How Caviar Is Made (Farm To Table)

This is a 1oz tin of caviar. On average this tiny tin cost $120. And this is where it comes from. Everyone always ask this one question why is it so expensive? And is it even worth it? So we're traveling all the way to the largest caviar Farm in America to uncover the truth and once we're done we'll taste test the cheapest and all the way up to one of the rarest and most expensive caviars in the world. But first let's make some caviar! We're with our main guy here at Tsar Nicolai one of the largest caviar farms in America I'm Ali Bolourchi and I'm the president and CEO of Tsar Nicolai caviar Farm. We're going to see our native breed of white sturgeon that we raised in the nation's only Eco certified farm and hopefully make some award-winning caviar today with you. I love it. I also stole his jacket right now. Cold. How are we starting our day today? So it's bright and early it's about 7:00 a.m. we're going to do some ultrasounds and identify the caviar ready females and we're going to do the process of selection once that process is over we're going to go into the caviar making area and begin the actual row extraction caviar making process all right a big ahead of us and lots to tackle so it's time to mentally prepare myself all right you ready right now yeah 7:00 in the morning it's good the water is just as cold as outside oh great 40° perfect maybe I will keep your jacket after all so I got all suited up to get into the sturgeon tanks but then ol you let me know one tiny important detail you know really in this tank alone we probably have a million dollars in caviar fish so really please Joshua don't fck this up I will do my P that said I got in the tank anyway and immediately felt a little overwhelmed by the cold but my main focus was tread carefully because there's a lot of expensive sturgeon swimming around I'm stepping I got a sturgeon literally right in front of me I mean the fish are literally like rubbing up against you they SWAT your crotch every so often I kind of like it so what we're going to be doing with the ultrasound is we're going to get a good look inside the internal organs of the fish so we're looking for the ovaries and we're looking for ripe eggs themselves it's the most fish friendly it's the least stress on them and it's the most humane way we can investigate that obviously in order to check we need to catch one so I give it my best shot I'm about to try holding one see if you can grab it yourself all right she's gone all right we're going to give that another shot oh perfect a gigantic one good one for Josh to handle oh I did it yeah let's go wait wait wait wait no no I just got you here I just got you here all right well I'll let the pros do this so we're kind of looking for that nice roton belly they do have a sound you can kind of feel it too oh my god wow it's so noticeable this fish most likely is rape so we'll kind of ultrasound hurt so we're going to go through the belly wow this is huge yep so that's a ripe female you can kind of see the fine dots right beneath that skin layer this is great news we got caviar guys fish that size so 120 lb we're going to buy 12 lb of caviar for that fish wow now that we've selected some Fales we're going to move them into a separate tank then we'll do a final taste test to determine that those are the fish we want to harvest this is like the earliest tasting of any tasting I think we've ever done just to describe the flavor there's no salt present whatsoever you really get this really fresh Oceanic flavor it's not fishy at all the pearls are literally still warm I mean this is the freshest consumable caviar in human existence it's amazing honestly incredible what you just got to try is like Day Zero the process of today is to kind of see the evolution of flavor right so here you have raw sturgeon row and that 2% flavor you got today will grow into that full flavor profile I'm excited to see the next round you feeling warmer I actually do feel warm that's my jacket so Joshua here we are at our Hatchery all of our genetics all the future species of white sturgeon that we produce are all done right here so there's no impact on the wild population of fish this is where the magic happens wow they're so little you kind of seen now how small the egg was you had in your hand these fish respa in April so about 5 months of growth and then from this size to about year two that's the fastest growing at year three we'll sex them and then the females will go to one tank mes go to another from there little caviar love these little guys but they're a handful as far as constant attention they're the babies okay ultrasound and final selection completed now we're moving on to processing but first one of our missions today is to learn about what makes caviar so expensive let's see if Oli can shed some light just wanted to thank you for uh giving me my jacket back and not telling me it was wet so Oli what goes into making caviar why is it the price that it is you're