The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

is, its propensity to evaporate quickly) would cause it to
jump out of the batter faster as it fried, allowing the batter to
dehydrate more quickly and thus brown faster and also crisp
up better. At that task, it serves admirably. If you add
alcohol to your batter, it dries out faster than if you just use
water. Indeed, increasing the alcohol content by, say,
adding a shot or two of 80-proof vodka in place of some of
the beer can accelerate this process significantly, resulting in
a lighter, crisper coating.
There’s an even more important factor it brings to the
table: limiting gluten development. Gluten will develop in
the presence of water, but not alcohol. Replacing part of the
liquid in a batter with alcohol will allow you to achieve a
batter with the exact same texture when raw but with
significantly less gluten development, leading to crisper
structure when fried.
I experimented using a few different coating methods—
flouring before battering, battering the fish straight up, etc. I
found that the most effective method, the one that resulted
in the best balance between crispness and lightness, was to
give the fish a quick coat in the flour mixture, followed by a
dip in the batter, and then a second dip into the flour before
lowering it into the fryer.
I admit, the method is not the neatest. You’re going to
end up breading your hands, and once the fish has come out
of the drippy batter and back into the flour, it’s important to
work fast before the coating all starts to drip off. I find the
easiest method is to drop the battered fish into the flour,
throw some more flour on top to coat, and then pick it up by
scooping under it and tossing it back and forth between