"Every day is a challenge in drying pasta." That guy's awesome. Giving it to ya straight. No sugar-coating. Exactly the kinda guy you want in your corner.
I was going to say the very same thing. Cavalieri seems like a great guy and is willing to share his expertise...as long as you're not going to open a pastificio.
@@petermarknimmo please tell me how!!! I can get many types of clay pots in my country, but very few people has ever seen a tandoor and even fewer has one.
I said this before and I know it may seem weird but its real.. you can also learn a lot from wood drying. Its the same exact principal. Dry, then allow a rest (which is some rehydration) then resume drying. Your fractured pasta result is exactly what happens with wood.
@@PLF... Who said anything about vacuum? You can take a slow drying process where you slowly dry day to day allowing the charge to cool (and attract moisture) overnight to allow it to equalize then resume drying. Its much slower but also much easier. Again... where the fu)k did vacuum come from? Thats a whole nother level.
Just check out cannabis drying , people really delve into keeping RH and ventillation on spot for 14 days exact dry , then comes the cure which is a whole other ballgame , I have a feeling the processis there would help out in Alexs journey
@@j.anthonyszepsy8712 My niece is a PHD bio and working on cannabis as a focus (not for passion but because its money). Drying cannabis has nothing to due with maintaining structural integrity as it does with wood/pasta/cellulosic materials that are trying to be dried with a specific structure and integrity. Drying basil, oregano, cannabis, etc.. mold control, is about all you care about. Drying wood and pasta, your concerns are stress relieving the cellulosic fibers periodically throughout the process as not to create infinite numbers of fractures in the structure that all equate to the catastrophic failure Alex has seen consistently in his pasta.
I'm going to find some of Andrea Cavalieri's brand of pasta here in Australia, just to support him for being such a great guy in helping Alex! Great episode!
Ah, as an Electronics Engineer, this is what I love about your channel, and why I suscribed in the first palce. Don't get me wrong, I love everything you do, even if it doesn't have to do anythign with electronics, but I did missed seeing you building stuff with electronics for cooking. Keep it up.
and yet he talks about turning the dryer on an off every hour with his finger, instead of hacking the guts out and controlling the heater and fan by his controller :D
@@catos3045 I searched the comments to see if anybody else had thought this. Alex is also an electronics engineer, so why doesn't he just connect the built in fan to the arduino? I'm a lawyer, but I could do that :-)
@@rasmis I think there's a strong chance he will do that as one of the improvements. I mean, he made a bluetooth angle measuring device for knife sharpening, for example :D
I have noooo interest in ever doing this, but I’m completely addicted to watching Alex slowly move towards pasta perfection. Keep it up man, almost there !! 🤓
This is the best series on RUclips right now! Your videos showcasing Luciano Monosilio's pasta techniques were a game changes to not only my own personal pasta making, but those of my customers at the shop I work at. As your videos educate me, I pass that knowledge on to many others in my local area to improve their pasta making. (I provide credit where it is due). Ciao!
Hey Alex, I’m sure you know this already but you can (probably) easily hijack the power to the fan and use the microcontroller to control it. If you need to control the heater you can also most likely do that with the microcontroller, you’ll just need to use a mosfet or a relay instead of controlling it directly from the gpio like I imagine you’re doing with the other fans. Lastly, I think it would be beneficial to find some way to add humidity. If it were me I would use an ultrasonic transducer to try and atomize the water as much as possible; that should make the “lag” between the addition of water and it’s acceptance as humidity relatively low. These are all fairly quick ideas though so I don’t know exactly how well they would pan out. Excited to see how you figure out each of these new challenges though!
I was thinking less complicated and just use a humidifier and connect it externally but yh 🤷🏾♂️ bit difficult to control the humidity but then that's what the fans are for
Shoot, I would just go old school and put a relay between the motor/heater and the incoming power and control it with a programmable timer for lights. Doesn't matter if the unit is never turned off, and the built in temp control would still work, cause there would be no power to the fan/heating unit.
You mean for turning the original fruit dryer on and off? If he has arduino chops, and he clearly does, he could automate a lot more of this process. I'm imagining a source of humid air (either a humidifier, or even just an electric kettle) connected to the box with some of that duct hose, and a servo-controlled vent. It could turn on to warm up just before the active cycle ends, then the servo opens the vent and allows the humid air in to the box.
@@NonEuclideanTacoCannon Probably best to use one of those little ultrasonic humidifiers (can get USB powered ones that connect to a standard 500ml bottle for pennies on aliexpress). Using a kettle would add too much heat during the rest period
Omg.... the thing I love most about Alex's videos is the sheer determination he has to get things done as close to perfection as possible. It's really inspiring. Also the community here in the yt comments so is great! Everyone who knows something comes to share their expertise while this who don't know how to help still like the helpful comments for more visibility. It's so great 😊
So glad you mentioned benedetto cavalieri in this series. I am an absolute food lover and travel all over Europe in search of new things to try, I went to visit them at the factory and ended up talking with "Dottor Cavalieri" for over one hour. Such a great family business! Thank you for your great videos, I always highly anticipate to see where you are going next. Keep up the good work
It’s possible that your extruder isn’t generating enough pressure to really homogenize the dough structure. Maybe let the dough sit for a while longer before sending it through the machine.