on one of the oldest farms in the world kind of where the technology to farm sturgeon came to life and we try to do it as sustainable as possible we antibiotic free or steroid free or fish are eating what fish would eat in the wild a lot of it is done by hand it's a 10-year-old fish so that's a labor of love you're going to be doing some expensive work today I love it you're going to see if you're R rain Supreme before we process the female fish what about the protein what about the meat of the fish guys well they use the whole thing so here we are at the end part of our Smokehouse we're in NOA tail operation we try to limit waste as much much as we can this is our award-winning Applewood smoke a sturgeon four ingredients sturgeon salt apple wood and a little bit of brown sugar low and slow 8 to 12 hours it kind of tastes like the turkey of the sea you want to join me yes please unbelievable this might be the perfect intro to fish for anybody who may not be a fan of it what I love about it is it's incredibly mild it's not fishy but you still have that Oceanic Umami quality to it it's steak like it's got really intense smoke flavor a little bit of sweetness from the brown sugar it's seasoned wonderfully it's sort of like like a nice in between of like a nice smoked ham and like a jerky and like a swordfish Allin one really tasty one day my kids will grow up and know that I've been giving them smoked sturgeon and it wasn't smoked ham and turkey but we'll cross that bridge when they're older or maybe you never have to now I was time to get my game face on cuz I'm entering the inner sanctum where around $250,000 of caviar is processed daily they're trusting me to help them do this so uh let's not this up our guide through this with millions of dollars writing on his shoulders every week CH and yang he's kind of a caviar badass every day they process about 40 sturgeon averaging about 120 kilos total of caviar 9 lb 9 lb of caviar from that one fish okay I saw the pros do it I think I can handle this it's just uh you know dropping an ounce this would cost hundreds of dollars and there's a lot more than an ounce I'll tell you that so what's the best method of transfer put my hand right here slide it at the bottom make sure nothing connected still drive it this way and this way it'll all come out in one piece yeah there's something stuck back here is it okay to pull yeah just give it a little tug I didn't want to damage it it's kind of easy there wow there same thing again unbelievable everybody's standing around me in case I drop it they're like please don't get Dro at this stage I was surprised to hear that this is now my caviar I'm responsible for it this is my caviar there are many other like it but this one's mine I then stepped into the caviar room so there's five steps that have to happen in this room that are crucial to making this right messing up any of these steps could totally ruin what would be hundreds of thousands of dollars of cavar so we start with step one screening the caviar step two rinsing step three drying step four salting and we got to get it down to the exact gr and step five the final dry before we pack the caviar into tins and have our finished product the moment we've all been waiting for I finally get to make my own caviar so essentially first we're taking the row we're running them through these fine mesh screens extracting every last egg as much as possible without damaging them you have to be very delicate very careful in this process I'm assuming I've never done this before I don't want to destroy thousands of dollars with the caviar I'm going to do my best here we go so you want to press down on it just enough where the eggs fall right out I'm so nervous to destroy the caviar you're pressing harder than I thought you'd have to I feel like when we think of caviar we think oh this is going to turn into a pace but really it's very resilient I'm kind of shocked I guess it says a lot about the quality too right they have all these little flaps in between them too you got to flip them over a little bit and then open it up oh wow okay I'm understanding now I'm understanding now this is kind of fun I like it this is analisia our main egg washer she'll just kind of rinse around the bowl to get all the eggs in there and then as you can see all the impurities come up and then she'll give it a quick pour being very careful as to not lose all the eggs in the bowl kind of like when you're rinsing rice in a rice cooker it is right really expensive rice what she putting in with the droplets so we do four Rines in total the first two Rines we put in our mixture to soften up the water first and after that we just do Straight water so this would be the second wash with the mixture wow so delicate it's just an uous process even all the way down to rinsing with water is so detailed you want to do the last two I'll do that so just pour it in and kind of mix them up with the water gently pour it in around the bowl yeah and make sure to stir up