What are the procedures for holding spheres for restaurant service?

How should I hold?
How long can it hold?
What temp is best?

I saw herer that Chris says it is difficult in a reaturant setting:

http://forum.chefsteps.com/discussion/522/oil-spherification#latest

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Comments

Chris_Young_80640

@Brandon — Reverse or direct spheres? Direct will go solid after several minutes, so if you're goal is to serve small spheres with a liquid center, then those will need to be prepared to order. Reverse spheres can be held for days if they are stored in either oil or in the same flavorful liquid they're made from. The reason to do this is to prevent osmosis from diluting their flavor.

If you were to store reverse spheres in water for very long, the water would flow into the spheres—through the gelled membrane—and small, flavorful molecules would flow out into the water in an attempt to create an equilibrium between what's in the spheres and the surrounding water. If you store in oil, then no such flow can occur since oil and water don't mix. And if you store in the flavorful liquid, then what's inside and outside are the same and, again, no flow occurs.

jim_53915

I made reverse soy sauce caviar spheres a few months back and they held under refrigeration in soy sauce for 3 days then popped and or melted. I'm not sure why they broke down but I was assuming it was something with the sodium content of the soy sauce.

Thai Coconut braised scallops, soy sauce caviar, over Asian vegetable soba noodles

Chris_Young_80640

Yes, the salt in the sodium ions will destabilize the gel over time by replacing some of the calcium ions in the gel. When this happens, the gel gets weaker.

jim_53915

thanks @Chris would there be any way to prevent this from happening?

Chris_Young_80640

@jim — Do you mean prevent the sodium in the soy sauce from causing problems during holding? Hmmm, not entirely sure. If you add calcium salt to the soy sauce, you might actually establish an equilibrium and have calcium replacing sodium as often as sodium replaces calcium. But, honestly, not sure.

Jayson_Malla_71078

How would you do the spheres in a bqt setting? How far in advance can I prep?

Chris_Young_80640

@chefjmalla — We've prepared reverse and frozen-reverse spheres over a week in advance and stored them in the same flavorful liquid they're made from. A quick rinse before service is all they need.

Cory_Spencer__27397

@jim just curious what your formula for the Soy Sauce caviar was?

jim_53915

@cory_spencer Total weight of soy sauce x 3% calcium lactate for the soy sauce base liquid. For example 100 grams soy sauce x .003 (3%) would be .3 grams calcium lactate added to the soy sauce. For the alginate bath I did .5% alginate in water. Let me know if I explained it well enough for you to replicate.