Bonus: What is Mel's cast iron routine? (and other questions)
Hey. I'm Melissa.
Jam:I'm Jam.
Melissa:And I'm a chemist.
Jam:And I'm not.
Melissa:And welcome to chemistry for your life.
Jam:The podcast helps you understand the chemistry of your everyday life. The 10th bonus edition.
Melissa:Ten bonus episodes. That is Crazy.
Jam:I guess it's if you don't count the, experiment do experiments at home, one that we did the other day. This is the 10th q and r, I guess.
Melissa:Okay. Alright. That seems the 10th q and r even before we did bonus episodes?
Jam:No. It's the 10th q and r. How about we go there?
Melissa:Oh, that's fun. Okay. Well, Jam, I've got some fun facts for you before we get to listener questions.
Jam:Oh, sweet. Okay.
Melissa:So number 1, I was looking up the structure of the crystal dye that I did a video on Instagram of.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And it's a leuko dye. It's called crystal violet.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And I I showed that video in our Instagram story. I think I've added it to our highlights
Jam:Woah.
Melissa:It reacts with blood to get the violet color based on the pH of blood. So then it Demonstrates blood stains that were not visible prior to the use of the dye.
Jam:Interesting. Weird.
Melissa:I know. I didn't get all the details on forensics, but I thought that was pretty amazing.
Jam:Yeah. That's cool.
Melissa:2nd, I have some shouting out and some updates on the Teflon episode.
Jam:Oh, sweet. Okay. Let's do it.
Melissa:So after the Tevlon episode, Sam f asked if we could do a cast iron episode.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:But we had already recorded it because we're trying to stockpile episodes because Jam's baby is arriving soon.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:So shout out to Sam f. That was a great idea, but sorry that we Had already recorded without your shout out.
Jam:Yeah. Sorry about that, Sam. But this happened a couple times where people have lot of people have suggested some things. We go we go ahead and do it. And then more more people are continuing to suggest the idea.
Jam:We've already recorded it. So It just prove proves that you had a really good question, Sam.
Melissa:Absolutely. Genius. So then also on the Teflon episode, also a listener shout out.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Someone did send us I wanted to mention, they sent us the video for the of the farmer who's Showing his cows and how sick they were after, DuPont
Jam:Oh, yeah.
Melissa:Allegedly dumped all the stuff in the lake next to his house, and it was brutal, and it got me bad.
Jam:Yeah. It was pretty rough. I watched the very beginning. It was longer than I expected. So I watched just the beginning and saw just a little bit, and yikes.
Jam:Let's just say that. So shout out to that guy Who sent
Melissa:that? So if you wanna I think it was Chris. But if you wanna go seek it out, it's there for the taking. But just brace yourself you'll probably never be able to use Teflon the same way again.
Jam:Yeah. And that was to recap, wasn't that a precursor to Teflon or something like that?
Melissa:Well, the stuff that he had dumped they had dumped there. We don't really know what he had dumped, but it was A landfill. They'd bought a land next to his house, and they were dumping stuff on that land that was running into his land. So we don't know what they were dumping, but It was likely
Jam:related to the production of Teflon.
Melissa:Something from their factory, and that is how they got all the documents that showed a lot of the sketchy stuff that is going on with Teflon. So it was a it was a really intense video, so we just wanted to shout out that person. And that's all my fun facts. So you wanna lay some questions on me?
Jam:Absolutely. Let's do it. So the first question is from Vianette g, and she asks, What is your full cast iron routine?
Melissa:That's a great question, Vianette. My full routine is, 1, I preheat it. I put it on a medium to low heat, And then I cook on it. And then I take it over the sink, preferably while it's still hot. If I let it get cold.
Melissa:Sometimes I'll heat it back up, but I try to do it the same day that I cook on it. And I'll use a large cast iron Scraper. They are just like these plastic scrapers that have the perfect edge to scrape everything off. And then I use, just like the green sponge. It's like the scratchy side of the sponge.
Melissa:You know what I'm talking about?
Jam:Yeah. I know.
Melissa:And they'll sell just the green part of the sponge.
Jam:Oh, interesting.