I was thinking about this, maybe the pasta is not really hidrated. In the Monograno factory they use vaccum in the mixing system, so the dough get hidrated faster. But whit a house mixer like the one Alzex is using, I think that the dough is not getting the time to actually get that hidrated.
@@rickross5421 It should have more likes to get Alex to read it. I find it very useful information that can change the course of the pasta drying series.
I think 95% of people would have quit like 3 episodes ago and of those left pretty much everybody by now. Keep it up Alex! You are an inspiration, not just in drying pasta but in sticking it through no matter what!
I love this series because it clearly shows the amount of engineering and thinking went on before they where capable of doing the stuff they did on an industrial scale and most of this stuff was figured out a century ago before they had precise measurement instruments and so on. Respect.
i mean, with all the respect for the french cooking, you can clearly see why Italian cooking is simply the best. Alex you made loads of challenges and series, but this one was without any doubt the most complicated in a way that nobody would have expected; what I mean is that everybody thinks that pasta is a simple dish, but actually is one of the most difficult dish to make properly. If you compare what you learn from start to finish to other series, you can clearly see how this was the one you learned more, simply because nobody would have even thought what pasta really is. I guess you're the first international youtuber that has been able to make pasta like an Italian would, davvero bravo!
"Every day is a challenge in drying pasta." Words to live by. Perhaps you could set up something with a servo to allow a few milliliters of water to drip onto the bottom of the box like a minute before the fans turn off, so that it starts to evaporate. That way the humidity will increase during the rest period. Or you could make it really complicated. Set up a humidifier with some of that duct hose, and use servo to open a vent to allow the humid air to enter during rest.
As an Italian we take dry pasta for granted and rarely dig deeper into its making. Ty Alex, you opened my eyes to a new amazing world. You got me glued to the screen with last episode👀
You've got the arduino sorted for logging data, now it's time to disconnect the dryer's original control board entirely, and use the arduino to turn the fan and heater on and off :D Some fans have a separate PWM line which you can use with the arduino to vary their speed, which might help too
next step: build a pasta dryer from scratch! get rid of the elements of the food dryer and build a new one that can be fully programmed as wished I may be wrong, but that's what I think is coming for the next episode... can't wait to see it! congrats for all the great content Alex! \o/
If everything have to be Off at resting period, just hook the "dryer" to a timer socked. You can get some nice cheap digital ones that you can set to several intervals.
Alex, I would recommend you look into the science of psycrometrics. The relative humdity depends strongly on the temperature; increase the temp and the RH goes down. This is why you need to turn off the heater and not just the fans during the rest peroids.
Yay! Alex is back! Thanks for more content! Your pasta types have been fun to watch in your shorts! Great production - I love the continuous loop style.
Funny thing, I went into the exact same issues and solutions for making my charcuterie dryer from an electrical wine cellar, humidity was the biggest problem. I couldnt pierce through the side but had to rework the door seal instead. Anyway, great work and engineering Alex, I keep learning here with you :D
>mid April: okay guys, we're in Naples to try out some traditional italian pasta >Early July: okay i just hijacked, re-engineered my drier and wrote a code to obtain the best degree of humidity for my homemade dry pasta. This guy is crazy as hell and i can't do but loving him
Hey, hey! Now I see why you liked my comment a few episodes back about how pasta drying was done in specific locations in Italy the past! Love the attention to detail you have Alex! You definitely can't just dry pasta anywhere outdoors, you need specific conditions.
Incroyable, j'en reviens jamais (à chaque série) que vous vous impliquez autant et que vous n'abandonnez jamais. J'adore le processus de réflexion et d'ajustement mais ce que j'attends le plus (comme tous le monde) c'est le moment où vous allez enfin pouvoir manger le plat que vous aurez créé. J'ai hâte de voir le bonheur sur votre visage quand vous allez enfin pouvoir cuisiner avec les pates que vous aurez vous même séché puis manger votre travail. Bravo, c'est excellent et je vous souhaite de continuer !!
Okay man, you and the channel Italia Squisita are definitely one cut above the rest. I can't imagine how much work it has taken so far. These pasta series are the most impactful watch I had this year, no joking. Keep up the great work Alex !!
Thanks for following my heavily-carb-loaded adventures ! You guys are the best ! Here's a link to the data collecting code : gist.github.com/frenchguycooking/d368ba94bb9754faecaa10d747e0c635
Incredible that you have the "best of the best world experts" helping with your project. It's like if you make hobby beer in your workshop and In-Bev is helping you.
I'm half expecting him to go to Gragnano and dry it in the sun himself. He loves going to Italy and this sounds like the perfect opportunity to go back again.
