Go to the Recipe: Beet Fluid Gel
I love these blini's. Thanks for this recipe set. I am really excited to try the gel thing. I dined at WD-50 last week and they must have had 15 different gels incorporated into the 11 course meal. Oh so many questions:1. Are you suggesting that we can make other fruit or vegetable gels using these same basic ratios?2. I found something in Kalustyan's (where they sell many modernist ingredients in small quantities for great prices) called "gellan gum". What is the difference between this and your "low acyl gellan"? 3. Can I substitute this gellan gum? 4. Finally, I have a VP112. Do you think it is good enough to perform step 9 with?
This looks like it has the same viscosity and texture of the difficult-to-replicate Heinz ketchup. Can tomatoes be substituted for beets?
- originally posted by Aristodemus
Yes, you can prepare a fluid gel with tomato juice.
Thanks Merridth!1. Yes you can, 1% Low acyl to the weight of your liquid is a great starting point. Inhibitors of hydration though are pH below 3.9 and the presents of sodium/calcium salts. 2. To be honest Merridith I have no idea what is actually in that bag. The gellan gums that we use are high acyl and low acyl. High acyl produces a soft, elastic non brittle gel were as low acyle forms brittle, non elastic gels. It may be a combination of both. 3. What I recommend doing is just buy some juice and try it out.4. Yes A VP112 should work great.Hope this helps, good luck!
If carrot is used in this recipe, should balsamic vinegar be used still or the latter will affect the final colour ?
looks beautiful. does the liquid have to stay at 95 degrees for a certain period of time? or once it hits a boil it is good-to-go?
I've made fluid gels with agar, the process is exactly the same, is there a benefit of using gellan over agar? and is the addition of xantham to prevent syneresis or does it affect texture?
It will affect the color, but not necessarily in a bad way. I would give it a try.
So long as you actually reach 95 °C or higher, you'll be okay. So, yes, you could bring it to a simmer and call it good.
Gellan tends to have much better flavor release compared to agar, and we prefer the mouthfeel of gellan over agar. But if agar is what you have, then use that, it will work. Xanthan tends to help with syneresis, but also just gives it a bit of a different flowing texture that we like over a pure fluid-gel in this case.
Hey Chris Young, I attempted to make a fluid gel recently with tomato water and agar. I hydrated the agar into half of the tomato water and combined, set in a mold and into the fridge. Instead of using your technique here of chilling and mixing over an ice bowl, what I ended up from the fridge was a solid slab of tomato jelly.When I subsequently blended it, the jelly was dry and couldnt blend well, and would only become a fluid gel with the addition of some water. Was I doing it wrong?
This technique with agar is one of my favorites. I would recommend trying to dice the gel that has formed prior to the prior blend. My (limited) experience is this reduces the amount of agitation necessary. Chris Young thank you for he commentary on Gellan. I hadn't heard or read about the difference in mouthfeel and up to now, didn't know why some prefer the gellan. Will give it a try to see if I notice the difference in mouth-feel and flow. so many mini-experiments. :-) Thanks again.
Try reducing the amount of agar is one suggestion. But I often force the solid jelly through a sieve rather than try to blend it.
You're welcome. Interested to see how you like the results from gellan.
Is there a reason to sieve the juice if you're just going to end up sieving the fluid gel?
It depends on how much pulp is in your juice. If there is a lot, I would recommend sieving the juice. It will make your life easier when you go to sieve the fluid gel.
Thanks Chris Young ! Really helpful! Love the great work on this site. It's the biggest influence and inspiration on my cooking.
Is there any reason you couldn't use gelatin sheets after the liquid has been boiled and comes down to a lower temperature that would only melt the gelatin rather than cook it? If it's going to be served cold anyway I assume it's possible, but would like to know the temperature at which to add it, and the difference, if any, in mouthfeel or flavor.
You need to get the gelatin above about 40 °C for a while to fully melt the gelatin. But you can make it work the way you describe.
Try charging some of the beet gel in a siphon (2 charge), you'll end up with a beautiful red hue.
- originally posted by Pepijn
What options do I have if I don't own a juicer. I own a chamber vac but no juicer yet. Any thoughts?
any thoughts on how to keep an asparagus fluid gel green?(citric acid)?
