Go to the Recipe: Silky Ramen Noodles
Is there a conversion if you already have Kansui, the liquid Koon Chun brand?
Super easy recipe to follow and make. Have a half a batch aging in the fridge for a simple taste test tomorrow.
11-5-25 Boiled up a single serving and added it to warm bowl of a pat of butter and Totole Chicken Soup Base and it was the best Ramen Noodles I have made to date. Hats off to Sho, excellent!
Amazing, glad you like them!
I have made several noodle recipes from Sho and have never been disappointed. They do, however, require a fair amount of time for the repeated rolling. I have found that after the dough is portioned it's easiest for me to use my tortilla press to get the dough thin enough for my Kitchenaid pasta roller. As Sho points out the thickness will vary by machine, but for the final pre-cutting roll I set my roller to #2 for my favorite thickness. Taking a tip from @Ricky Doney I did a taste test, without curing them in my case, using Totole base, some pork fat, a splash of soy and some scallions. The noodles are fantastic. The broth wasn't bad either for 2 minutes. I have made the double stock and will let the rest of the noodles cure for 2 days and then put a bowl together with all the other proper components. Thanks Sho!
Glad you liked them, Al!
Liquid kansui is now widely available - any tips on comparative amounts when compared to sodium and potassium carbonate? Thx!
Found it, in the Chewy Ramen recipe in the archive - should’ve looked first!
Just a follow up post to report that the noodles withstood the test of time in the freezer. After @ 3 months they went into the boiling water as a frozen nest and took 3 minutes to cook. Great recipe, make extra when you try it. Shown here in a quick stock with some leftover tare.
Glad to hear it!
Same question. I've got a bottle of it that I've only used once!
Substitutions can get really tricky but always fun to dive into. I’m assuming you saw Sho’s “Tip: No sodium carbonate? No problem!…..” using baking soda? But I get it, you’re a man on a mission with a bottle of liquid kansaui.
Sho’s ramen is intended to focus on silky and that result is achieved by raising the pH with only sodium carbonate. Raising the pH with both sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate will produce a different texture to Sho’s recipe as he notes. But lets jump in.
So the recipe has 9 g of Sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃). Let’s start comparing it to Liquid kansui.
(NOTE: Because liquid kanji isn’t a brand the rations/numbers will vary between brands used)
Liquid kansaui: Potassium carbonate (K₂CO₃): ~5–10%
Sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃): ~1–5%
Water: 85–94%
Estimated pH: 11.2 to 12.6
Lets now just simply pick numbers so we can step outside of ranges to move closer to answering your question but I’m going to drag you down with me on this journey TOM!
Potassium carbonate (K₂CO₃):8%
Sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃): 2%
Water: 90%
Alright now that we have a breakdown of the bottle lets reformulate to get to a similar pH.
This is how I would look at the current formula:
Total dry (starch/protein): 732 g bread flour + 68 g tapioca = 800 g
Wet: 352 g water(egg; 16 g whole egg is mostly water, so lets just count it as such 368 g
Magic dust (pH modifier) : Sodium carbonate: 9 g = 1.125% of flour/starch weight
(This breakdown seems to put it at roughly~pH 10.4 to 11.0)
So to match a similar alkalinity of 9 g sodium carbonate, you believe you would need 110 g of your 8% (K₂CO₃) / 2% (Na₂CO₃) liquid kansui. To account for the water within the liquid kansui we now need to adjust the hydration.
New formulation:
242 g water
110 g liquid kansui
8 g kosher salt
732 g bread flour
68 g tapioca starch
16 g egg
Again I’m just air chair quarterbacking this and haven’t tested it. Reminder, because more of the alkalinity now comes from potassium carbonate, you will likely get:
I’m sure Sho has some thoughts on what I outlined here though.
Hi Tom! Apologies for the belated reply. I see you found the Chewy Ramen recipe, and that was what I was going to suggest.
I have avoided recipe development with liquid kansui simply because I've never found reliable information about the concentrations of potassium and sodium carbonate in Kun Choon brand (which is the one that is most common here in local markets)., so I have just used those alkaline salts to make my own kansui. Since small changes in amounts yield drastically different effects specifically in ramen noodle recipes, I can't comfortably say what a substitution amount would be for THIS recipe without doing some extra testing. I know that's not the most helpful answer, but there it is!