Just a thought and you probably already know this, but something might be helpful. Paulo originally said drying was cycles (cycle 1) high temp and low humidity to (cycle 2) low temp and high humidity. Cycle 1 will remove moisture from the outside edges of the pasta quickly, keeping in mind things move from areas of high concentration to low concentration this will begin the migration of moisture from the center towards the outside edges. Cycle 2 will maintain or even increase the moisture slightly to the outside edges. A repeat of cycle 1 continues the movement of moisture from the center to the outside edges. The cycles between low and high humidity are the way to balance the moisture from the outside edges to the center, my guess is your resting time needs some level of moisture/humidity added in. I would also guess that the highly automated process has been perfected by experience and they control the exact time and humidity of each cycle. Really enjoying this series.
Have you considered the possibility that your dough making process and extrusion method may be at least partially responsible? If the dough has a lot of air incorporated into its structure it could weaken its structural integrity after drying? Think hardtack vs a dried slice of bread. One is easier to crush than The other.
Its a factor but can be circumvented. It changes the material constant for the dough, likely making it require a more gentle drying program with longer rests.
Vacuum extruded pasta gives a more resistant result, and iin colored pasta a more vibrant color. If you put pasta that wasn't vacuum extruded in an industrial tunnel dryer, it will collapse, because the air bubbles will expand too fast for the air to escape. A tunnel dryer, that can dry pasta between 4 and 8 hours work with a hot cycle ranging from 80° to 115°C, the pasta is pre cooked after drying, hence the dark yellow color. Pasta is carb, and carb is sugar, it caramelize. For drying non vacuum pasta you have to make three long cycles, at a very low temperature and long time. Aim for at least 48h total time, and it's the minimum. By the way, his first mod got it right, in order to the pasta dries from inside out, the first stage should have a huge increase in humidity, then slowly going down. There's more to that, but it's the beginning.
If I need help I just pour a glass of wine and watch Alex, it’s a win win, it’s inexpensive I learn stuff and I enjoy watching Alex’s creative mind work. First the pizza oven now this. Wow
Once again you are challenging your engineers mind to get to the "why" behind any given result. Fried rice, meat balls, pizza, and now dried pasta; all approached from the mind set of cracking the code on your journey to excellences. This what I love about following you on your different projects. Stay the course!
Arctics are a nice budget option for PCs especially as they have decent airflow and a nice noise profile so while they're not as silent as can be they won't annoy you, however, as I already recommended on a previous video, in this case Noctua IndustrialPPCs is where it's at. They're *not* silent, they're performant. With only two on the inflow you'll rather have trouble not blowing away the pasta, forget about the outflow the inflow fans are easily going to pull from that side, too: 3000RPM IndustrialPPCs have twice the airflow and more than seven times the static pressure of Arctics, very much worth the money.
I love how when I started watching this channel it was about recipes and foodhacks that I might try / have tried at home to a channel with recipes that I NEVER want to try but instead make me want to go to the store, buy a pack of premade pasta and think to myself: "You are going home with me, you somehow still affordable marvel of food science and engineering!"
For drying beef-jerky you also try to control the humidity.. Depending on thickness you want different levels of humidity and temperature.. Having dynamic control of a extractor-fan based on current humidity does wonders.. Start the fan slowly at say 90% humidity and then increase fan-speed slowly as it climes up to 95% humidity. Drying beef-jerky and some fruits too fast can create a shell that slows the drying of the center, but if the humidity is kept above a specific level you don't get that hard shell and allows much better control over the speed it's drying. No clue if this is the same for pasta, but it did wonders for drying thicker pieces of jerkey.
"Every day is a challenge in drying pasta." Profound words of a dedicated pasta artisan who has earned his chops by learning to take nothing for granted, ever, in pasta craftmanship.
Seems like an easy fix, just use another relay on the fan at the back and tie it into the pc fan circuit. I'm excited to see the next episode! The deeper Alex goes into building his own equipment the better ❤️
Not so much - he also needs to turn off the heating element. Unfortunately, just cutting power to that will likely upset the original dryer's PID controller that's trying to keep it at a stable temperature. If that goes into a fault state because it can't control the temperature, the heat might well not come back on when Alex's arduino wants to start the next drying phase. At this point he really needs to stop using the existing controls and bring everything (airflow, heater and some source of humidity) onboard on the arduino.
You not only need to lower humidity during the drying periods, but to add a small amounts of humidity during rest periods. First, drying involves control of temperature and humidity through the whole process. If the humidity drops too far, you need to push it back up. Second, the phases are partly to match the process to the flow of moisture from the core to the surface in the material. Third, you are not just drying - in a way you are curing or setting the material. The connection between the flour with its glutens and polymer chains have to be formed and then not be fractured. For pasta, this requires standing at specific temperature and humidity points for enough time for the transition to occur throughout the whole extrusion evenly, which is the second reason for the phases. Too dry, and the curing can’t happen in that phase, and all you will have is a bunch of flour powder stuck together like a sandcastle. Leaving that point too fast and drying it rapidly from there also stresses those chains and microcracks the material. Because you are drying and not curing in your setup, the pasta is brittle and not hard. If I am reading your graphs correctly, you may be just drying too fast at the beginning and ran right past the first cure point. Drying pasta is not trivial, but it isn’t really so hard once you have done it a few times and get the idea about the right humidity for the cure/set - then you will find it is a bit forgiving.
