calcium chloride e509

[Xskinny steveX]

I bought calcium chloride e509 on www.L'Epicerie.com and it says on the label that it is harmful if swallowed. I have seen a lot of new recipes for spherification where they mix the liquid for the spheres with calcium instead of alginate. I want to know if they are talking about another type of calcium chloride or is this safe to use.

can someone help me

Edited April 2, 2008 by Xskinny steveX (log)

[Tri2Cook]

Just my opinion, I'm sure someone will disagree with me, but calcium chloride in the spheres does not taste good at all. It's not a "yeah, that's not great" thing, it tastes really bad. Get gluconate-lactate for reverse spheres. I know that's not the answer you want since you already bought it but you'll spend a lot more pouring your sphere mixtures down the drain after you taste them with the calcium chloride then you'd spend ordering the gluconate-lactate.

[Xskinny steveX]

thanks

does anyone know which one would work for tomato water spheres like what Jose Andres does

[ermintrude]

"harmful if swallowed"

In it's dry form it is as it's very hydroscopic and can burn, once in a 5% liquid solution it's perfectly safe.

For the tomato spheres you could try reverse spherification using calcim cloride and/or calcium gluconate in with the tomato, you'd probably also need to add some xanthian gum to get spheres in the alginate solution.

Also not sure how the acidity of the tomato water would affect reverse spherification so you may need to add sodium citrate to bring the acidity down.

[Jonathan Kaplan]

For reverse spherification using gluconate-lactate, the acid in the tomato water won't be a problem, and you won't need to thicken the tomato water w/ anything. Gluconate-lactate ("Gluco" in the Texturas line) to 25g/l in the tomato water, and a 5g/l sodium alginate bath, and you should be golden.

My guess is that tomato water isn't acidic enough to mater w/ "ordinary" spherification either. Here, I no longer remember off the top of my head the numbers here, but prob. something between 3-8g/l sodium alginate in the tomato water, and I think around 5g/l calcium chloride for the bath. Remember that for "ordinary" spherification the "skins" of the spheres will continue to thicken even after they are rinsed, so you have to serve quickly.

There is a thread down-stream somewhere called "experiments with sodium alginate" that you might find useful.

Hope this helps.

jk