Spherification question

[cookin4acravin]

I'm about to buy some supplies from L'Epicerie and I decided to buy some molecular gastronomy supplies for my pleasure. So far I'm thinking sodium alginate, calcium lactate and sodium citrate. I'm excluding calcium chloride because I've been hearing that it leaves a bitter taste, can I just subsitute this with calcium lactate? Also should I purchase calcium lactate gluconate as well? What exactly does this do? I understand for molecular gastronomy you need sodium alginate base with a calcium lactate (or calcium chloride) solution normally while a calcium lactate base with a sodium alginate solution for the reverse spherification but how does the calcium lactate gluconate fit in?

[Alex Parker]

Glocal is an interesting ingredient, in that its mainly used as salt in high end restaurants. Its done so because it has a fairly neutral taste, and it has really good solubility with other ingredients. Its a powder and I have seen it used in everything from ice cream to syrups. It can act as a stabilizer for your sodium alginate if Im not mistaken. Just get some and mess with it !

If all you want to do is sphereification, why not just get some gelatin or agar agar, and add that to whatever you want to do. Get a syringe, and get some water boiling. All you do is drip the eye dropper into the water, and the boiling will instantly convert whats coming out of the syringe into a sphere. The size of your syringe would be the only way however, to affect the size of the spheres. Im trying to figure out a way to create spheres the size of quarters but so far havent had much luck.

Alex

[Scout_21]

Here's a lecture from Harvard...with Ferran Adria and Jose Andres.

http://www.youtube.com/harvard#p/c/546CD09EA2399DAB/0/d9av8-lhJS8

Skip to ~ 1:23:00 for the discussion of aspherification. They talk about both the idea behind it as well as the developments for the technique.

[Alex Parker]

Scout thank you SO MUCH for putting this up! I know what Im going to be doing until 2am!!!

Alex