Spherification Course Questions

Have any questions on the Spherification Course? Have them answered here!

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

How warm can we typically serve sphere's? Or better put, what are the effects of temperature on the skin of the sphere?

Also, for the frozen reverse spherification module, you specify 2% calcium lactate gluconate. I'm guessing you have added 2% because of the low calcium %age of the gluconate. If I were to be using just calcium lactate should I adjust the percentage used? How sensitive is the gellation to calcium levels when we are dealing with a difference of 9% vs 18%?

Chris_Young_80640

@Brendan_Lee

(1) Alginate can be served quite warm since it is thermo-irreversible. But one should keep in mind how heating will change the flavor of the liquid, and that heating will weaken the membrane and can alter the texture.

(2) If using calcium lactate, you can double the amount used relative to calcium lactate gluconate to get about the same calcium ion concentration, which is what you really care about.

(3) In general, you have more than enough calcium to trigger gelling, so up to a point the actual concentration isn't too critical. But, in the extreme, if you don't have enough calcium you tend to get difficulty getting the spheres to gel before the liquid just kind of diffuses into the surrounding bath.

avisharb

I may have not been paying proper attention, but I didn't see any mention of function of the Xanthan gum. Is it merely for mouthfeel/viscosity of the liquid, or does it have an effect on the formation of the spheres themselves? I've always added .0015% to thinner liquids, but would like to know why, so I can learn and adjust in other circumstances! In addition, do you have any tips or advice on Gellan encapsulation (making a bath with .5% LA Gellan and .05% SHMP)? I like the flavor release and ruggedness of the Gellan bath method when it works, I just have had issues with the forming of actual spheres sometimes!

Chris_Young_80640

@Avishar — The xanthan gum is to adjust the viscosity of the liquid to the desired mouthfeel. We recommend between 0.001% and 0.05% as typical ranges for thin liquids. Higher concentrations tend to be a bit gloopy and we other thickening strategies would be better in those cases.

Gellan can be used very much like alginate, but is far less forgiving of free calcium in the liquid and the pH. Generally, 0.25% to 0.5% Kelcogel F in place of alginate. For reverse and frozen-reverse, I recommend working only with distilled water, and it still may be necessary to add 0.05% SHMP to prevent premature gelation. For direct spherification, you will need to experiment to find the right concentration of sequesterant to prevent premature gelation.

In general, avoid trying to use Gellan much below a pH of 3.0.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

And I have a bunch of pictures confirming what @Chris just said -

I only had gellan at home so I used this. -

http://blog.ideasinfood.com/ideas_in_food/2012/03/encapsulated-balsamic-vinegar.html

I also halfway in realized that I spaced the acidity, something that comes natural when you use fruits

and do coulis.

I also didn't have distilled water, so another fail.

You essentially end up with a lot of stuff to clean

"Failure, when your best isn't good enough"

We can only (hopefully) learn from our failures

Johan_Edstrom_5586

As for the Gellation @Chris is talking about, you basically end up with a bowl of what looks like

if you pureed shrimp...

Chris_Young_80640

@Johan — Thanks for the fail share.

As someone who has failed at this in all kinds of ways over the years, I can commiserate. But this is how we learn, right?

Johan_Edstrom_5586

@Chris - that is why I wanted to share

What I do for a living (Programmer) is really about sharing the fastest way to fail, did I get the reasons for this fail right?

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Oh, and on that note, I think we learn much more from studying failures than we do success

I'm already in love with this course, it is way more far reaching than anything I previously found.

Thanks Chefsteps!

Brendan_Lee_56950

Speaking of learning from failures, here's my fail of the week. Don't wash razor sharp knives haphazardly.

Brendan_Lee_56950

FAIL!

avisharb

Thanks very much for the quick replies guys. I appreciate you taking the time to do the course and troubleshoot; spherification has been one of the tougher techniques for us to get to work consistently when trying to create our own ideas! Now that I understand why some liquids don't sink and the role of the xanthan I think we'll have better results! The oil storage tip from the course definitely made me hit my forehead and will make service a lot easier! The acidity is probably one of the problems I was having earlier; the other was that I kept getting kidney bean shaped encapsulations, but I think it was just bad technique, perhaps trying a frozen reverse can provide more consistent results! We did this one as a throwback to Buffalo chicken, with the blue cheese dressing as a gellan encapsulation.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

@Avishar, that is gorgeous!

prince_of_porcelain

Looking forward to working through this class. I've attempted spherification in the past, with generally poor results. Hopefully this is just what I need.

