Cheese + sodium citrate

I've been trying to make those cheese slices, but for the 4th time I failed.

I used e recipe from MCAH but it just doesnt't work for me. The whole thing is emulsified but the taste is incredibly sour from the sodium citrate and the texture is very grainy.

I really don't know what's happening here... I'm doing it jus like a mayo... But every time I get e same result.

I bought my sodium citrate from a website here in Brazil which sells modernist ingredients. Is it possible to be another kind of it or something else?

Thank you!

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Brendan_Lee_56950

I just made that recipe tonight and it turned out just fine. What kind of cheese did you use? And did you use an immersion blender to mix the cheese? I found that whisking alone isn't enough in a lot of cases. I used an aged cheddar and smoked gouda today but as @chris mentioned in another post, the really old cheeses are tough to emulsify and if the pH drops below 3 it won't work at all.

Chris_Young_80640

Are you sure you got sodium citrate and not citric acid?

I'm actually not familiar with the MCAH cheese slice recipe and I'm traveling so I can't got look at the book.

Brendan_Lee_56950

It calls for 7% sodium citrate and I think 57.5% beer and a mix of chedder and gouda. No carageenan like the MC recipe.

Chris_Young_80640

Wow, that must be a typo in the book. 7% is crazy high. 0.7% would make sense. I would not add the beer until after melting the cheese. My method would be dissolve the citrate in a small amount of water, then melt a little bit of gouda at a time, and then start adding the cheddar until it's melted. I would then adjust the consistency with the beer once the emulsion is formed.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I guess that explains why I had to add honey to the mix to tame the bitterness. I dissolved the citrate in the beer and then slowly added in the two cheeses a bit at a time, stopping to hit it with the stick blender and then really blended it well afterwards.

Brendan_Lee_56950

But even the mac and cheese recipe from MC calls for 4% that's a big difference between 0.7% and 4-5%

prince_of_porcelain

Careful there on the percentages. 7% is the scaled percentage, not an overall. For the cheese slice, it's 7% Sodium Citrate, 57.5% Beer, 100% Gruyere, and 90% Cheddar. Actual % Sodium Citrate of the total is only 2.7% of the total. I can't speak to whether that's too much or not, but a little more reasonable than 7%.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Yup, your right, I was pulling that first one from memory.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

So you are basically lying, goddamn canadians.....

prince_of_porcelain

@Brendan - That's a hell of a pull. You were right on with 57.5%. My MC@H book was sitting next to the computer, so I didn't have to go anywhere to look it up.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Well I made the recipe last night so I read it a few times.

Brendan_Lee_56950

And dont get me started on you swedes @johan!

Johan_Edstrom_5586

@Brendan - Hahahaha

Just showed the wife your candle (that came out wrong).

Brendan_Lee_56950

haha yes, yes it did.

polkachef74

@duda - use the following website http://modernistcuisine.com/2012/10/melty-cheese/ you input the mass of cheese you are going to use and the mass of liquid. The calculator will tell you how much sodium citrate to use. You can play with the amount of liquid a bit. I've done this several times and works perfectly every time.

Brendan_Lee_56950

well i'll be damned, I never noticed that was there. Very useful.

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Keith thanks for pointing that out, its going to be very useful! My sodium citrate is to be delivered either Thursday or Friday. @Brendan, I missed that the first time through as well, I wonder if it was recently added ...

Brendan_Lee_56950

and it's downloadable so that's definitely going in my cooking resource folder!