the bottom my years of doing the right thing and washing my rice is finally paying off you see you could probably do it too if you wash your rice you can take that bowl and then we'll go over to the third step which is over here there are very few people in the world who get to taste caviar through every part of the life cycle and I'm excited to say that I'm one of them we tried it raw straight from the live sturgeon and now we try unsalted but rinsed so how does that change the flavor wow so fresh there's a little bit of umami there it's got almost like an egg yolk like creamy pop in your mouth very fresh water flavor and texture there's so much flavor naturally sitting there it's waiting to be brought out by the salt it's really nice and remember after we finish up here we'll be tasting the caviar among various other levels of caviar Rarity to see if expensive caviar is really worth it so my glass has been fogging up after finally realized the trick is I just hold my glasses up and then use my eyelashes as windshield wipers oh my God I can see I'm about to enter one of the last stages which is salting the caviar extremely important it has to be done perfectly cuz this is going to be going out to three Michelin star restaurants for our cavar we do the malis salt which is lower in salt content we do about like a 3 and 1/2% salt to our eggs it's not that it's lightly salted though in my opinion it's just that it's salted properly bad caviar is going to be super salty and you're not going to taste much else but salt this is Eon he's been salting caviar for 10 years so he knows the stuff A Little Love Taps we want the weight before and after the salt you're going to add until it says 13.5% so you got your salt you got your eggs just got to pour it in my hands are like frozen to give it a good stir yeah it's so soft it's soft but yeah they're really firm you could be kind of rough with him make sure your hand is all the way to the bottom like this yeah and then from time to time bring the bottom to the top to make sure that every single eggs get some salt in it you can fill every individual egg they're very firm extremely resilient it also feels kind of like I'm a kid playing with like a bunch of really tiny Orbeez how are we feeling so far looking okay it looks good at me yeah before this sits for a bit we're going to give this one more try let's see how you do is this my verification moment oh thank you so buttery so rich very mild the salt level is literally perfect I mean perfect thank you I tried I also had an electronic scale telling me exactly what to do this is actually a really good fish that's like a reserve level so good Reserve quality cavr Now we move on to the tinning what you see here is the last step right before they get tined this is Jose what he's doing is removing any impurities from the eggs look he spotted that boom impuri is the size of a grain of sand Jose is catching and tweezing out by hand don't ask me why this is expensive this is the freshest caviar you can get before they get 10 Jose isn't right if I try a little bit oh it's incredible every single step of the process the caviar is transformed just this bite alone immediate burst of flavor the Umami the salt level is absolutely perfect it's buttery and that just fresh Oceanic flavor I can eat this right now Jose can start off and show you how to pack with 1,700 G and then you can pack your own 500 G after that one you see what he's doing he's gently pressing it down to get rid of all the air pockets on the bottom and then he'll pack it on top again my God he Stacks it so high see how masterful Jose is that spatula is just an extension of his arm and by eye he already pretty much knows what 1700 is 23 it's unbelievable I'm 28 so verying long time but as I watched that beautiful tin walk away it was my turn to try and mimic 23 years of experience in a single moment it's also not easy with everybody standing here watching you like everybody don't be afraid to kind of press down on it and it kind of give it like a little smear to cover all the little her Pockets yeah I need my guy here how am I doing am I doing okay he's bullshitting me he's bullshitting so now at this point you're just giving a little Mound yeah just a little bit more that looks about 500 G so just kind of clean up the edges just a little bit holy sh how does he do this man but just when I thought I was in the clear oh no now I have to start over Jose look at this at least I got the practice now right the tin becomes so slippery and he's moving so fast I feel like this one's 10 times messier than the last one give it like just another little scoop of caviar and then that should be about 500 g yep yep that should be good right about there so let's see how close you are to 500 540 540 okay okay so after packing it we're just going to take these we're going to take it to our sterilizer and then we sterilize for about like 30 seconds just kind of stand here and look awkward so yeah and then we'll just take it