Melissa:So I use that to get anything left, but I don't use any soap. Although you could, theoretically, but I wanna leave those oils on to help the polymerization happen.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And then I rinse it off and heat it back up on the stove. And I heat it first to get all the water off to make sure it doesn't rust, And then I pour, like, a quarter size drop of canola oil on the hot pan that's been heated up and has no water left, And then I just spread it around with a paper towel. And if I'm gonna use it again later that day, I'll usually just turn it off then and be done. But if I'm not gonna use it for a while, then I'll heat it and make sure it gets to the smoking point because that's when it's done the polymerization usually, and it won't get rancid. And, that's my cast iron routine.
Jam:Dang. Interesting.
Melissa:Pretty easy. It's very close to Cleaning a nonstick pan except for the heating step at the end.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah. You're right. And the fact that you're not doing the soap part, obviously selling and scraping stuff off, but you're saving a little bit of time at least Yeah. For not having to use soap.
Jam:And so throwing it then on the burner again. Seems like it might not end up being that much longer.
Melissa:That's exactly right. I did also mention that I restored a Cast iron pan. And when I did that one, I followed the video that Tasty, that company that does food videos. They have a really big cast iron. Mhmm.
Melissa:You know all about them.
Jam:Did you recognize the the sound bite?
Melissa:No. I didn't.
Jam:On all the recipe videos, the very end, they always have a guy just going, oh, yes. And it's like the same sound bite. They just Paste it into the every video.
Melissa:I had no idea. I don't think I've ever watched many of their videos besides their cast Iron cleaning 1.
Jam:Yeah. That it's it's in every recipe video. I guess they don't do it in their, like, routine videos. So I'm guessing funny. A lot of people out there, if you guys have watched those, you probably recognize that my impression.
Melissa:Well, I sorry. I didn't. I'm not. I live under a rock. Okay?
Melissa:Well, anyway so I followed that video, but I did a step before where, it comes with pre seasoning on it, New cast irons, and I don't think it's very good. So I actually just went ahead and sanded that off, and then I did the steps in the video. So I Just took some sandpaper and sanded my pan down first.
Jam:Could you could you feasibly, like, leave that seasoning? And then once it seems to be wearing off, Then re season it?
Melissa:I used that cast iron pan my cast iron pan for a year and never got as good of a seasoning on it ever until I sanded that thing down.
Jam:Mhmm. Okay. Interesting.
Melissa:So even when it was pre seasoned and it seemed like, Oh, I one time I heated up really hot and, like, burned, and it was not not good. Mhmm. So I reseasoned it, and it just always was, like, Sticky on the outside. It was seemed like whatever I was trying to do to season wasn't taking on top of their pre seasoning. So I did the sand down step, and that really seemed to take care of it.
Melissa:Now the seasoning is on really nice.
Jam:Awesome. Dan, it's good to know.
Melissa:Yeah. My brother-in-law actually just left his cast iron pan outside to rust completely, and then he sanded his off. So that's an option as well, but I decided to just go with the sanding situation.
Jam:Yeah. Gosh. That's funny. Did you finish these steps on the restoring?
Melissa:Yep. That was pretty much it. I'd all that stuff there, that's all from the video, so I figured it'd be faster to just say the video.
Jam:Perfect. Got it. We'll link that video in the show notes so they can follow along with what you Also followed.
Melissa:Nice.
Jam:This next question is from our friend in Australia, Chael. She asks, what am I doing when I activate almonds?
Melissa:This was such a fun one. She sent us an audio clip of her asking this question. And she said, I was soaking my almonds to activate them, and then I asked myself, what am I doing? And I just really appreciated that because I think a lot of times we do things because It sounds good or because we've read about it online without asking what we're doing, and I love the scientific mindset involved in What is This? Yeah.
Melissa:Yeah. So for those of you who don't know, activating almonds is Simply soaking almonds for 24 hours and then letting them dry or whatever before you eat them. And the theory behind that is that there are some compounds in almonds that are nutrient inhibitors. So, theoretically, It could keep you from observing the nutrients in almonds as well. So people knowing that said, well, if you soak it 24 hours and then dry it at a low temperature, maybe a low temperature in the oven or dry them out or whatever.
