're a Rachel Ray brand.

[@munkkys5018]

Man, I was so hesitant to listen to your podcast for so long, because the titles didn’t really spark my curiosity. I didn’t even watch that many of your videos before, i don’t really watch a lot of food-related channels. But I watched one of your pods by chance and I’m so glad I did. I love these so much. Those long-winded, but well structured answers that touch on so many fascinating topics. Honestly, thank you for these!

[@singularity___]

My silicone tools are some of my absolute favorite personally, I will die by this. I don't notice any kind of odor with the silicone implements I have, I've never had one melt, they clean super easily, and they don't damage my pans. I do have a few stipulations though: I prefer them to have a matte finish, they have to be one solid piece (I don't like the handle to be a separate material/there to be an attachment point), and they can't be too flexible otherwise it becomes difficult to scrape the pan. I am obviously very passionate about my love for silicone cooking stuff lol

[@wardakawababa6213]

Speaking of "malleable metals", malleable literally means "can be hammered", from the Latin word for a hammer.

[@Timeward76]

weird, my silicone spatula is what I like to use to wipe things from, a bowl, and I never noticed any kind of smell.

[@BassRemedy]

@@SimuLord unlawful spatula misuse...

[@brian5728]

My father listened to that show in the car when I was a kid. I was just thinking that your podcasts sound like a 21st century version of The Rest of the Story. Love your content very entertaining and informative.

[@aysunrhn1]

Ahhh the odor!! I thought silicone spatulas were magical... that they were the love of my life... until I baked a vanilla pudding that tasted like onions 😅

[@rongraziose6153]

Two weeks in a row: Fascinating, informative, and captivating...you doing good, man!

[@mrkeeny]

Silicone rocks

[@miniibeto]

Quartz?

[@newearth9027]

Yeah it can kick rocks

[@TLguitar]

Are wooden utensils usually entirely made of wood? You mentioned at the end using one made of _bamboo,_ but I remember when a few years ago people started touting "disposable bamboo plates/cups etc." as a greener alternative to single-use plastics, that it was soon explained that in order to make the bamboo fibers into cohesive chunks these use chemicals which can release carcinogenic formaldehyde into food. So I wonder what are the details regarding proper wood and the bamboo type you're using.

[@VeretenoVids]

Well a "proper" wooden spoon would be carved from a single piece of hardwood. I have seen a few where one piece was used for the bowl and one for the handle. Hard maple and olivewood make great cooking spoons, for example, but they're more expensive than the more frequently used beechwood or pine.

[@123370]

Oxyclean (onestep) works pretty well. I use clean my silicone stoppers for brewing.

[@robinesak7819]

I used to treat my silicone baking pans like cast iron and bake them at a really high heat if I baked a particularly strong smelling cake. I'd just brush them with a pretty flavorless oil and put them in the oven at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes. I did this the first time after making an olive oil cake and thinking I was going to have to replace the bloody things - they smelled SO strongly of olive oil. Then I figured that if I'd baked the olive oil in, maybe I could replace it so I tried pouring in a bit if corn oil. It worked great and it turned out I didn't need to POUR it in - just brushing it was enough.

[@Kevin_Underhill]

Hahaha. I got it, I got it! Sadly, my grandparents aren't around to ask; but I remember listening to Paul Harvey when my grandparents would drive me around in my youth. Great podcast! And great topic, I've always wondered about the same questions, but never really felt the need to investigate myself.

[@Anonymous-ks8el]

Can you make silicone tools with pores large enough for existing consumer soaps & detergents to adequately clean them?

[@qwertyuiop1st]

The left-over problem could be solved by you eating the left-overs before they spoil.

[@trashman4557]

have you considered changing dishwashing soap? cause i cant say i notice any smell coming from my daily used, years old silicone tools.

[@jones1193]

I was listening to the first half while depositing a 50nm Silica layer on a Silicon wafer. Weird how life goes sometimes 😄

[@Workinprogressmaxi]

Ductility can be easily visualized with a paper clip. If you made a paper clip out of aluminum vs the usual steel you will be only able to deform the paper clip once or twice before it breaks. While steel you can move it around many times.

[@SwedishSword]

Is it bad that I empathize with both you and your wife regarding leftovers? I rarely eat leftovers and often leave them to others in the house (in effect wasting Saran wrap), while also often having to be the one to throw them out a month later because nobody wants to eat them either haha.

