kleinebre

dcarch: Absolutely. If you watch the masters at work (youtube is your friend), you'll also notice that they twist the strands during pulls, no doubt so the stronger strands help support the weaker ones. Will: The packaging of the 00 flour I've been using in my last efforts (Sainsbury's "taste the difference") states an overall protein content of 11.5%. That's a bit lower than the Allison 12.1% strong bread flour I've used before or the Very Strong 14% canadian flour I tried at some point. As it happens, yesterday I also tried Sainsbury's mid-range "plain flour" (9.4%) but the results were poor. I may well try 12+% flours again as well. By now (try 22) I've tried adding a bit of salt to the dough mix, by the way (mixed into the water). I'm not noticing much of a difference with or without, though online documentation supports the idea that it should have an impact on the visco-elastic properties of the dough. I still need to do an actual side-by-side comparison for an objective verdict on that. I would say that my biggest hurdle at this moment is getting the dough to relax more. After it has rested, it is less elastic and that helps pulling it, but I can't yet seem to get the dough to relax enough to permit several pulls in a row. I'm looking to maintain dough strength while decreasing its elasticity; The Progressive Baker (http://www.progressivebaker.com/tips_tools/balancing_elasticity.html) suggests starting with an autolyse (in other words, after mixing water and flour, I should be more patient and not start kneading straight away).

"and you need a little salt" - Noted. I'll do a side-by-side for that as well next time. Currently I've tried to reproduce yesterday's success and it's looking promising. Made another regular stretchy water-and-tipo-00-flour dough like you would for bread. No exact proportions; just a regular, slightly on the wet side, elastic dough. Once I had a ball of elastic dough, I proceeded with more vigorous kneading (rolling and folding the dough as I go to align the gluten and press the gluten strands into each other); Then cut the batch in half, rolled the batch into two thinnish logs and wet my fingertips with lye water, which I rubbed onto 1 log. Joined together the logs again (spiraled into each other) and followed this up with more vigorous kneading (same rolling and folding method as before, once again to align the gluten strands). At some point I could stretch the dough to nearly the width of my workspace without breaking (which, by the way, isn't all that much, about 40 cm/16 inch). Waited a few minutes, and stretched the same length to almost twice as long, once again without breaking. Where I'm standing now is that I need to get the feel for stretching. I've noticed that there is a point in each pull where the dough will stiffen and stress/pull back, much like a rubber band that has stretched as far as it will go. If I pull further at that point, the strand(s) will break. If I put down the strands and wait a bit, I can then stretch the dough further, to nearly twice the length, without breaking (probably depending partially on how long the dough rests. This stiffening of the dough when stretched reminds me a bit of a slow version of a "non-Newtonian" water-with-cornstarch mix, which would also explain why the strands stay nice and regular in thickness: Only dough that hasn't firmed up yet will readily stretch further. When I say the dough needs to relax for a bit before the next pull, at the moment "a bit" is about a minute. Never mind it's not as fast as the masters. I'm glad I'm managing this to any degree at all. I'm currently at 16 strands, two more pulls and I'm officially there (and from then on it's 10 more years of practice before I can do it properly But at long last (today was try 20 if I'm not mistaken) I'm getting confident enough in reaching the goal, that I can finally consider dusting my workspace with dry flour to keep the strands separated. Up next - salt.

I pretty much had it so I started doing some side-by-side comparisons. Bit of an unexpected result so I thought I'd share. Started out with a cup of 00 flour and enough warm water to permit it to be kneaded. Nothing fancy so far. After kneading pretty vigoriously (but with plenty of spring in the dough left), I then split the batch in two equal parts, added a sprinkle of lye water to one batch but not to the other. Then stretched until breaking point. There didn't seem to be much of a difference in the combined length of both breaking points; in fact the version treated with lye water seemed to stretch a bit less. Note: Room all at room temperature, 21 degrees C. I proceeded to cut both batches in half and combined them so both batches would have the same consistency again, kneaded both of them vigorously, alternating between batches. Rolled both batches to two-palms wide and about the same thickness. Now confirmed that they stretched about equally before breaking. Next, I rolled both batches to the same width and thickness again. Then I vigorously kneaded one of the two batches while leaving the other. I repeated the stretch test. The dough that had been resting was much softer and stretched a LOT further in the first single pull than the un-rested dough. I rolled the dough back up, then did a pull to the point where I could feel the dough start to resist and put it down before it broke. Repeated this with the other roll as well. I then returned to the first single-pulled roll and found that after it had rested for a short while, I could stretch it much further, still without breaking. Managed to repeat this to third pull. Still using nothing but water, 00 flour and lye water at this point. Other than that, key seems to be to relax the dough between pulls. If you feel the dough pull back, stop pulling. Looks like high gluten flour is the way to go after all. Ader: You're on to something. Dough relaxer you say? http://whatscookingamerica.net/Q-A/DoughRelaxer.htm