Ascorbic acid and blanch then chip very fast.
Also, sodium benzoate or bisulfate at .1%
What happens if I use High Acyl Gellan in this recipe? Would I be better off using Agar Agar?
any way of removing some air if you do not own a vacuum chamber
Hi Chris, Finally got around to trying this today (late I know). I was very impressed with the luxurious texture. Not that agar is bad by any means, but it simply does not have the same......luxurious mouthfeel at all. Wow. I am impressed with the difference Thank you again. Will play with adding to it to create a mousse as well.
Tapping, resting, tamis.
How important is the Sieve size? I'm just starting to experiment and I can't quite justify several hundred dollars in several sieve sizes. Would a #80 work well for most of these applications? If not, what should be the 'first' tamis to buy? Thanks!
Hi There!
I scaled the recipe carefully and followed instructions, but my gel turned out somewhat dry and course. I reblended, adding an additional 70g of beet juice, which improved the quality immensely. I wonder where I went wrong. I checked and double checked each scaling to be sure. I've made a lot of agar gels, but never used Kelcogel F until today. I brought it to around 209 F before I pulled it, but didn't think that would have a hug impact. Any ideas? I should note that the 15 beets I juiced, ranging from golf ball to 1/2 pounders, yielded approx 750g of juice.
I used 400g pomegranate juice, 4 g Kelcogen F, 4 g sugar and .4 g xanthan gum, heated to 203 degrees. When reheated, the gel loses its shape, but is still thick. Is that what's supposed to happen? Trying to understand hot applications for this.
how much agar should i use if im using that in place of gellan?
I made this yesterday and it came out perfect! In the ingredients you say 15 beets but I got more than 400 ml with just 5 beets.
Can you juice cooked beets? Would love to use this with a beet dish where there is some beet trimming taking place after they roast (easier to cut). I wonder if the turnout is similar.
yeah beet size can vary a lot. here in Germany they come in sizes from golfball to softball.
Yes, I love to juice a roasted beet. Gives it a mild smoked flavor.
Why not just use ultra?
Why not use ultratex?
Blend and pectinase?
Would popping it in a siphon, charging it & then clearing the charge also work?
I don't have a # 120, can I use a # 200 sieve instead?
As my garden comes in to the end of fall, I have a lot (I mean probably 1,000 each) of different colored beets and carrots that I need to prepare for storage. Everything can not be pickles...I am thinking of juicing a lot of them and putting them in vacuum bags and freezing them. If I do this, can I then thaw the juice and proceed with the recipes for fluid gels, risottos, etc? Thanks.
Hi, I was wondering if I'm trying to replace the gellan gum with agar-agar, will the consistency be the same? Will there be any difference in procedure? And lastly, will the ratio of liquid to agar-agar be the same as to gellan and water? Thank you!
@Claudia Gaby You're going to want about 0.5% to 2.0% agar to fluid. procedure is just about identical. consistency would be just about identical.
Someone got a nice idea how to combine kohlrabi juice to get a nice tasty result? And is it necessary to add some color stabilising nutrition when using kohlrabi? Thanks in Advance
Hi there,
I am planning on making a sweet raspberry fluid gel but I am confused as to what people mean when they say base liquid. Is this just the flavoured liquid you are gelling or does sugar count as base liquid also?
Thankyou!!
It's possible you lost more liquid to evaporation than they did. LAGG is really powerful stuff, so the texture could easily firm up if left heating for too long.
Can I use bottled beet juice (Biota 100% beet juice lactose-fermented) instead of doing my own? Don't have a powerful juicer and this approach seems much easier.
sure can
can i use agar in place the kelcogel?
Can I use the same quantity of low acyl gellan gum instead
of the high acyl?
Sorry Barbara, but they react in very different ways and are not swappable. And to clarify, this activity is asking you to use the low acyl glean not the high. low acyl creates a more brittle brick that can be sheared into a fluid Gell, high will result in more of a gelatin type brick that will not blend to a nice fluid gel.
I tried this recipe with 1:1 LT100 Gellan Gum. It never got very liquidy after blending. It still had a brittle gelatinous texture. Perhaps using less LT100 might work?
You should be good at 1% of the total weight.
