
Experiment: Eliminating Toast Sweat - MurrayHurps
http://murrayhurps.com/post/82442316389/eliminating-toast-sweat
======
sbierwagen
Infrared thermometers like the one used in this article are (typically)
calibrated for an emissivity of 0.95. If you use one on a material with a
lower emissivity, it'll give inaccurate readings. This can be cheaply solved
by sticking a piece of electrical tape on the surface, and measuring that.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity)

~~~
MurrayHurps
Fantastic insight. I did have trouble picking up a temperature at certain
angles, but at 90 degrees it returned the highest reading, which still wasn't
burning my hand so is probably not above the value registered.

Might have gotten away with it because it's stoneware of some kind, but will
definitely try a tape patch next time.

~~~
tripzilch
90 degrees what?

a quick and easy test whether something is below or above ~50 degrees Celsius,
is whether it's immediately painful to the touch.

it's the temperature at which most of our proteins start to denature, aka the
temperature at which a steak changes from "warm but raw" to "very rare", and
therefore the temperature that _hurts_ your fingers.

it's not super accurate of course, but it'll do if you just want to eyeball
53C.

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makmanalp
The main problem here is that the moisture in the toast has not yet completely
exited. So what I do is I toast at a lower temperature (if your device allows
this) and / or leave the toast in the toaster for a few minutes after it's
done. You'll notice that if you put your hands on top of the toaster after
it's done, water is still evaporating like crazy. Imho this works better than
a cooling rack or putting the bread on its side. Then you can reheat a bit if
you want to, too. Is it weird that we've all thought so much about this?

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MurrayHurps
It's weird that we're thinking about anything, if you think about it enough.

And your thought raises the question: how much moisture do you actually want
in your toast? Is zero acceptable?

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pacmon
I would think zero is not good, but of course it's subjective. I like my toast
crispy, but soft enough that it's not like a crouton.

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Jedd
For a pseudo-scientific analysis ... it's a shame the units of measurement
weren't defined up front.

(I live in one of the 190+ countries that use Celsius, but I know that 99.8%
of things on the Internets are written by people from just one of those three
other countries that doesn't. I'm also aware that for reasons that are a bit
bewildering, everyone in those 190+ countries politely goes out of their way
to make it clear that we're talking metric, because we're now used to the idea
that if people don't mention units then they're probably from North America,
and consequently are almost definitely using gallons (US, not UK gallons),
miles (US, not UK miles), Fahrenheit and other deprecated units. We should
probably stop being so considerate.)

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dfc
This is interesting, can you give some examples of unit omission? As an
american I am having trouble thinking outside of my environment. I know I am
guilty of temperature unit omission: "It was 10 degrees outside /The high is
going to be 60 tommorow." I am having trouble coming up with others. I am
having the most trouble with gallons and or miles:

I was running on fumes, it took _3_ to fill my car up.

My friends new truck is super efficient for a pickup it gets _35_ / _35 miles_
/ _35 to the gallon_.

I ran for _3_ yesterday.

Buffalo is _120_ from Syracuse.

~~~
Jedd
dfc - you're right, I think, that it's almost always ambiguous temperature
references, doubtless because the 'degree' part of the unit name is shared
between the three common measures.

As rgarrett88 points out, short distances are often reduced to foot and inch
numbers, with the receiver left to intuit context. Sometimes people will
assert they hit a hundred, or went from zero to a hundred in x seconds, and
weight-lifters are likely to talk about the _number_ they can push ... again
reliant upon sender and receiver sharing the same cultural background.

My comment about 'us' being so considerate was somewhat tongue in cheek,
natch, though (since I'm speaking for all the rest of us now) we'd really like
it if you guys would switch over to metric at your earliest convenience. I
won't say ISO / SI, as working in K is just too unwieldy :)