Ader: I will give that a go. Meanwhile today I dropped by in London and of course couldn't miss a visit to Noodle Oodle (106 Queensway- apparently the other branch has closed). They sure make it look so easy I nearly dropped to my knees, exclaiming, "I'm not worthy!". To my good fortune, the Master Noodle Puller was more or less approachable, so to once and for all have certainty, I asked about the flour they use (high gluten vs. low gluten?), they answered "Tipo 00" with an additive "like yeast" (which I take is our often-mentioned alkali). I also happened to be lucky enough to witness them carrying in yellow/white bags of flour; only managed a glance, but by that glance it might well have been (warning! wild speculation ahead!) Eurostar '00' yellow. Not entirely unimportant is that they also happened to be the nicest noodles I've ever had. I sure need just that extra bit of motivation to try again.

Produced a video by now as well. Enjoy.

Candy floss/cotton candy has been my project for this february 2013 and I dare say it was quite successful. The picture below was my very first attempt, and frankly one of my LEAST successful attempts: And this is my "amazing" (ahem) candy floss maker: You're seeing it right... It's nothing more than a 10 cm diameter candy can with a bunch of holes in the side on the bottom. I'm pretty certain you don't need to drill quite that many holes. This took me about an hour with a rotary tool, after which I sanded down the inside and outside to get rid of the sharp edges and to make sure the melted sugar has free flow out of the can. The rotary tool itself, by the way, cost me 10 pounds when I bought it, long before I ever thought of making candy floss. You may already have one around. The spindle in the middle is a dremel mandrel (part number 402). In this very first try I used an 1.6 mm drill bit. Basic method: Set up a bowl or bucket to trap the candy floss. Set up the rotary tool with home-made candy floss attachment. SLOWLY melt sugar (plain sucrose) on the hub while stirring. Once melting starts, optionally add crushed candy of your choosing for flavouring and proceed until just liquid. Add food colouring as desired. Hold spinning rotary tool in the bottom of a clean, deep bowl or bucket and gently pour molten sugar into the spinning drum while slowly lifting the contraption. Benefits of making candy floss this way: - Contraption is essentially cost-free, unless you still need to go out and buy each and every part, in which case it should cost you under 15 pounds all in. - Considerably better results than "hand spun" sugar - Works better and costs less efforts to put together than most home-brew candy floss makers - Contraption won't take up huge amounts of cupboard space Drawbacks: Just the floss, no cones or sticks. Since both your hands are busy (one holding a rotary tool, one pouring hot sugar) you won't be able to collect candy floss as it's being produced. After each batch you'll have to clean the attachment. Notes: - Just sugar works fine, sugar mixed with candy seems a bit more viscose and works better. Pure candy may be too viscose and will clog up the holes. - Apparently sugar doesn't melt but decomposes; word is that when heated slowly, it decomposes/melts at lower temperatures than when heated quickly (I haven't measured this). I did find that slowly heated sugar gave for a more uniform texture of the candy floss, and also found that it helped me prevent that burnt caramel flavour that I got on my first try. - After use the holes of the candy floss attachment will be clogged. Simply immerse in hot water for cleaning. - You'll be able to reuse it many times, so the 1-hour attachment making is a one time effort. - My rotary tool is advertised as 12000 rpm. However it will slow down as soon as sugar is poured into the spinning drum. Yield varies depending on speed. The highest speeds don't necessarily give the highest yield. Wikipedia says that commercial machines spin at 3450 rpm. - I've tried maltodextrin (not exactly sure what kind-- years ago since I bought it, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't tapioca). It didn't work quite right. I tried heating it with a tiny bit of water to make a very heavy syrup but the texture reminded more of corn starch than of syrup. I read somewhere that when heated, it will char before it melts, YMMV. Oh, and by the way. I've also tried making candy floss attachment using a paper cup, punctured with a needle. This only takes about ten minutes instead of an hour, but is NOT RECOMMENDED for various reasons. The hot glue might not withstand the temperatures of molten sugar. In my case, it did... and I even managed to make a small amount of candy floss this way. HOWEVER the shape of the cup makes the boiling sugar creep up the sides of the cup, which knocks the cup off-balance and you'll have boiling sugar splattering around. (Don't try this at home: I did so you don't have to). As for what peanutgirl said earlier in this thread: "To make anything more than a toothpick full of cotton candy, you will need a fullsize cotton candy machine. The toy ones won't cut it... although they are the most inexpensive way to go." I'd argue otherwise.