out and then this goes where take it back over there so these are little particulars instead of just putting it in I like to kind of go at an angle and then close it in like this press it down just a little if you can see like the bubble where like some juices come out then that's good enough we've made it the final step before I cure my very own caviar I had no idea how much effort concentration would be required to get here day in day out there's tons of people that are behind this operation but more specifically it takes years just to get to the point of even extracting the caviar let alone all the other things you need so as i s my label I finally understood that truly fine caviar is more than just a price tag I I just made my own caviar I feel like I'm walking into tasting this caviar with a completely different Viewpoint of it and a whole new Found Love of it you did 12 years in a day you did a great job you were Relentless our shoes got wet our socks got wet my jacket got wet but by the end of it I think we gained an appreciation for each other's craft that was incredible thank you so much for doing this for us and showing us literally your whole process you ever decide for a different career path there may be a future here as our Nikolai team opens the door to you Joshua okay it's good to know that there's always a fallback now let's taste some caviar now for the big question we've seen the whole process of caviar but there are more varieties at many different price points than you could possibly imagine that's why I brought in three taste tessers to try four levels of caviar we have Martins the World's Strongest Man from 2019 is he a local college student and Chef Christian is caviar worth it and does it get better the more you spend let's find out the most holistic way to enjoy caviar just purely as it is is to do what is called a bump you put a little dollop on your wrist you suck it off your wrist and you eat it like that that said we instead decided to do it on a chip with a little bit of creme fresh I think it's the easiest way to introduce anyone to caviar as long as the chip is not too salted and not over fried then you end up with really just a crunchy vehicle to then taste the caviar and the creme fresh helps mellow out the flavor of the Chip And you end up with a really nice caviar tasting something that everyone can enjoy have you ever had caviar before I have okay and your thoughts on caviar I like it I love caviar it's nice decent I don't eat it often I don't go to a restaurant and like yo I'm about to drop a bag if it's there and it's offered I'm taking a bump so we have our first timer with caviar which I'm pumped for you to try this is level one we've mixed and matched these they could be high they could be low give it a taste let me know what you think oh I'm excited for this we're thinking creamy I was expecting it to be like a little grittier but that one was like a little more gel smooth like a lot of people would assume fish eggs are fishy this wasn't offensive like it don't like it love it hate it a little underwhelming for my taste I want it to pop I want it to pop I don't mind it it kind of reminds me of like blue cheese interesting interesting not as Briny as I'd like or I'm used to but it's good yeah it's good it's okay it's okay yeah okay since you've never had cavier you may not know where to place your guess on this but how much do you think a 1 oz tin is and give me a guesstimate on the price for that one I want to say that's $55 $60 like $50 because it's not that great I I think it's like $1,000 $11,000 wait let's let's let's start over $7 million just to give an idea for that size the average price is 120 unreal really okay what do you think this one is at would you say it's at 120 lower I think this one's over I just have this Prejudice thinking that the more expensive something is the less interesting it's going to be this is actually the cheapest Cav this is a $72 o tin it is the petan classic duranki I would argue this is the simplest low EST chillest form of caviar nice would you say that this is worth it of my money maybe if someone bought it for me h no I think that's worth it for a first time buyer I wouldn't break the bank okay let's move on to the next round we're on to level two give it a try let me know what you think oh that crunch I heard from here oh that's good now that is good that one tastes a little more salty a little more Briny it's a little bit more on the creamy side I like flavor on the brininess it pops better is it better than the last one yes I like that one a little bit better better than the last one and by how much this was a standard for that first one right there I don't know how much more I gave it so incremental but noticeable yes yeah I think I like the last one better I could get more Umami from it give me your best guess on the price for 1 oce of this if the flavor is salty or more strong I would assume it's more expensive maybe 90 let's go 65 120 strong guest this is the