~~~
dfc
I like to think our rejection of the metric system is because we are standing
on principle and reject the semantic inconsistency that is the kilogram. Base
measures should not be prefixed;)

~~~
Jedd
Cling onto that raft! I fear it's a combination of NIH (despite the same being
said of imperial, Fahrenheit, etc), fear of change, and irrational dislike of
the French. Of course, Daniel Fahrenheit was Dutch/German, and Anders Celsius
was Swedish.

But if you think kg is frustrating, I'm learning electronics now - every book,
when starting to talk about capacitors, says something like 'However, the
Farad is not a convenient unit, and you'll most be working with 0.0000000001F
capacitors'. Yes, the SI unit is unhindered by a prefix, but you can't but
help wish they'd thought more carefully about this before writing it down.

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zdw
Were tests done beyond the 53C temperature, to see if this resulted in a total
elimination of toast sweat?

I realize that this may make the plate "too hot to handle", but I'd gladly eat
breakfast with one hand in an oven mitt if it would result in better toast.

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MurrayHurps
Another excellent question. At this stage, I had my sweat-free toast, and
wanted breakfast, so no. I've made a note for the next set of tests though,
thanks.

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rdmckenzie
Application of research methods before breakfast? good man.

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eik3_de
I have never had problems with toast sweat: Just stand the two slices upright
on the plate so that they look like a T from above. It's very easy and stable
and after a minute the steam is out so that they won't sweat anymore.

I never measured it, but I had the feeling that the A form (looking from the
side) slightly interferes with the rising steam.

How do you do it?

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k__
I just don't take it out of the toaster when it comes up, I wait about a
minute.

In the past I leaned it (like the A-form you mentioned) against some other
stuff, like the cup or something.

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csmattryder
I'd enjoy a follow-up where they test different materials against the 'keep-
toast-dry' 53 degree temperature of clay plate.

Would something like neoprene/polystyrene plates (as insane as it sounds)
provide a solution to slightly soggy toast at a lower temperature?

It's one thing to find an optimal temperature, but a completely other beast to
find a practical solution to it!

~~~
vl
Perhaps brand (and, specifically, water content) of bread plays a big role
too. With the brand of bread I use I don't experience this problem (or maybe I
just eat my toasts rather quickly?).

Also, paper critically omits condition of toast prior to heating - was it
stored in the fridge or in the cupboard? Was is stored in vacuum packaging or
not? How old was the toast from the manufacturing date? Also toast can be
weighted before and after heating, and after removal from the plate to measure
loss of water content (it's my understanding that water on the plate is
actually condensation, and not part of the toast, but is it indeed so?).

Murray should seriously consider establishing Murray Institute of Toasting
Research and addressing these important topics in subsequent scientific
publications.

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MurrayHurps
Great points, and added to the list of paths to explore for the next version.

Also hard to disagree with your suggestion as a new life path.

The global bread market is predicted to hit $170B by 2015 (GIA report), if we
can capture the minds of just 1% of that market, then I'll be able to afford a
better thermometer.

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vl
>if we can capture the minds of just 1% of that market, then I'll be able to
afford a better thermometer.

I'm sure that just after couple publications consulting gigs for brad and
toaster manufacturers and speaking engagements will pay not only for
thermometer, but also for microgram scale and hygrometer.

Interestingly, I spent some time thinking about where condensate is coming
from, and so far it's not really obvious - some humid air needs to get colder
for it to appear. May it's indeed evaporation from the piece of bread itself?
But then it would be visible, in the same way evaporation is visible on top of
cup of hot tea. Mystery.

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MurrayHurps
I'm thinking very sensitive scales to measure both the bread and the plate
before and after the test period, which should answer that question
definitively.

The question now though is, how much would that condensation weigh? And hence
how accurate do the scales need to be?

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vl
1 cubic centimeter of water weighs 1 gram. This looks like 1/10 of cubic
centimeter at most. Milligram scale should work - $20 at Amazon, but you'll
have to use rather small plate (the more you weigh, the less precise the
measurement of difference between two objects).

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2muchcoffeeman
Why not use a cooling rack? Then air can circulate under the toast,
eliminating the moisture and removing the need to pre heat a plate.

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misframer
I just keep my toast in the toaster a bit longer.

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MurrayHurps
What if you have two slices of toast on your plate?

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DannyBee
Today we learn about dew points?

This is no different than why you have vapor barriers in certain climates.

Without trying to sound dismissive, i was not aware there was a lot of
experimentation here necessary to figure out the temperature at which the
water would stop condensing on the plate again.

Still a fun article, of course :)

~~~
mattdeboard
This post is a great example of what was discussed here

[http://brooklynoptimist.com/2014/04/10/hacker-school-
banning...](http://brooklynoptimist.com/2014/04/10/hacker-school-banning-
feigned-surprise-is-absolutely-brilliant/)

YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T HEARD OF DEW POINTS??

~~~
y4mi
i know of a few times that i showed surprise finding out that somebody never
heard about something.

this surprise was however never about the other person, but about myself. i
realized, that my worldview was so skewed about some topics, that i believed
them to be almost universally accepted. the topics themselves were often
unknown to people outside of my online-bubble.

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jordan0day
A plate heated to Murray Temperature seems like it would be too hot to handle
comfortably? Did you find this to be an issue?

~~~
MurrayHurps
Excellent question, it was indeed hot to handle, but didn't burn.
[http://www.antiscald.com/prevention/general_info/table.php](http://www.antiscald.com/prevention/general_info/table.php)

~~~
michaelmior
Perhaps "gentle warming" is a bit of an understatement then.