Checkout a Hot Box Incubator design, we use them for incubating snake eggs, add a couple more fans to increase your ventilation as needed. Might be a bit more effective than your modified dehydrator.
So, so far: He's bought a professional pasta machine, and now he's making a customised, dedicated pasta drier. So we can say comfortably this is outside the realms of a home cook!
Well, we regular home cooks could use a pasta roller like regular people, and figure out how to modify our own dehydrators after we see what he's figured out. I bet, once we learn the principles, we can do this with our crappy home-cook tools if we try!
Gotta say, as much as I love watching you tinker with stuff and as much as my pasta game has improved lately thanks to your series, I can't see your results actually being better than industrially made pasta. Are there shapes you just can't get otherwise? Or is it all just to understand the process?
At this point you might as well build the entire dryer from scratch. Looks like you are almost there already anyway. I really love this series, and seeing the little breadboard there kinda reignited my interest i micro controllers, after my last further education dashed it pretty well.
I bought your book Alex. Love it! I have to say it has a heavy Vancouver vibe about it. If you get the chance... visit... you will not be disappointed.
Man I love this hybrid of making stuff and cooking! Two things, perhaps switch to a mega instead of that Uno or even better an esp32 board. It will give you a little more memory and processing headroom for your code. I'm not saying you can't do it with an Uno but certainly you might find it less error prone to work with if you don't want to spend time optimizing your code. Secondly, the fans you are using are good for air flow but I couldnt help but think you might need more static pressure. Arctic do the same fans but for static pressure so you might want to try that. It's what I use for water-cooling pc radiators to force air through its fins. Just a thought and I hope it helps. Keep up the great work! Peace.
Oh, it's awesome that you reached another professional pasta maker :) Good luck on modding the machine further! I wondered, regarding the air flow, maybe it would be helpful to test the machine with some smoke inside, to see the circulation? Have you thought about it, Alex?
Never seen such a good cliffhanger in a pasta-themed video.
Yup. I could hear the capital letters in that comment.
> "EVERY day is a challenge in drying pasta."
That is a brand new sentence.
@@geraldbrooks2763 😂 Alex, bringing out all kinds of new feelings in us.
@@VideoSchoolOnline ALEX!!!! why?
Easily in my top 5 for pasta themed cliffhangers
"Every day is a challenge in drying pasta."
That guy's awesome. Giving it to ya straight. No sugar-coating. Exactly the kinda guy you want in your corner.
Exactly!
I was going to say the very same thing. Cavalieri seems like a great guy and is willing to share his expertise...as long as you're not going to open a pastificio.
For some reason that reminded me of davie504. Maybe the voice is similar as I think he's Italian.
I'd wear that t-shirt
Btw Cavalieri in Italian means Knights
I can only imagine this guy at Home Depot buying all of this equipment. "What are you making?" Alex: "Carbonara"
This guy will make a tandoor out of clay he found in a construction site and call on Indian masterchefs to make the best naan ever.
Check out the channel, "The Wood Fired Oven Chef" :-)
Don't give him ideas! No, wait, DO! I wanna see Alex-ified roti and tandoori chicken.
You can make a decent tandoor out of terracotta pots. Tried it myself and it works a treat 👌
I would watch that
@@petermarknimmo please tell me how!!! I can get many types of clay pots in my country, but very few people has ever seen a tandoor and even fewer has one.
I said this before and I know it may seem weird but its real.. you can also learn a lot from wood drying. Its the same exact principal. Dry, then allow a rest (which is some rehydration) then resume drying. Your fractured pasta result is exactly what happens with wood.
Exactly, you dont want to go too hard. Also vacuum is a thing, but probably a bit too complicated for something like this
@@PLF... Who said anything about vacuum? You can take a slow drying process where you slowly dry day to day allowing the charge to cool (and attract moisture) overnight to allow it to equalize then resume drying. Its much slower but also much easier.
Again... where the fu)k did vacuum come from? Thats a whole nother level.
Just check out cannabis drying , people really delve into keeping RH and ventillation on spot for 14 days exact dry , then comes the cure which is a whole other ballgame , I have a feeling the processis there would help out in Alexs journey
@@j.anthonyszepsy8712 My niece is a PHD bio and working on cannabis as a focus (not for passion but because its money).
Drying cannabis has nothing to due with maintaining structural integrity as it does with wood/pasta/cellulosic materials that are trying to be dried with a specific structure and integrity. Drying basil, oregano, cannabis, etc.. mold control, is about all you care about. Drying wood and pasta, your concerns are stress relieving the cellulosic fibers periodically throughout the process as not to create infinite numbers of fractures in the structure that all equate to the catastrophic failure Alex has seen consistently in his pasta.
@@fpoastro maybe not directly but im sure there are things to be learnt from the process im sure.
I'm going to find some of Andrea Cavalieri's brand of pasta here in Australia, just to support him for being such a great guy in helping Alex! Great episode!
