How Hard Can It Be To Make a Potato Chip ? (hint: Fly you fools!)

The color and bitterness you're getting is from reducing sugars in the potato (Maillard Reaction). The crisp comes from the glass state transition. What you're ideally looking for is a potato high in starch and low in reducing sugars (Cold stored potatoes will begin to convert starch into sugar and increase the browning.) As for the frying, what is happening is a dehydration reaction which replaces the water for oil. The soft chips haven't fully been dehydrated and made it to a glassy state. You're closer than you think but there is a lot that goes into it. Source: Previous QA Director for snack food company which specialized in potato chips.

I miss when your sponsored segments had a progress bar across the top. It was a really nice bit of style that you don't see in other youtubers' videos and it really made yours stand out.

Fry, you fools!

This is the episode in which Alex pretends he hasn’t read the Internet where all the answers are.

The chip makers have many economies of scale. A major factor is they contract directly with farmers and storage houses for particular potato qualities that are not typical in supermarket potatoes. Storage conditions are a huge factor in browning due to the effect of temperature on starch←→sugar conversion(it goes both directions), many academic papers with substantial research have been written on the affect of different conditions of long term storage and pre-use storage (the final 2-3 weeks) on the frying qualities of potatoes, both fluffy fries and crispy. Farmers don't even use the same type of fertilizer for supermarket and processing customers because it effects the starch and moisture ratios. Supermarket potatoes are grown for maximum weight yield and tend to have high water content. Processing buyers pay based on a more complicated quality scale, or for some products like potato flour even by weight of extractable starch regardless of total fresh weight.

Dehydrate them first. Works when i make beet, carrot, and parsnip chips.

WASH THEN BLANCH YOUR SLICES! WASH THEN BLANCH YOUR SLICES! Just made some homemade sweet potato chips yesterday, and times before…and blanching is the key to maintaining color…I read somewhere suggest using vinegar in the wash or blanch boil, I used it in the boil.. about 3-4 minutes…..DRY…then fry.

Hi Alex. I think you miss two Important things. Suger get caramelized on 130 Celsius. Water get evaporated in 100 Celsius. You shuold stay on that range for having enough time to release the liquid but to stay on the right color. I think there’s a video on YouTube- in which they throw the potatoes into a cold oil and yet the results are great. Big love from a big fan. Shaked

Much respect for you videos as always, but this was the first time I could feel you actually knew the answers already during the filming of the trial and error phase.

My guy nerfing himself just so he can vist a potato chip factory 😭we know you could've done it first try .

Every time Alex embarks on a new cooking journey, it's like he forgot everything he learned and all the built up knowledge escapes him. I know it's for storytelling and a journey of discovery kind of plot but Alex floundering over the basics he should have figured out by now is kind of funny to watch.

I have a strange feeling that a paid partnership with lay's is comming

Soon: I am growing my specialiced potatoes for making chips

I used a Japanese fixed blade mandolin designed to shave cabbage to make some awesome potato chips recently. Yeilded something resembling a very delicate kettle chip. I seasoned them with a dusting of a mixture of good chicken bouillon, toasted onion powder, white pepper, and msg to give em a flavor halfway between roast chicken and french onion soup.

I've had good luck with Yukon gold potatoes (semi waxy) and slicing them super thin with a mandolin. Still much closer to kettle chips though. Also interesting results blanching them in beef tallow (draining and patting after) before frying.

my mind immediately went to the thought of frying the potatoes under vacuum, basically the opposite of how pressure fryers are used to increase the temperature and retain more moisture for fried chicken, fry the potatoes under vacuum to lower the boiling point of water and promote dehydration/crispifying while keeping browning low. Doesn't sound like the most uhhh, practical thing to do at home, but you've built a lot of impractical kitchen appliances over the years!

Wow, surprised you don't like kettle chips. There is a company here in the Eastern part of the US called Utz. They make a kettle chip called "Utz Kettle Classics Potato Chips Dark Russets". OMG, they are so good. I swear they salt them with crack. If I'm not careful, I can eat an entire bag in one sitting.

Formula for chips: Slice them at exactly 2mm (to thin = brittle, to thick = to much potato flavor. The oil needs to be 160 degrees Celsius(sunflower oil) The potatos need to have alot of starch( 15% or more) and as you did you need to wash and dry the slices

Definitely catch up in the next one. Really cool idea for a video series

I went on my own little rabbit hole about potato chips, I believe it's pretty much impossible to make a 1:1 recreation of the regular commercial chips