Chris_Young_80640

@Johan — Your reasoning seems about right to me.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

@Chris, thanks - Since I first tried that Idea's in food post what now seems like decades ago. I'm even more happy about the class.

avisharb

@Johan, thanks! It only took about 20 tries, 4 different types of spoons, countless gellan baths, discovery of 15 new expletives, and a few gallons of distilled water to finally get it going passably. Luckily, my hunch that I had put enough dairy into the dressing to provide calcium worked. The first time I messed with the Gellan F encapsulation I actually tried the Celery Root Encapsulation that Ideas in Food has in their book and it worked fairly well! A few failures after and post taking this course I am ready to try again! I can't seem to find a dedicated pictures thread or section so I hope its ok if I post a result here! Here is a rendition of cheesecake, blueberry, and a Chambord spiked cherry sphere.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

I'd like to invent a new expletive. The closest I've gotten is stealing "holy crikey" from a friend.

andrea.feldman

@Avishar, what a beautiful plate! Swoony. (And I bet it tasted as good as it looked!)

Brendan_Lee_56950

Looking at this recipe here www.starchefs.com/events/studio/techniques/brian_mccracken_dana_tough/html/index.shtml

The sphere's are very "perky", for lack of a better word, and less flat and coin shaped. How does one go about augmenting the shape of some of these sphere's? Does frozen reverse spherification work better for making circular sphere's that will stand on their own like that?

Edit: seems like a lot of recipes I have seen that have different shapes call for different encapsulation methods such as carageenan, it seems as though these hydrocolloids make more rigid gels?

Dan_Gregory_63559

Your Spherification course states that "Pine is a surprisingly delicious Pacific Northwest flavor. In the early spring, you can collect the buds from pine trees and use them to make extracts and syrups. We use an essential oil in this recipe because it is a great product that is easy to find." Step 4 of your 'Pine Spheres' recipe calls for the addition of "Balsam Fir essential oil", not Pine essential oil. Please note that the genus Pinus and the genus Picea are two different critters. Pine essential oil, although consumable, can cause skin and gastrointestinal irritation & is used primarily as a disinfectant and in aroma therapy On the other hand, Spruce has been used for years in beer brewing, Spruce Beer; soft drink making, Spruce-Beer (similar to root beer in taste), and Spruce Gum, by utilizing the resins of Spruce trees. There are, no doubt, others but I've not encountered them, yet. You might want to rethink encouraging folks to incorporate Pinus into recipes although 'Fir Spheres" does sound the slightest bit like something that would give one cotton-mouth.

grant

@ Dan

You are correct, they are different. We do use both fir tips and pine tips in food and drink. The oil is not pine oil but fir oil. We did in fact chose the name pine sphere over several other options because it is evocative of what it is and delicious sounding.

jim_53915

At what temperature would you recommend heating a reverse sphere of heirloom tomato soup? I would like to make it hot enough to serve to guests as a passed appetizer but yet not burn them.

Chris_Young_80640

@Jim — I recommend around 60 to 65 °C for the soup. That's a pleasant temperature that won't burn anyones mouth.

jim_53915

thanks @Chris I'll make sure to post pictures when completed

piotr.janetomski.pl

I am trying to recreate all steps from the course but I have problems to remove air from my flavorful liquid ( step 3 - Remove any air ).
I have mixed everything ( Red beet + Balsamic vinegar + Xanthan gum + Calcium lactate + Salt ) with hand blender and put into the fridge.
After 30 hours I still have very small air bubbles. There is any techniques to remove those air bubbles out ?

Alginate bath is Ok but I am worried about flavorful liquid.

Any suggestions?

Brendan_Lee_56950

Try straining it through a fine mesh sieve slowly

Chris_Young_80640

@Piotr — Yes, a sieve is a good bet. Next time, add the xanthan gum after letting the air escape. Thickening the liquid makes it much more difficult to get the air bubbles out.

piotr.janetomski.pl

Thanks @Brendan & @Chris , I'll do that

jim_53915

I have finally completed the recipe for my chicken noodle soup sphere. I used the reverse specification technique.

500g soup broth, 15g calcium lactate, minced carrot, celery, onion, & chicken.

Chicken breast was cooked 90 min @ 65C with butter, EVO, peppercorns, lemon thyme, savory, rosemary, and Sage.

Vegetables were blanched in chicken soup broth.

I filled the molds half way with liquid, then placed in freezer. Once frozen I placed diced chicken and vegetables in mold, returning to freezer to set the liquid. Then filled the mold completely with liquid.

I made an alginate bath and brought to 125F (about 10 min in microwave) and dropped in spheres. Left in for approximately 1-2 minutes.

Heated in water bath to 140F for 3-4 min. (Also heated in microwave inside Chinese spoon for 10 seconds brings sphere temp up to 140-150F depending on placement in microwave, yes they do explode if they are heated more than 10 seconds....)

Below are step by step photographs detailing the steps and progress.

This is a side by side comparison of left sphere thickened with .2% Xanthan Gum vs. Right sphere no thickening. I preferred the xanthan sphere for the mouth feel, but ultimately liked the right sphere because it showed more detail of the chicken and vegetables. Still was not clear enough to see the alphabet noodles I put in there though.