Ah, as an Electronics Engineer, this is what I love about your channel, and why I suscribed in the first palce. Don't get me wrong, I love everything you do, even if it doesn't have to do anythign with electronics, but I did missed seeing you building stuff with electronics for cooking.
Keep it up.
and yet he talks about turning the dryer on an off every hour with his finger, instead of hacking the guts out and controlling the heater and fan by his controller :D
@@kubeek HAHAHAHAHAHAHA That's the exact same thought I had. Just automate the hell out of it.
@@catos3045 I searched the comments to see if anybody else had thought this. Alex is also an electronics engineer, so why doesn't he just connect the built in fan to the arduino? I'm a lawyer, but I could do that :-)
@@rasmis I think there's a strong chance he will do that as one of the improvements.
I mean, he made a bluetooth angle measuring device for knife sharpening, for example :D
"Every day is a challenge in drying pasta" is the perfect cliffhanger. Love the series, can't wait for more.
Loving the pasta series Alex!! Keep it up! Can't wait for the saucisson sec series😉
I have noooo interest in ever doing this, but I’m completely addicted to watching Alex slowly move towards pasta perfection. Keep it up man, almost there !! 🤓
This is the best series on RUclips right now! Your videos showcasing Luciano Monosilio's pasta techniques were a game changes to not only my own personal pasta making, but those of my customers at the shop I work at. As your videos educate me, I pass that knowledge on to many others in my local area to improve their pasta making. (I provide credit where it is due). Ciao!
Hey Alex, I’m sure you know this already but you can (probably) easily hijack the power to the fan and use the microcontroller to control it. If you need to control the heater you can also most likely do that with the microcontroller, you’ll just need to use a mosfet or a relay instead of controlling it directly from the gpio like I imagine you’re doing with the other fans. Lastly, I think it would be beneficial to find some way to add humidity. If it were me I would use an ultrasonic transducer to try and atomize the water as much as possible; that should make the “lag” between the addition of water and it’s acceptance as humidity relatively low. These are all fairly quick ideas though so I don’t know exactly how well they would pan out. Excited to see how you figure out each of these new challenges though!
I was thinking less complicated and just use a humidifier and connect it externally but yh 🤷🏾♂️ bit difficult to control the humidity but then that's what the fans are for
+1
Exactly was I was thinking. You already went out of your way to upload data and have nice graphs, adding these features should be easier.
Shoot, I would just go old school and put a relay between the motor/heater and the incoming power and control it with a programmable timer for lights. Doesn't matter if the unit is never turned off, and the built in temp control would still work, cause there would be no power to the fan/heating unit.
The only food channel that has a build/maker workshop vibe, loving the series Alex!
You’ve already got the Arduino going. You can get ready made opto-isolated relay modules that are built for Arduino.
You mean for turning the original fruit dryer on and off? If he has arduino chops, and he clearly does, he could automate a lot more of this process. I'm imagining a source of humid air (either a humidifier, or even just an electric kettle) connected to the box with some of that duct hose, and a servo-controlled vent. It could turn on to warm up just before the active cycle ends, then the servo opens the vent and allows the humid air in to the box.
@@NonEuclideanTacoCannon then he could add a PID controller and voilà!
@@NonEuclideanTacoCannon Probably best to use one of those little ultrasonic humidifiers (can get USB powered ones that connect to a standard 500ml bottle for pennies on aliexpress). Using a kettle would add too much heat during the rest period
@@iacopob very much agreeing with proper CL control. As an electrical engineer, this should not be an issue at all
@@HaralHeisto oooh I forgot about those, that would be perfect
Omg.... the thing I love most about Alex's videos is the sheer determination he has to get things done as close to perfection as possible. It's really inspiring. Also the community here in the yt comments so is great! Everyone who knows something comes to share their expertise while this who don't know how to help still like the helpful comments for more visibility. It's so great 😊
So glad you mentioned benedetto cavalieri in this series. I am an absolute food lover and travel all over Europe in search of new things to try, I went to visit them at the factory and ended up talking with "Dottor Cavalieri" for over one hour. Such a great family business! Thank you for your great videos, I always highly anticipate to see where you are going next. Keep up the good work
It’s possible that your extruder isn’t generating enough pressure to really homogenize the dough structure. Maybe let the dough sit for a while longer before sending it through the machine.
I was thinking about this, maybe the pasta is not really hidrated. In the Monograno factory they use vaccum in the mixing system, so the dough get hidrated faster. But whit a house mixer like the one Alzex is using, I think that the dough is not getting the time to actually get that hidrated.
This comment is so underrated right now
@@JonCLTV How is it overrated ?
@@rickross5421 It should have more likes to get Alex to read it. I find it very useful information that can change the course of the pasta drying series.
@@rickross5421 I mean underrated sorry 😣
I think 95% of people would have quit like 3 episodes ago and of those left pretty much everybody by now. Keep it up Alex! You are an inspiration, not just in drying pasta but in sticking it through no matter what!