I won't claim I can make hand-pulled noodles just yet, but the above did give me the best result I managed so far. Equal amounts of water and strong (12.1% protein) flour by weight still yielded a too wet dough, so I had to add more flour. I let the dough rest at room temperature overnight, then placed it in the fridge for the rest of the day (about 12 hours) before I could get back to it. After kneading the rested dough vigorously (as well as pulling and twirling), this did result in a stretchable dough which allowed stretching well beyond the first pull, once the dough came back to room temperature. Moreover, the dough resulting from this method seemed to stretch relatively evenly. So it seems this is the right direction, at last, and the rest is just due to my poor pulling technique. I should probably note that I did add a little bit of bicarbonate of soda to the flour/water mix.

No further successes here, but Ader1: You may be on to something. Here's a pizza recipe just posted by Kenji from the Food lab (bear with me): http://slice.serious...-pan-pizza.html What does this have to do with hand-pulled noodles? Well, he writes: "With kneading, your goal is to first work these proteins until they untangle a bit, then to rub them against each other until they link up, forming a solid chain-link fence. It's this gluten matrix that allows your dough to be stretched without breaking, and what allows it to hold nice big air bubbles inside." He continues, "flour naturally contains enzymes that will break down large proteins into smaller ones. Imagine them as teeny-tiny wire cutter that cut those jumbled up balls of wire into shorter pieces. The shorter the pieces are, they easier it is to untangle them, and the easier it is to then align them and link them up into a good, strong network." Why does this pizza recipe matter: - It's consistent with using both a high-protein flour and (optionally) an alkali, rather than a low-protein flour. - Stretchiness and aligned gluten protein is what we're looking for in hand-stretched noodles. With all information we've collected previously, this suggests: - Making a wet dough (strong flour, twice the water, target 30°C); EDIT: Twice the water is probably over the top - I'll try with roughly equal amounts by weight. - Let it rest well, at room temperature (note: this introduces a season-dependent factor as room temperature varies) - Thoroughly kneading, twirling, etc. the dough, AFTER resting. Try 15, here I come.

I asked my friend in China this who asked this guy running a noodle restaurant. This is what he said in reply: "Penghui has very strong corrosivity,if add Peng Hui to the water when making the dough at the beginning,it a long time between finish making the dough and use dough to make noodle ,Penghui's corrosion can take gluten cut very short,the dough will become very soft,you know,then soft dough is very difficult to make noodle,so when the customer come in, do noodles add Penghui is right time. " Okay, I almost understood that. I'm starting to feel some proper scientific experimenting or at the very least a systematic approach is in order. Preparing dough with varying amounts of alkali and measuring what stretches best; Preparing dough with equal amounts of alkali, and see which amount of time yields the best result after different amounts of time; Trying different kinds of flour to see what gluten starting percentage gives the best results. If I'm bored during the holidays, I might spend a few days just to draw up a small table with the results. Will: Yes, I did mean dcarch.

Yes, I have seen those videos and the site as well. The main problem is that that the specific kinds of flour that Luke uses aren't for sale here, so ultimately it was down to coming up with a recipe of my own. Will: With regards to sodium hydroxide / potassium hydroxide mentioned above... Those will be neutralized nicely into salt and water by stomach acid (NaOH+HCl -> NaCl + H2O and likewise KOH+HCl -> KCl+H2O), so in small enough doses nothing at all to worry about. DCarch: Notice that the fellow with the red kitchenaid in the video above (okay, I've got to be more specific... The one with the glasses. I mean, not the Oriental guy) uses Luke R's noodle dough recipe. Andrew: Looking good! The most successful try I had so far was definitely pulling alone as well - just on a tabletop. Less chance of breaking that way.