Melissa:Will these should have less of these nutrient inhibitors. But actually, scientists went ahead and looked into that. They had the same question you did, Chael. Mhmm. And they used chromatography, anion exchange chromatography, and mass spectrometry, So those are just analytical methods to investigate, and they found that there's only a 4% decrease in The activated almonds as compared to the regular almonds.
Melissa:So that's a. It is statistically significant, but it's not to such a degree that would probably be worth it to pay for the wildly expensive activated almonds, but if you personally like it, you can Do that. And as long as you have the time and the energy, there is a 4% decrease. I'm not sure I would say that it's worth it.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:There's a 2nd paper that tested the consumer impact, and they found that consumers didn't notice any change significantly between regular almonds and the almonds that were activated in their gut health at all. So might be worth it, might not. Depends on how much you care about that 4% decrease.
Jam:Right. Interesting. I didn't even know that activating almonds was a thing.
Melissa:Neither did I, I had to look it up. And my roommate happened to be in the room, and I was looking it up. And she said, If you buy activated wallowments, they're so much more expensive, which makes sense because of the labor that's going into them.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:But it may not be worth it.
Jam:Yeah. This next question is pretty fun. It's a 2 parter. It's from Harry b, And I'll just read both parts. Who inspired you, Melissa, to become a chemist?
Jam:And, Jam, who inspired you To become a coffeeologist, which make sure you know that there's quotes around that.
Melissa:Yeah. Technically, Jim is an audio editor. So can we mix that in too? Find out how you got your auditing auditing Mhmm. Your audio editing and video editing skills.
Jam:Yeah. I guess I'll just answer I can answer both of them. Sure. In short.
Melissa:So who inspired me to be a chemist? I think that would be my high school chemistry teacher, missus Mullis. She had worked in industry, and then she came to be a teacher. And she was just a really good teacher, and I chose chemistry. I think I've said this before Because my sister wanted me to do biology, and my brother wanted me to do physics.
Melissa:And I was like, I'm gonna do what I want. That's also why I took French instead of Spanish, which is a bummer because now my nephew speaks Spanish, and I do not.
Jam:I had made the same mistake about French, by the way.
Melissa:It did come in handy when I was in Paris. So Yeah. It's like Maybe that was worth it.
Jam:It's definitely cool. Just geographically less Significant to us in in Texas, where we're just around Spanish speaking people way more.
Melissa:A 100%. So on that VIN, you could say that my brother and sister inspired me to be a chemist by me wanting to not be like them. But I would see people come out of miss Moss's class with, like, silvered test tubes, or they had grown little crystals, or they held fire in their hands, and I was like, I have to be in that class, and I loved it. So I think that was the beginning of my love of chemistry, but there were countless people along the way that Helped me see its beauty and made me wanna keep doing it. But I just liked it, and I really liked the research lab I I was in making new things.
Melissa:It was pretty cool. So I think that's it. So I had a teacher who made really beautiful things, and I saw people come out of our classroom with that stuff and thought I have to have her for my class next semester.
Jam:Yeah. That's awesome. Okay. So I guess I answer first what inspired me to become or who or whatever inspired me to become Media person. I think the 1st person would have been my art teacher in middle school and high school, Because it felt like she just really encouraged a lot of creativity, and even though like, for a long time, I was planning on going into painting in charcoal and and that kind of thing.
Jam:And then I realized, I don't know if I want that to be my job. I don't know if I'd be even good at that being my job. Like, I think I
Melissa:would be Right.
Jam:Pretty bad at it, because I'd have to, like, not be so slow off really slow. And so but she just really encouraged a lot of creativity. And I watched a lot of Films that got me super into film, which is what my gateway was into just media work in general. And so, directors like Wes Anderson and Stanley Kubrick and, Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Thomas Anderson and Terrence Malick. Those are just A few that kinda, like, opened my brain to seeing how amazing film could be and to getting really excited about stories.