I love this series because it clearly shows the amount of engineering and thinking went on before they where capable of doing the stuff they did on an industrial scale and most of this stuff was figured out a century ago before they had precise measurement instruments and so on. Respect.
i mean, with all the respect for the french cooking, you can clearly see why Italian cooking is simply the best.
Alex you made loads of challenges and series, but this one was without any doubt the most complicated in a way that nobody would have expected; what I mean is that everybody thinks that pasta is a simple dish, but actually is one of the most difficult dish to make properly. If you compare what you learn from start to finish to other series, you can clearly see how this was the one you learned more, simply because nobody would have even thought what pasta really is.
I guess you're the first international youtuber that has been able to make pasta like an Italian would, davvero bravo!
"Every day is a challenge in drying pasta." Words to live by. Perhaps you could set up something with a servo to allow a few milliliters of water to drip onto the bottom of the box like a minute before the fans turn off, so that it starts to evaporate. That way the humidity will increase during the rest period. Or you could make it really complicated. Set up a humidifier with some of that duct hose, and use servo to open a vent to allow the humid air to enter during rest.
As an Italian we take dry pasta for granted and rarely dig deeper into its making. Ty Alex, you opened my eyes to a new amazing world. You got me glued to the screen with last episode👀
You've got the arduino sorted for logging data, now it's time to disconnect the dryer's original control board entirely, and use the arduino to turn the fan and heater on and off :D
Some fans have a separate PWM line which you can use with the arduino to vary their speed, which might help too
next step: build a pasta dryer from scratch! get rid of the elements of the food dryer and build a new one that can be fully programmed as wished
I may be wrong, but that's what I think is coming for the next episode... can't wait to see it! congrats for all the great content Alex! \o/
If everything have to be Off at resting period, just hook the "dryer" to a timer socked. You can get some nice cheap digital ones that you can set to several intervals.
Alex, please more on the building process and programming! The combination of making and cooking is what brought me to the channel!
Alex, I would recommend you look into the science of psycrometrics. The relative humdity depends strongly on the temperature; increase the temp and the RH goes down. This is why you need to turn off the heater and not just the fans during the rest peroids.
Yay! Alex is back!
Thanks for more content! Your pasta types have been fun to watch in your shorts! Great production - I love the continuous loop style.
Funny thing, I went into the exact same issues and solutions for making my charcuterie dryer from an electrical wine cellar, humidity was the biggest problem. I couldnt pierce through the side but had to rework the door seal instead. Anyway, great work and engineering Alex, I keep learning here with you :D
I love you did this, I was thinking about getting the same one and hooking it up to an Arduino controller.
Someone give this man an Oscar! Thank you Alex, been following for 3 years now. You are the Best.
>mid April: okay guys, we're in Naples to try out some traditional italian pasta
>Early July: okay i just hijacked, re-engineered my drier and wrote a code to obtain the best degree of humidity for my homemade dry pasta.
This guy is crazy as hell and i can't do but loving him
Bruh just how far is this man willing to go for pasta.Your tenacity is truly something to to be praised.
Hey, hey! Now I see why you liked my comment a few episodes back about how pasta drying was done in specific locations in Italy the past! Love the attention to detail you have Alex!
You definitely can't just dry pasta anywhere outdoors, you need specific conditions.
Incroyable, j'en reviens jamais (à chaque série) que vous vous impliquez autant et que vous n'abandonnez jamais. J'adore le processus de réflexion et d'ajustement mais ce que j'attends le plus (comme tous le monde) c'est le moment où vous allez enfin pouvoir manger le plat que vous aurez créé. J'ai hâte de voir le bonheur sur votre visage quand vous allez enfin pouvoir cuisiner avec les pates que vous aurez vous même séché puis manger votre travail.
Bravo, c'est excellent et je vous souhaite de continuer !!
Okay man, you and the channel Italia Squisita are definitely one cut above the rest. I can't imagine how much work it has taken so far. These pasta series are the most impactful watch I had this year, no joking.
Keep up the great work Alex !!
You gotta appreciate Alex coming at food like an engineer instead of an artist. Something so interesting about it
Keep it up Alex! You are certainly one of my recent favorite youtubers. I love the fact that you are humorous and passionate about what you are doing!
Thanks for following my heavily-carb-loaded adventures ! You guys are the best ! Here's a link to the data collecting code : gist.github.com/frenchguycooking/d368ba94bb9754faecaa10d747e0c635
I can't get rid of the feeling that I'm watching a very exciting TV show series :) Bravo Alex!
Can't wait for the next episode!
These are the best episodes! When cooking meets the saw, and circuitry!
Incredible that you have the "best of the best world experts" helping with your project. It's like if you make hobby beer in your workshop and In-Bev is helping you.
Awesome Alex please never stop sharing knowledge. I dearly love it. thank you.
Alex. Your dedikation is awsome !! I have followed you on RUclips long time and it never desepoints !!
Alex you’re an amazing content creator, chef, engineer and inspiration. Please never stop creating haha
In the next episode, Alex builds his own pasta-drying street...