I'd be interested in seeing that list as well as how you're getting on. I've cooked for more than a few years but this is by far the most frustrating/difficult thing I've come across until now. If my experience with this is any indication for what others are going through, many of us are stuck not so much at the quality and authenticity of the noodles, but at finding a dough recipe that works well enough in the first place to get past that first pull. Even if my 1 cup flour/1 cup tapioca starch/mix/add 1 cup warm water/knead/rest/knead doesn't result in that ideal "bouncy" chewiness, at least it gave me something that in raw state seems to closely enough resemble the real thing that I can now at least do *some* work on my pulling technique. Perhaps what we noodle noobs need to get started is a recipe for beginners, before we can move up to the next level. If it's low-gluten instead of high-gluten as it should be, so be it. I like to imagine that the Italians ended up with their not-quite-authentic-Asian pasta cuisine because they didn't manage to make la mian Together we'll crack it!

Good, so after experimenting and having some degree of success with a mix of plain flour, tapioca starch and water... I'm back to the drawing board. I've got myself a bag of the highest quality, strongest flour I could find. Protein content: 14.8%. Let's see how that works out over the next 5 tries or so.

In addition, a commercial product will need to have liability insurance, advertising cost, middleman cost --------------------. dcarch That's the same regardless whether it's marketed as "sous vide" device or not - it applies just as well for that under 20-pounds slow cooker with digital temperature control I've got.

Google translate inept at translating Chinese? I have no idea what you're talking about. ""King on foot, his hands hold two one stretch, a jitter rejection documented on two head cross left hand grip, right thumb and middle finger grasp the middle section into the other end, and homeopathic right outside the direction doubled stretch shaking in surface stretch long." Yep, I'll be a bad-ass noodle maker in no time now.

I basically don't speak any Chinese, but I've gone as far as using Google Translate to translate my queries ("la mian dough recipe") to Chinese (拉面面团配方), then searching Baidu (the leading search engine in China) for that. http://www.tfysw.com...525/lamian.html seemed a promising link with a full explanation but only does one strand at a time rather than forming lots of strands via geometrical progression. The query 拉面面团配方面筋温度 ("la mian dough recipe gluten temperature") was another one I tried, hoping to get more technical detail. http://blog.sina.com...a70100umaf.html seemed to offer that sort of detail, kindly translated by Chrome. After getting used to the idea that the word "surface" actually has to do with the dough/flour, this seemed halfway usable to draw some conclusions: For the real thing, higher protein content seems to be recommended; Desired target temperature for mixing the dough would be at around 30°C; Flour-to-water ratio 2:1; (hey, where have I seen that before?) - this also explains why to start with warm water or cold water, depending on season, to maximize gluten formation; The article suggests a resting time of about 20 minutes "Surface, water, salt, alkali ratio: 1:0.5:0.01:0.01. 100 g surface (=flour), 50 g of water 1 gram salt, 1 gram alkali." There's more there which you're free to have your browser translate for you, but here's probably the most interesting translated section of the above page: 5 reasons for failure 1. the dough sticky hands, may be due to the poor quality of flour or too much water, or the Punta gray is too big. 2. the dough placed on the collapse of the frame, probably due to poor gluten quality, short settling time, weakening the high enzyme activity, or add too much water or salt too little, or too hot or placement time too long; The flour mill is too small, damaged starch content is too high. 3. Place [of] the flour fermentation, probably due to the high temperature is too high or place too long, or flour, enzyme activity, or infected with bacteria. 4. The fourth is the dough feel ribs, the original because of the dough is low or poor quality of gluten or less salt, the dough will not pull out, or the Peng gray by adding less or dough is too hard, it could be flour. 5. boiled off, because the pot not open when the water or the water too few noodles for a long time not float, glued to the bottom of the pot or rod obsolete on the mixing, or poor quality of flour or Punta gray add too much.

I don't mind (much) if it's just for an hour, but the problem is when it's 24 or more. Got to fit in some sleep somewhere! For now my trusty temperature-controlled slow-cooker will do the trick for those occasions. I suppose I'll upgrade, one day. Hopefully SV rig prices and I will be in agreement by then. Point taken about the kickstarter device being small scale and thus harder to market at low prices.