SAR Nikolai Reserve gold standard caviar you'll see it in a lot of restaurants three Mission St restaurants and it comes in at $140 would you say that $140 ounz tin is worth it it is not worth it I like the taste of that one better so that one would be more worth it to me the price is still it's up there up there for someone who enjoys it isn't just looking for a bang for their butt if you want good caviar and you're willing to pay a solid amount this is I would say the gold standard let's move on to the next level we're on to level three give yourself a taste oh oh yeah that's what I was looking for that one tastes more intense such an interesting flavor to describe besides like salty I feel like I'm experiencing the sea right now Oceanic almost Oceanic that's the word one word that comes to mind is sharp like in a crisp way like champagne good level on brininess a hint of bitterness just a hint I like it it's a little gritty like Sandy it's like a solid mix between like a gel and then yeah kind of like sand it's got a bit of Pop to it but it also has got a creaminess to it I like that one that's my favorite so far do you think this one is better or worse than the last one I feel like they're kind of even just as good but not better it's very close to the first one the first one was was very interesting it had almost like a Herby taste to it this one is just like pure classic caviar taste what would you say you think this one is priced at could be higher could be lower H I'm going to guess 150 based on the last one I would say that's like a 90 to 100 range I don't think it's one of the more expensive ones I would give it 90 and this is the petran SAR Imperial hybrid Beluga caviar and it comes at $315 per ounce oh my goodness jeez it's expensive because it's considered the cream of the crop also makes the biggest eggs did you feel like those eggs were bigger it did feel bigger bigger is not always better so now that you know the price is it worth it flavor wise I think the second one I tried had more depth I enjoyed the second one more ooh that one is worth it if I had money ready to spend on delicious food that's the one I would have bought compared to the last one they kind of taste the same to me so I would say not as worth it huge statement you just saved so many people so much money all right we're on to level four oh oh it's more creamy it doesn't have that that pop that the previous one had but it's way more fishy it almost has like a pure taste lean towards more ikura than caviar that one tastes more fishy to me like an ooni like Flavor almost Briny Oceanic I like that it doesn't linger too long like it's just a perfect amount of funk it will smooth the pearls didn't really necessarily pop more so melt I like that would you say this one was better than the last no it's different I can't say it's better but I enjoyed it more I think the previous one's my favorite cuz I love that pop I'm craving that when I think of caviar so I'd say this is my second favorite give me your guess on what this one is price T then the saltiness makes me think it's more expensive I'll just say like 300 I'd be surprised if it was more than 200 because of the intense flavor I'm going to put this one at 200 this is almma albino acetra this is the rarest caviar on Earth because only one albino sturgeon is born out of every 10,000 sturgeon and it comes in at a $445 per ounce 10 wow jeez out of all the ones I've tasted I priced that the most and I I think shows I didn't know it was me that much but it definitely tasted more expensive than the rest of them this is extra special because it comes from Maris caviar's affiliate Farm in Florida it's the only legal American producer of purebred Beluga caviar the most prized style of caviar in the world and now for the last round of deliberation is this caviar worth it as a regular consumer sorry it's not as a minimum wage worker no but if it was offered to me like this yes anything is worth it if it's free yes we then asked each taste tester to rank each level from best to worst the second one is my top third first fourth three four 1 2 in order 4 2 3 1 so in a way the white albino was still up there for you I enjoy The Taste the most but the second one being almost consistent and for that price point I would go for that over and over and it's the only one I think worth its price tag wow that's a banger I love it big thank you to everyone who tastes so what's the result is it worth it to buy caviar and spending more money does it get you better caviar I think the simple answer is there's no real correlation it comes down to the individual's preference so yeah maybe spending a little more gets you a slightly better caviar but even like Martin said the cheaper one he loved but you guys rent is so much more important pay rent first caviar second maybe actually groceries that fill you maybe if it's your first time buying caviar or even if you're a seasoned veteran start small and work your way up love you so much subscribe bye y