I'm half expecting him to go to Gragnano and dry it in the sun himself. He loves going to Italy and this sounds like the perfect opportunity to go back again.
This series is so entertaining and educational. The production value is superb. Always eager for the next installment.
Alex, you are the textbook definition of patience and tenacity. Definitely not "impatient"
Just a thought and you probably already know this, but something might be helpful. Paulo originally said drying was cycles (cycle 1) high temp and low humidity to (cycle 2) low temp and high humidity. Cycle 1 will remove moisture from the outside edges of the pasta quickly, keeping in mind things move from areas of high concentration to low concentration this will begin the migration of moisture from the center towards the outside edges. Cycle 2 will maintain or even increase the moisture slightly to the outside edges. A repeat of cycle 1 continues the movement of moisture from the center to the outside edges. The cycles between low and high humidity are the way to balance the moisture from the outside edges to the center, my guess is your resting time needs some level of moisture/humidity added in. I would also guess that the highly automated process has been perfected by experience and they control the exact time and humidity of each cycle.
Really enjoying this series.
Have you considered the possibility that your dough making process and extrusion method may be at least partially responsible? If the dough has a lot of air incorporated into its structure it could weaken its structural integrity after drying? Think hardtack vs a dried slice of bread. One is easier to crush than The other.
true that, even shown in his monograno factory video the dough is mixed and extruded in a vacuum to avoid that problem
my man will be buying factory at this rate
Its a factor but can be circumvented. It changes the material constant for the dough, likely making it require a more gentle drying program with longer rests.
Vacuum extruded pasta gives a more resistant result, and iin colored pasta a more vibrant color. If you put pasta that wasn't vacuum extruded in an industrial tunnel dryer, it will collapse, because the air bubbles will expand too fast for the air to escape. A tunnel dryer, that can dry pasta between 4 and 8 hours work with a hot cycle ranging from 80° to 115°C, the pasta is pre cooked after drying, hence the dark yellow color. Pasta is carb, and carb is sugar, it caramelize. For drying non vacuum pasta you have to make three long cycles, at a very low temperature and long time. Aim for at least 48h total time, and it's the minimum. By the way, his first mod got it right, in order to the pasta dries from inside out, the first stage should have a huge increase in humidity, then slowly going down. There's more to that, but it's the beginning.
@@RoboticParanoia how do you know this stuff
So awesome Alex, I’ve been a fan for years, but this is amazing, above and beyond.
If I need help I just pour a glass of wine and watch Alex, it’s a win win, it’s inexpensive I learn stuff and I enjoy watching Alex’s creative mind work. First the pizza oven now this. Wow
I love that you show progression, very inspiring!
Rofl the hard close is one of the best I've seen in a while. Now pasta drying is a Bourne movie.
Once again you are challenging your engineers mind to get to the "why" behind any given result. Fried rice, meat balls, pizza, and now dried pasta; all approached from the mind set of cracking the code on your journey to excellences.
This what I love about following you on your different projects. Stay the course!
It feels illegal to be here that early
I'm usually asleep when he posts but currently I am up at 2:30 am
yea
Alex overcomplicating the problem is why everyone loves this channel...
You're one of my favorite maker channels. What better motivation for a project than food!
Arctics are a nice budget option for PCs especially as they have decent airflow and a nice noise profile so while they're not as silent as can be they won't annoy you, however, as I already recommended on a previous video, in this case Noctua IndustrialPPCs is where it's at. They're *not* silent, they're performant. With only two on the inflow you'll rather have trouble not blowing away the pasta, forget about the outflow the inflow fans are easily going to pull from that side, too: 3000RPM IndustrialPPCs have twice the airflow and more than seven times the static pressure of Arctics, very much worth the money.
Love you step by step solution approach
And your passion
I love how when I started watching this channel it was about recipes and foodhacks that I might try / have tried at home to a channel with recipes that I NEVER want to try but instead make me want to go to the store, buy a pack of premade pasta and think to myself: "You are going home with me, you somehow still affordable marvel of food science and engineering!"
*Talking about the fan* "This is great, except it sucks." I just love your videos, Alex! You're doing great job!
This has become my favorite series I'm watching right now.
This is such a good series, Alex. You're really outdone yourself this time.
Alex does :Code Programming, 3D Printing, Audio AND Video production, Prototyping, AND, of course, is a CHEF. Incroyable!
OMG! This video is absolutely great!
The pure essence why I love this channel :)
I hope there are more mistakes to come. This is so entertaining and it is making my aerophonics experiments look easy.
This is so much fun to watch!
For drying beef-jerky you also try to control the humidity.. Depending on thickness you want different levels of humidity and temperature.. Having dynamic control of a extractor-fan based on current humidity does wonders.. Start the fan slowly at say 90% humidity and then increase fan-speed slowly as it climes up to 95% humidity.
Drying beef-jerky and some fruits too fast can create a shell that slows the drying of the center, but if the humidity is kept above a specific level you don't get that hard shell and allows much better control over the speed it's drying.
No clue if this is the same for pasta, but it did wonders for drying thicker pieces of jerkey.
