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New video - high pressure steam peeling (Patreon)

Published:
2026-08-05 22:30:15
Imported:
2026-09

Content

I learned about steam pressure peeling when years ago when I was searching for the ultimate potato peeler. When I learned it straight up makes the potato skin come off in one piece, I really wanted to see it happen. Unfortunately I couldn't find video from inside the chamber anywhere. That isn't surprising because cameras would have a hard time surviving inside, and it would be a lot of effort to put a window in one of the large high pressure industrial machines.

So I decided to build a small scale pressure peeler so that we all can finally see what goes on inside that hellish chamber. This project was a leap of faith since I wasn't even sure I'd be able to see through the steam / condensation. It was also expensive because I used a lot of stainless steel and steam rated components. Thankfully it all worked out and the results are very cool. I tested a lot of different foods and some surprising things happened which just made me hungry to better understand what is going on in there.

I'm planning to do a part 2 in the near future that will add a much better high speed camera into the mix. I'll also be fixing a few mechanical issues that kept me from getting totally clear high speed footage. My plan is to see and understand as many of the interesting things that happen inside the chamber as possible, with hopefully some really beautiful footage to go with them. If you have suggestions of interesting experiments to try with this, you can leave it in the comments below or EVEN BETTER join the discord and put ideas there. I often hang out on there, and there's a lot of really smart people so the discussions would likely be great.

Thank you all for your support. I'll be posting the details for the Patron only livestream directors commentary soon. Hope you enjoy this one. I'm really proud with how the whole thing turned out.

-Shane

Files

I made an apple peel itself

Go to https://brilliant.org/StuffMadeHere/ try the tutor for free and get 20% off your annual premium subscription! Join my Patreon to suggest things to try in part 2, and hang out in an EXCELLENT discord. https://www.patreon.com/c/stuffmadehere I've wanted to see what goes on inside a steam pressure peeler for years. Now we all can in slow mo. :) Sources: Belleville washers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belleville_washer

Comments

PerkeleAnkka

The opportunity to peel a beet and not dye your hands for the next six years awaits.

Paul Thornton

Would love to see what happens to a kiwi fruit in that thing. or a banana.

TJ Clark

peal a Golf ball

TJ Clark

what about dry steam

Tschäff Reisberg

Brilliant project selection. I laughed out loud when your wife gave you that rating.

Doug_ro962

Try a kiwi and a mango!

Official GlitchLab

Learned a lot from you thank you for your awesome videos! Just make sure to get him to insta-peel a hogdog lol

Official GlitchLab

In part 2 I highly recommend peeling a Hotdog. For Science!

The Wolf Studios

I definitely think trying it on meat would be, firstly, potentially horrifying, but secondly, maybe interesting? like, get some skin-on chicken and see if you can flash-deglove it or something of the like. For a less horrifying idea: An Acorn, or other hard-shelled seed.

stuffmadehere

The steam in the boiler should be dry I think? The problem is when the pressure drops and water flashes to steam and rapidly goes into the test chamber it picks up a lot of water droplets. The chamber is also cooler than the boiler so we get condensation which compounds the problem. Reducing water in the chamber is important for image quality so that we're not obscuring the view with water droplets. It might also impact performance if any of the liquid water sitting in the chamber is superheated relative to ambient pressure because it will flash to steam when the chamber is vented. If thats happening it would make the depressurization of the chamber take longer which is not great because as far as I know the peeling effect is better the faster the pressure drops. All that to say, reducing liquid water in the chamber is a key improvement and I have a number of concepts I'm noodling on.

stuffmadehere

The problem with this peeler is that it ejects a portion of whatever it is peeling into the environment. I had it literally take a potato peel and somehow pass it through the muffler. It was just gone. I could see it taking a beet and dying whatever is behind the peeler purple lol. Ejecting stuff was a big factor in what I did / didn't test. For example I was really hesitant to try an egg indoors...

stuffmadehere

I love / hate this idea. I love it because I bet it would be really cool. I hate it because the peeler seems to extract the essence of whatever it peels then atomizes it into the entire shop upon venting. I would have to route the exhaust outside or something first...

stuffmadehere

Putting in my prediction: the hot dog explode like when you microwave them too long.

stuffmadehere

Meat would be very interesting. I wonder if it would make me run afoul of any content rules. I guess it just depends on how horrifying it ends up being. Maybe I could dye it a different color so it doesn't trigger any horror move feelings or something.