[@joshuamidgette4846]

The only silicone kitchen item I regularly use is the silicone meat sauce brush. It probably smells permanently like BBQ sauce, which is not a bad thing.

[@dotacow22]

12:05 technically, even 100% purified water that is free of any dissolved materials is still a little bit conductive, it self ionizes, and that is how we learned a lot about acids and bases!

[@roscat_]

I have been so turned off by silicone things that touch my food, the biggest culprit is the silicone seal that is used on my coffee mug. It retains smells from old coffee and or detergent from washing. I put a decent amount of effort into making a good cup of coffee every morning and it’s infuriating how often the stupid lid ruins my cup of joe.

[@noobulon4334]

Ive had good luck using 50/50 peroxide and water with just one drop of dish soap

[@danielguy3581]

Glass-glass seals do work; in fact, they're used in safety-critical applications under conditions more trying than those typically found in a kitchen, so they work quite well.

[@whyjay9959]

Interesting, but I'm guessing the issue is the price of making them this precisely. Or maybe careless handling chipping them?

[@danielguy3581]

@@whyjay9959 I think just being made of glass would make them more expensive than plastic and rubber, regardless of need for fancy machining. It's not specialty hi-tech stuff, though - you can find glass syringes from the 19th century (as you can imagine, for that to work, the fit has to be precise). I'm just correcting the remark in the video that glass can't serve the purpose.

[@fduisterwinkel]

18:25 "pure elemental silicon MAY occur in nature on earth, but only in EXTREME situations, like in the 1990's" Adam Ragusea, 2023

[@daegunbong8487]

The intro-spiel has me dying, love the honest humor.

[@elitehacker1416]

He is absolutely correct I can't tell you how many ppls houses I've been to where there food taste like soap and I never knew why. Also I've notice foods stored in plastic containers taste even worse, you can taste the last meal stored in it or the soap they used. And here's a very true story one time I even told them the air freshener they used cuz I was able to taste it in there food. Now I didn't know what caused it I didn't know of the scent clung to the containers or the food or both. And what's even worse the person that made the food can't taste it, I guess because they are used to it. I'm sorry but I can't stand when there's an after taste of fresh linen or apple cinnamon chemicals in my food. Thanks for clearing this up for me. So now when I go to someone's how that uses alot of air fresheners or there wholenhouse smells like laundry detergent I get scared to eat the food because 95 percent of the time the food taste like it too. Don't get me wrong the house smells good but the food ends up tasting like shit

[@VeretenoVids]

This has been a major irritant of mine for eons--why does everything have to be scented and contaminate everything else in a 20 mile radius??! Febreeze is an asthma attack in a bottle for me and Gain detergent is the devil. So glad we have our own washer now and I don't have to go to the laundromat any longer. We use unscented everything that we can. (Though I do enjoy my lemon hand lotion.) I suppose that may mean that our silicone spatulas may taste like dishwasher detergent with no fragrances added to some folks, but we've never noticed. /rant

[@chelarestelar]

this is easily one of my favourite podcasts, if not "the". the voice is just perfect for these videos, and the topics are of great interest to me

[@dominicguillen8764]

In my experience, only one method for removing food odor from silicone has worked. If left in direct sunlight for an afternoon, the odor from food will go away; However, the utensil still has an odor I can only describe as "inflatable kiddy pool" or some other inflatable pool toy.

[@jb76489]

This. UV light is the death of all organic compounds

[@ano_nym]

It sounds like your "silicone" cookware is not actually silicone. The "inflatable pool" smell is commonly the result of PVC off-gassing (hint: not healthy).

[@jacquie212]

Every time I watch one of these videos I wonder who is a bigger nerd. Me for being excited to watch an hour about silicone cookware, or Adam for making it?

[@chadmann2724]

As a fan of homemade gadgets, silicone is neat for things that get hot like cookware and hand-pour fishing baits… Also as a stoner I enjoy the breakage free, silicon smoking rigs.

[@Broockle]

I pretty much only use the tupperwear... k I also have a collapsible strainer.. I think that's it tho.. prbly 😆

[@halfdeadwizard1009]

I knew I was gonna find this comment gang gang

[@middleagebrotips3454]

Silicone is also used as a lubricant of all kinds, from the garage to the bedroom.