The production quality just keeps on going up!!!!!
Your level of commitment here is unparalleled, congrats!
I feel like Alex got hit with a very polite “if it were easy, everyone would do it”
I am loving the epic little twists at the end.
I so enjoy your cooking/mechanical… tactics of the Kitchen!. Nice!
"Every day is a challenge in drying pasta." Profound words of a dedicated pasta artisan who has earned his chops by learning to take nothing for granted, ever, in pasta craftmanship.
Alex, this series is better than Netflix. I can't believe I'm waiting another week for the next episode.
love reading all the expert comments with technical suggestions here in this comments sections. what a diverse and interesting community of viewers!
Happy to see you took my advice! I knew you would make it.
Gosh I do so enjoy your videos, and they are so well made. Thanks!
Seems like an easy fix, just use another relay on the fan at the back and tie it into the pc fan circuit. I'm excited to see the next episode! The deeper Alex goes into building his own equipment the better ❤️
Not so much - he also needs to turn off the heating element. Unfortunately, just cutting power to that will likely upset the original dryer's PID controller that's trying to keep it at a stable temperature. If that goes into a fault state because it can't control the temperature, the heat might well not come back on when Alex's arduino wants to start the next drying phase.
At this point he really needs to stop using the existing controls and bring everything (airflow, heater and some source of humidity) onboard on the arduino.
Impressive work
You not only need to lower humidity during the drying periods, but to add a small amounts of humidity during rest periods. First, drying involves control of temperature and humidity through the whole process. If the humidity drops too far, you need to push it back up. Second, the phases are partly to match the process to the flow of moisture from the core to the surface in the material. Third, you are not just drying - in a way you are curing or setting the material. The connection between the flour with its glutens and polymer chains have to be formed and then not be fractured. For pasta, this requires standing at specific temperature and humidity points for enough time for the transition to occur throughout the whole extrusion evenly, which is the second reason for the phases. Too dry, and the curing can’t happen in that phase, and all you will have is a bunch of flour powder stuck together like a sandcastle. Leaving that point too fast and drying it rapidly from there also stresses those chains and microcracks the material. Because you are drying and not curing in your setup, the pasta is brittle and not hard. If I am reading your graphs correctly, you may be just drying too fast at the beginning and ran right past the first cure point. Drying pasta is not trivial, but it isn’t really so hard once you have done it a few times and get the idea about the right humidity for the cure/set - then you will find it is a bit forgiving.
Checkout a Hot Box Incubator design, we use them for incubating snake eggs, add a couple more fans to increase your ventilation as needed. Might be a bit more effective than your modified dehydrator.
Love this series don’t give up Alex!!!
So, so far: He's bought a professional pasta machine, and now he's making a customised, dedicated pasta drier. So we can say comfortably this is outside the realms of a home cook!
Home cooks can just buy ready-dried pasta at the supermarket, which has been professionally dried in a factory.
Well, we regular home cooks could use a pasta roller like regular people, and figure out how to modify our own dehydrators after we see what he's figured out. I bet, once we learn the principles, we can do this with our crappy home-cook tools if we try!
Gotta say, as much as I love watching you tinker with stuff and as much as my pasta game has improved lately thanks to your series, I can't see your results actually being better than industrially made pasta. Are there shapes you just can't get otherwise? Or is it all just to understand the process?
I'm enjoying this series so much!
At this point you might as well build the entire dryer from scratch. Looks like you are almost there already anyway.
I really love this series, and seeing the little breadboard there kinda reignited my interest i micro controllers, after my last further education dashed it pretty well.
Have you tried cooking the pasta you have dried so far? I’m really curious whether it would be good or not.
Merci bien Alex, love to witness this journey.
Su ch a nice guy to help you out, Hope you get it built, I love a good DIY story.
Suuuper video Alex! Top editing!
Ad of course super topic for a pasta lover like me!
I bought your book Alex. Love it! I have to say it has a heavy Vancouver vibe about it. If you get the chance... visit... you will not be disappointed.
You are to cooking what Michael Revees is to programming. Excelent video, as always Alex!
Just love this series….thank you
Man I love this hybrid of making stuff and cooking! Two things, perhaps switch to a mega instead of that Uno or even better an esp32 board. It will give you a little more memory and processing headroom for your code. I'm not saying you can't do it with an Uno but certainly you might find it less error prone to work with if you don't want to spend time optimizing your code.
Secondly, the fans you are using are good for air flow but I couldnt help but think you might need more static pressure. Arctic do the same fans but for static pressure so you might want to try that. It's what I use for water-cooling pc radiators to force air through its fins. Just a thought and I hope it helps. Keep up the great work! Peace.
I don't think there's another french man with so much passion for pasta
What a great episode! Amazing editing and music selection!
Man's an cook, engineer, carpenter, and a story teller.
good luck, keep it up, we're rooting for you!
Oh, it's awesome that you reached another professional pasta maker :) Good luck on modding the machine further!
I wondered, regarding the air flow, maybe it would be helpful to test the machine with some smoke inside, to see the circulation? Have you thought about it, Alex?