Jam:And then in college, What really got me into nonfiction type of media, so documentary or podcasting or whatever, I would say was and I went ended up studying documentary for the most part as well as other types of media production, but I did as much documentaries as I could because there are a few documentary filmmakers that really got me excited about telling real stories and how awesome that can be. Documentary filmmakers like, d a Pennebaker and Frederick Wiseman and the Maysle brothers, watched a lot of their films in college, and that got me just, like, so excited about how cool it can be to capture real stories in some ways. So that's why I studied a lot of documentary and did sort of nonprofit documentary work for a while. So that's kind of a smattering of an answer about how I ended up doing Media stuff. But it's definitely I have I owe a lot of credit to, to professors and teachers I've had, but also inspiration from From filmmakers and stuff.
Melissa:That's beautiful, Jim.
Jam:And had some great professors at at UNT. It's hard to just name one. That's why I only named My art teacher in high school because I feel like she was kind of this beginning piece to it, but I don't want UNT professors to not think that they Had a huge impact on me for sure.
Melissa:That's why we care so much about education here at Chemistry For Your Life.
Jam:Amen.
Melissa:What about the coffeeologists? What who inspired you to become a coffeeologist?
Jam:I think there's a couple people. 1 or I'm gonna say 3. One of them is one of the baristas that used to work at a coffee shop called 7 Mile here in Denton, which was the first, like, 3rd wave, Like, specialty coffee shop, in Denton, at least whenever I was a student still. It was back in 2012 or so. And
Melissa:What's a 3rd wave?
Jam:3rd wave coffee is just a way of describing this era of coffee that we're in of, a focus on high quality and fair trade. It's like an ethical, period we're in and a purity kinda period we're in. So
Melissa:Okay.
Jam:It's where a lot of the kinda hipster vibes are coming from, but it I think the The principles are really cool about, like, highest quality purest cup of coffee and great ethics and care for people at the same time.
Melissa:Cool.
Jam:So there there's that coffee shop called Seven Mile, and there was a For a student named Trent who really got me into coffee. He talked a lot about the coffees that they had, and I would ask him questions, and he'd answer them. So it was really cool. So he definitely had an impact. Then I had a friend named Jay who really got me into Coffee as well and kinda kept helped me.
Melissa:Bring into that podcast, our number one hype man, Jay.
Jam:Yes. That's the one one and the same. So he really, was somebody to, like, nerd out about coffee with and talk about it with, and so I think he really helped me continue down the path of just liking coffee, and he helped point me toward other shops I didn't know about in the Dallas area and stuff like that, And just was really cool. And then the last person is a coffee roaster guy in the Denton area, Named Combs Coffee, and he really encourages people to home roast. He just thinks it's a cool thing for everybody to try at some point.
Jam:And, also, a thing that's, like, anybody could do it in a way. Like, you could you could home roast coffee on a walk in a walk on your stove kinda thing. So he really pushed me to just try it, and then I was kinda hooked. And so that's why I both love brewing my own coffee and care a lot about that. And then also now I've gotten to the extreme measure of also roasting my own coffee like a nerd.
Jam:So
Melissa:Yeah. You're definitely a coffee nerd. As much as I love chemistry, you love coffee For sure.
Jam:I I yeah. I agree with that. That's why we could that's why we get each other. You know?
Melissa:Yeah. Just our passion. You know? Well, this has been a fun episode. But before we wrap up, I do just wanna say thanks to those people who have gone out of their way to go to our Ko fi page and donate.
Melissa:Just the cost of a cup of coffee, and we just wanna remind you guys that this really is something that helps the show go. This is a hobby for Jam and I, and It is really helpful for us to have additional resources to be able to invest in the show and keep the show going and help even more people to learn about chemistry, which is our goal. So thank you so much for believing in that vision and helping more people to learn about coffee. Helping more people to learn about chemistry. So this week, we'd like to thank Estee and Pita.
Melissa:Pita is a real life friend of mine also. And Estee has become a friend of the show, also a chemist, so that was exciting to see those familiar names on there. And we appreciate you guys so much. Thank you for supporting us. Yeah.
Jam:Various questions this week. So thank you all for doing that.
Melissa:Yeah. Thank you guys so much. This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Collini and Jam Robinson, And we'd like to give a special thanks to E Robinson who reviewed this episode.