Hi Mr. Nassar (haven't I seen you about on the Big Fat Undertaking blog? Good to see you here!) Yes, as mentioned, I'm aware that a deep fryer thermostat is simply a piece of bimetal which will deform as temperatures go up and down... unlike the digital stuff which actually needs to measure the temperature. For what it's worth, I own a Hometek HT335 slow cooker with digital temperature control. Now this isn't some contraption with a flimsy bimetal thermostat - it's got a proper temperature sensor that actually measures the temperature of the contents of the pot. There's no fundamental difference between this device and a (non-circulated) sous-vide waterbath. You probably guessed that I do long sous-vide with it more often than "traditional" slow cooked dishes. Price this device cost me? Under 20 pounds, brand spanking new. Yes, once again, feel free to call me cheap. On the downside, this Hometek device is a bit smallish, so I won't be cooking up protein for any big dinner parties in it. In that sense, the PID + rice cooker solution at around 100 pounds (+25 for the rice cooker) that some people such as Auldo use seems a realistic alternative, albeit not as elegant as a fully integrated system. As things are, at the moment, if you want elegant, you pay 250 pounds+. There simply isn't anything available in the 75'ish pound price range. Or is there? The 27 litre SilverCrest Jam maker seems to fit the bill nicely...

I'm aware that this device has a circulator built in. And I do like the fact that it's a small portable device, which makes it so much more practical to store away when you're not using it. But seriously? Somehow every time the words "sous vide" are mentioned, there's this magic aura around a device that somehow warrants an at least five-fold price inflation. It's just automatic temperature control for Bob's sake. The same kind of stuff that's going on with deep fryers and slow cookers. Yes, I realize that most of those are just using a bent strip of metal for a thermostat. So by all means, feel free to charge me an extra tenner or two for the digital instead of analogue. And yes, I know I sound cheap now. But come on, the actual technology needed for this has been done and dusted for decades. There's no reason why a temperature controller, even one with a circulator, should be this expensive. Rant over.

I've got a PDF here called "Texture - a hydrocolloid recipe collection". It's available for free download online, just Google for it. About agar-agar syneresis, it says "Syneresis: yes (can be prevented by replacing 0.1-0.2% agar with locust bean gum)".

Two words: Puff pastry.

Picture of try 13: Nice effort, but ended in disaster (and never made it into boiling water as I didn't flour this try).

I just wanted to thank Sazji and Luke Rymarz for their inspiration. Sazji: your detailed account about your noodle making adventures have been very helpful to me. Luke, thank you for providing a base recipe that has been verified to actually work by others. Even if this recipe didn't work for me (I just can't find the same flour here in the UK), Luke - You've also been an inspiration by letting the world know it took you over 20 tries to get the dough right. I respect your determination. Myself, I've only tried 13 times so far. It would be great if any of you that are making hand-pulled noodles now could confirm if my dough has the right sort of consistency. It seems to stretch more or less OK but not as evenly as I'd like. I'm thinking part of it might be due to my poor technique (which I can live with as it's something that I can work on). As a lot of work seems to be going into breaking down gluten (thanks for the tips guys) so I figured one might as well start by keeping the initial gluten content down. My base recipe with which for me so far has resulted in the greatest degree of success is: 1 cup regular, white wheat flour (label states 9.1% protein. If you must know- it's the economy brand of the local supermarket); 1 cup tapioca starch 1 cup warm (60°C) water (close enough to the 31% of moisture that Luke uses!) Mix and knead for a few minutes, cover and leave to rest in the fridge for a few hours. Re-knead and start pulling. Pulling and twirling (alternating between clockwise and counter-clockwise) seems to help quite a bit to make the strands stretch more evenly. If after about 15 minutes the strands keep breaking on the first pull, add a bit more starch. If the dough seems too runny, use a bit more wheat flour. If you add flour or starch, after adding it, keep folding and pulling until the dough is uniform again. However, I'm finding that when pulling before the dough is ready, my strands tends to thin out in the middle a bit. As a result, after pulling and folding a few times, the noodles get quite thick on one side and quite thin on the other. The window of time in which the strands pull evenly seems to be quite short. I've avoided corn starch due to the non-Newtonian fluid thing that it does (but perhaps it would actually help?) Other than trying different kinds of starch, any suggestions on what else could be done to make the strands stretch more evenly or to extend that window?