TomRahav

Thanks Duvel, I will check this out. Will there be a difference in the results, in your opinion, if I use calcium gluconate instead of calcium lactate gluconate?

Hi Doofa, I don't have final results yet, but partial once are encouraging and I am glad to share them with you! After failing the first time I amended 2 things in my recipe and tried it again. First, I reduced the percentage of the calcium lactate gluconate from 2.5% to 2% because I found over the web that this is the common ratio (it contains different calcium content in comparison to the pure calcium gluconate). Second, I put the mixture in a semi-sphere silicon mold and froze it before placing it in the alginate bath. This worked wonders! The results where perfect spheres which I could handle easily and produced wonderful mouthfeel. Although I solved the texture/shape issue, I still had plenty of bubbles in the mixture and it was opaque white. I thought about trying to ice-filter it but then I thought again about the color and decided I actually like it this way, because it adds to the surprise effect of the dish where you can't see what's in it. As for the bubbles, I intend to use a magnetic stirrer the next time instead of a hand blender to try and introduce as little bubbles as possible during mixing. In either case, the bubbles weren't a problem when I froze the spheres so it's more of a visual preference. Cheers, Tom.

I live in Hong Kong and unfortunately couldn't find it easily here. Even online I had a hard time. I will try again though. I will also try to vacuum sous vide the mixture to remove air from it. Thanks anyway for the reply.

Hi, I've tried to make the spherical mussels recipe from the Modernist Cuisine books and it didn't work as I expected, so I would appreciate any advice that may help here. The recipe calls for calcium gluconate which I couldn't get hold of, so I replaced it with calcium lactate gluconate that I had at home. I used the same ration (2.5%) When I tried to create the spheres in the sodium alginate bath I encountered two main problems; 1. instead of spheres the mixture just stayed as uneven shape on the surface. The bath was 1Kg. water with 5gr. sodium alginate and I let it rest in the fridge for 24 hours before using it so I think the problem is not here. However, the mussels jus mixture (100gr. mussels jus, 0.5gr. xanthin gum and and 2.5gr. calcium lactate gluconate) had a lot of air bubbles in it. Can that be the issue? 2. In the book the spheres seem to be completely transparent whereas my mussels jus mixture was pretty white and opaque. Is it because I replaced calcium gluconate with calcium lactate gluconate? Or maybe it's because the jus itself should be clarified before it is used? Thanks in advance for your support, Tom.