Chris Weiss

So it ain't peeling but I'm still curious so I'm posting it - Anything that's been freeze-dried. Typically rehydrated freeze-dried stuff is pretty terrible, and I wonder if: A) Does steam flash-rehydrating work better? B) Does it cook it at the same time it rehydrates?

This Random Guy

What about paprika? Would be interesting seeing sth with hard skin but hollow on the inside :)

JC Wren

Eggplant!

Richard H

If the steam is cooking the food too could you boil and egg and peel it at the same time?

Timothy-Douglas Alvey

What fun! Does your wife know that the machine IS a bomb (with some Safeties)? Some food company is going to be knocking at your door soon! Some of the first Freeze Dried food (for Astronauts and Campers) was made at Oregon Freeze-Dry (took a tour there). It’s similar to what you’re doing, but it’s a Cold+Vacuum process (inverse of yours, but your chamber should work). The food is very light weight and fresh tasting. (Try the Neapolitan Ice Cream some time!) It also uses water from your body to digest; mild dehydration can occur. The green beans are amazing!

Nick Travis

I’d be curious to see a hard boiled egg, and maybe a raw egg but that could make quite the mess! But if you could get the shell off an uncooked egg without breaking the membrane it would be wild.

Phil Causey

Try a Peacan or Walnut im rather curious

Carbonize This!

Very cool! I'm working on a similar project myself. We hope to film items as they carbonize. We've carbonized corn in the past but want to see it as it happens. One thing you can try to peel is mango or a fun one would be pineapple! haha -Mike

Roth D

Idea: Bowling pin sorter that is less complicated and has no strings.

Brandon coles

I work in the food industry for a company that makes industrial food equipment and we make one of those machines. The company is called JBT Marel, the machine is Saturno Steam Peeler https://youtu.be/4eMXLM0PB0I?si=hekgTcQAhOwFl_DE Its and others with this process are mostly used in the tomato industry. If potatoes or apples are peeled they're done with a mechanical process because it is a lot cheaper. It's wild to see you recreating it, you did amazing job. A couple points, the lemon will not work well, most citrus wont. The peel is too thick and fibrous to release nicely like that. The pockets you are seeing are little pouches of oil in the skin that are bursting. The essential oil in citrus is held in the skin, when you zest citrus you're releasing those oils. This process is causing those oil pockets to blow up. The only citrus that might work would be incredibly thin skin stuff like cuties or mandarins. The strawberry burst like that because there is no skin to speak of. So when you pressurized the water/steam went in deep and then the release caused most of the berry to burst. I'm more than happy to discuss this with you further.

Brandon coles

I did not even think about the discharge of the vent but you are right a beet would be very bad. We juice them and even a drop of juice stains red quite well. If you go to wash it the water gets dyed red and it's not pretty. I mean if you want to setup a horror scene it would probably work beautifully.

James Edenborough

If instead of venting to atmospheric pressure you instead vented into a vacuum, you should be able to achieve the same results at a much lower pressure

Norah

idea : auto-aiming pinball machine that plays itself not the place to post this, but i need to get the idea out of my head

Erick Vega

Hey, you should try Jaboticaba fruit, it's like a grape but thicker, suuuuper tannin filled skin, you are barely able to swallow it because of the tanning to epithelial tissue contact and our bodies cannot even digest it unless it is mechanically torn to absorb the nutrients. You should blast it and taste it!! Also, large Pomelos, like golden pomelo, but not the entire fruit, just a section, the membrane is really tough and feel pressure holding!