[@workingclasscook870]

May I suggest Seventh generation unscented dishwasher soap, not an ad it's just what we use, there may be other brands to try, but unscented is the key. I don't want my dishes to smell like anything. Cheers! Edit: The dish detergent is called free and clear, not unscented, but it has no scent.

[@duncanrobertson6472]

Just checked and that's what my family uses. Never had issues with odor either, although we hand wash most cooking utensils anyway.

[@carllinnaeus2149]

Good use of "incident of the light." I'm no PhD but it's refreshing to hear someone talk about science in a way that shows they've done the research.

[@Acer0c]

Holy tangents Batman.

[@Acer0c]

🐇⛳

[@ultraL2]

next up; cooking with siliCON adam boils pasta on top of an intel cpu

[@Russellkhan]

I'm confused about parchment paper. According to Wikipedia it is "made by running sheets of paper pulp through a bath of sulfuric acid (a method similar to the way tracing paper is made) or sometimes zinc chloride. This process partially dissolves or gelatinizes the paper." The article goes on to mention that there are also similar papers made by coating paper with silicone, but seems to differentiate between the two. Other sources I found seem to agree with you that parchment paper is in fact paper coated with silicone. I'm guessing that the stuff described by Wikipedia is an older style of parchment paper that has been (mostly?) replaced by the silicone coated paper you described. Do you know much about this? Does the older style still exist?

[@mrkeeny]

Wooden spoons rock

[@LeKacker]

If your theory is, that the soap molecules are to big to dissolve into the silicone then you could try cleaning them with etahnol or isopropyl. Probably the smallest detergent-like substance that is easily available for you. Great Pod as always

[@AaronsRandomLife]

Silicon and silicone are VERY different things.

[@Broockle]

in my layman mind silicone is that rubberystuff you get in cake spreaders and toys while silicon is either gel for transplants or can also be these DO NOT EAT packets.... Actually I'm just looking it up, those are called silica gel packs... much confusing lol Silicon is arguably all of them since it's what the element in the periodic table is called.. 😆 Adunno lol

[@andrewgreenwood9068]

16:41 I think something like play dough is mailable but not ductile because while it can be easily molded into a shape if you try to stretch it out it will break rather than stretching

[@HaydenKinsmanMusic]

Oh god thank you! I have a curved silicone spatula and my housemates can't seem to smell or taste the dishwasher but I can, and it's disgusting. I thought I was en route to the coo-coo hut!

[@fwizzybee42]

My mom bought this silicone ring to cover the edge of pie crusts to prevent them from burning, but it always makes the edge of the pie taste like soap. I went back to doing it the “old fashioned way” (foil) but I wish I has a less wasteful solution.

[@ano_nym]

@@fwizzybee42 you can reuse the foil if careful.

[@randomassortmentofthings]

@@fwizzybee42put the sillicone protector in the oven at 350 for an hour or a dilute bleach solution

[@clashwithkeen]

Very timely topic. I just realized yesterday that my silicone utensils were retaining odors. I soaked them in water diluted bleach for a couple hours in my blender container because it has held on to the flavors of my mexican rice mix. The utensils are pretty neutral smelling at this point but the blender container still smells like a taco bell so it looks like my smoothies are going to continue being a little spicy. I do not put my utensils in my dishwasher so I've never had that issue. I also use those same anchor containers and I normally put a layer of plastic wrap under the lid when storing flavorful foods, especially onions. I started this trend after ruining a container lid with onions.

[@jeannebouwman1970]

I love how you pronounce a soft g, it always catches me of guard and I am pleasantly surprised. Dishghusting

[@watrgrl2]

Yes! Amen Adam! I hate that smell and taste of dishwashing soap left on the well rinsed silicone tools!

[@scottmactavish9716]

leftovers in the fridge for a month? I KNEW this channel would eventually be funny!

[@Kenjiro5775]

I have a batch of kimchee in the fridge for about a month now. It is just coming into prime flavor territory now.

[@Broockle]

a household that loves packing left overs but refuses to get a microwave is it's own kind of hell 😆

[@Kenjiro5775]

@@Broockle I don't know, one can still use the broiler, stove and oven. I like pizza reheated in the oven instead of the microwave. Crispy beats soggy every time.

[@Kenjiro5775]

@@SimuLord I am truly sorry about the traumatizing fridge cleaning. My mom was a bit of a hoarder when it came to the fridge and freezer too. I feel your pain.

[@brianzmek7272]

@@Kenjiro5775 have you tried leftover pizza in a waffle iron?