i know the main objective of TCK is to recreate the o.r. of old. thats why im posting this in the 99x thread. the challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to replicate the 99x mix. forgive my frankness, but if we can replicate a 60 year old recipe from "memory" alone, shouldnt we be able to recreate something we can hold in our hand? something we can see, smell, and taste. even if you think the pines story is a "fairytale" (which i do not), and even if you dont like 99x as a chicken seasoning product, put your predjudices aside and pick up the gauntlet! after all, if you cant replicate something you can see, smell and taste, how in the name of col. harland d. sanders can you replicate the o.r.? in closing, i dont see, taste or smell anything "sweet" in 99x. nor do i smell celery (it could be in there but its not detectable). with that said, who will pick up the gauntlet that brodie has laid down? anyone???anyone????

what?? are you "chicken"????

Brodie that's what I have been trying to do for months. Oh the spices are in there brother, but they are in such small quantity, and most likely over the years the herbs and spices have been dialed down for cost, like the *KFC CRAP* version of the O.R. I'm still waiting for my Cardamon to arrive, so I will let you and lumpy know the aroma it gives off in relation to 99-X. The cardamon I currently have is really strong, but you sure can smell a resemblance of it in 99-X, that is for sure, and maybe mace as well, that will be my next project.

Of all the recipes I have made, posted or not posted, I always have tried to replicate 99-X. If we get it perfect in the raw stage, we should have some terrific chicken indeed.

Dustin

Me thinks your challenge has just about been met, eh Brodie?

And how great is it?!!!

Brodie has finally cracked - at last!

I thought the WHOLE idea was to replicate 99-X (or at least obtain all the constituent ingredients) and in doing so have all the ingredients with which to replicate the OR i.e. messing around with the herb and spice quantities etc.

That post, Brodie, has messed with my mind !

i'd like to point out that no one has duplicated the X to date. we can resonably surmise that 99x has been "watered down" since the 1960's, but we cant reasonably say its not a damn fine chicken seasoning, even if we have to use more.i have mixed up lots of recipes, some mine, some others. while some have come close to "mimmicking" 99x, none have been dead-on. could it be cloves are not in the X. i dont smell it in there. and its still not listed as a 100% on "the proof list". can one ingredient make all the difference? you"re damn right it can. i railed against celery for months. im not suggesting we "throw the baby out with the bathwater", but i smell "dirty socks", and this time, it aint celery.

Brodie wrote:

i'd like to point out that no one has duplicated the X to date. we can resonably surmise that 99x has been "watered down" since the 1960's, but we cant reasonably say its not a damn fine chicken seasoning, even if we have to use more.i have mixed up lots of recipes, some mine, some others. while some have come close to "mimmicking" 99x, none have been dead-on. could it be cloves are not in the X. i dont smell it in there. and its still not listed as a 100% on "the proof list". can one ingredient make all the difference? you"re damn right it can. i railed against celery for months. im not suggesting we "throw the baby out with the bathwater", but i smell "dirty socks", and this time, it aint celery.

Brodie,

First have you tried mimicking the current Crop using the posted ratio's using all McCormick? I have, and its pretty dead on, if not it, so that tells me we are on the right track in regards to having the correct 11, and very close to the actual ratio's used.

Now with that said, many others who have tried 99X dosed at 2.5 or even 3 tbs per cup of flour, tell me that there is something just quite not right with it. I have tried using the Crop's ratio's using all MK, and IMO I think it was 99X. Give it a try, and let us know your feedback.

When I think about our current 11, you know I just go by where the evidence leads me. I know you were dead on right when you said you detected the *Dirty Socks Smell* which being celery and how it didn't belong there. But if you recall during that time I was going over the 11, and our evidence. We even emailed back and forth, and I told you that it was my belief that Mustard was not what we have in our pictures, that it was merely leftover remnants of the Chili Powder seeds. So I myself am very critical of the evidence, and what we put on our proof list. I'm very critical of myself as well, and will not hold back if I think something is not right.

Now in regards to Cloves, I have been giving that a lot of thought in the recent months. On one hand we know that 99X was the OR, at least before the Court Case was brought against Marion Kay by KFC. It's my belief that what Marion Kay was distributing with Colonel Sanders blessings was the OR. I want to believe that the X factor Bill Summers talks about was the OR minus the cloves, but again that goes against everything that Colonel Sanders stood for. And remember the reason for 99X to exist in the first place? To replace the recipe as it was originally designed, so leaving out a crucial item that he took years to develop doesn't jive with me logically.

But with that said, I have sifted through almost 10 bottles of 99X, and none have came up with cloves, or even a hint of cloves, not one (NOT EVEN THE SMELL OF CLOVES). This brings me back to when we had identified 9 herbs and spices, and the remaining 2 were from a KFC website (mustard & celery). They were also not found in the X.

Now I can't just use 1 food critics opinion that he detected cloves.

I go by other data:

1. Why does the the current KFC seasoning mix have a smell of cloves, and not 99X?

2. The vial picture resembles cloves. We have tried many dark items in the past such as Allspice which didn't work.

3. The food critics observation

It is correct that what those food critics observed could not have been entirely correct, but when you draw on many sources of data, it gives it that much more weight. There are even a few here on this board that remember the OR to have a clove flavor note at the end.

So what piece of data in your opinion are we missing? Have I left anything out? If your saying Cloves is not in the X, then you are saying there is 10 herbs and spices and not 11? With all the bottles that I and others have purchased something would have been found by now. Some are more chunky than others, bay comes to mind.

Anyone else care to chime in?

Dustin