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Ellipsis753
This is amazing. Keep up the good work. I'd be quite happy if governments
would give small grants to this kind of every day useful research. I
personally eat large amounts of toast so this is an issue very close to my
heart. Here in the UK toast is often balanced on it's side against something
to avoid this. I believe you can also buy a small toast rack for this purpose.
(However I often fear that this cools the toast too quickly.)

I'd be interested to know next if it's possible for the plate to be _too_ hot?

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cgtyoder
So - why is Toast Sweat bad? That question was never addressed.

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cdcarter
It's less than ideal for sandwich toast, where you want to contrast the dry
and crunchy toast with your moist and chewy interiors.

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switch007
Toast sweat is on par with pizza sweat. As a pizza retains its heat for much
longer than toast, I usually just put it on a rack or slide a large knife
underneath to prop it up.

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tluyben2
Your oven is not hot enough.

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Jedd
This is almost definitely true, but most domestic ovens don't get hot enough
(400C from memory is close to ideal). Hottest oven I've had in a 'normal'
rented place went as high as 270C, and even with a pizza stone it was hard to
get enough moisture out in the 8-9 minutes before the rest of it was at risk
of being overcooked.

While the knife wedged under the edge works to stop it going too soggy, the
other trick is to use a wooden tray or chopping board to serve on - this pulls
out some of the residual moisture.

~~~
tluyben2
I had this hauled in a few months ago
[https://twitter.com/luyben/status/416255790002225152/photo/1](https://twitter.com/luyben/status/416255790002225152/photo/1)
it's with some stretch the best purchase I ever did. If you have the space for
it, I would recommend ordering one _today_.

I am a huge pizza fan (I can and some times do eat it every day) and have been
screwing around with pizza stones, oven hacks, different flower etc to make
that 'restaurant pizza'; it's the temperature. With this thing everything
comes out like it was created by the gods; it does not really matter what you
put in; it just starts bubbling 2 seconds in and is fully cooked under 2
minutes. You will burn your entire mouth to stuff it in as quickly as you can
while baking the next one and you will bake and eat way too many the first few
goes leaving you ill and hating pizza (for about 1 hour). And when the fire
dies down, you put in bread dough for the most wonderful bread. Life is good
for such a small price. If you are handy and have a lot of time (I am handy ;
no time) you can build it yourself. Don't make it too big; when it's the right
temp, you can make 1 pizza per 2 minutes which is enough for most settings. If
you have one which fits 2+ pizza's, you'll be tossing in crazy amounts of wood
to get it started.

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Ellipsis753
Also I'd be interested to know how the room temperature affects it. If I eat
my toast in my fridge will I get less toast sweat? What should I set my house
thermostat to? My guess is setting the room temperate as high as possible (and
as close to Murray temperature as possible) would be best but I'd like to know
for sure.

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retroencabulato
Can't you just use an rack?

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leephillips
I love this! I am also regularly saddened by the phenomenon of toast sweat. I
looked in vain, though, for an RSS (or Atom) feed so I could follow your site,
but didn't see one. Did I miss it?

~~~
MurrayHurps
Much appreciated! Will add a link shortly, but try
[http://murrayhurps.com/rss](http://murrayhurps.com/rss)

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jamespitts
C'mon, no need to experiment. Just make a toast teepee -- stand those suckers
up against each other and let them evaporate before making that sammich.

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foobarian
The standing up methods are inferior because the parts of the bread in contact
with the (cold) plate still sweat. When the plate is hot enough there won't be
any condensation at all.

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chilldream
Is this something that doesn't happen in some climates? I've never noticed nor
even heard about this "toast sweat" in my life.

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zalzane
does the suggested temperature also eliminate toast sweat in different
varieties of bread?

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seanhandley
Or you could put a piece of kitchen towel on the plate.

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TheCowboy
Then you have a piece of toast on a wet towel. Along with suggestions that
suggest a cooling rack (I'm not a fan of cold toast), I think this misses the
mark.

"Never serve hot food on a cold plate." -Ramsay

It seems obvious enough when you get in the habit and you wonder why you never
started warming your plates to begin with.

It's usually not an extra chore if you capture the ambient heat of a cooking
source. Putting plates in the oven when you take the food out to rest. Putting
a plate on top of the toaster for half a minute could work in this case.

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kostyk
Important information.

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mattmaroon
Toast sweat killed my uncle. I'm glad someone is finally fighting back.

