Advice on storing spherification spheres.

[dgrogandesign]

Hi there.Does anyone have any knowledge on storing their spheres (from spherification) for long(ish) periods of time? i have read that you can put them in a solution of the same flavour and they will maintain their state. i would like to know whether it would be possible to put these in a jar and pasteurise them by bringing them to 72c since alginate gels are supposedly non-thermoreversible so they shouldn't melt. or possibly i might make the spheres using another gelling agent like pectin or gellan gum, both of which are also unaffected by reasonably high heat sources. if anyone has any thought on this i would be very appreciative such as whether this idea would work and if so, how long i might be able to keep them and whether they would need to be refrigerated.the sugar concentration in the spheres and the solution would be relatively high which i would imagine would also aid in the preservation. ideally i would like to be able to store them unrefrigerated. thanks.

[richichi]

If you do reverse frozen spherification you can just store them in the liquid no problem for a while. If you are doing just straight specification though they will harden up on you due to the calcium inside the polymerized sphere. How long as you looking to store them? What is long(ish) to you?

 

Not sure about pasturizing them though, never attempted that. If you have one on hand consider just taking a kitchen torch to it, if it holds up to that then I would imagine you should be fine.

[dgrogandesign]

Longish would be a month or two. I thought that by pasteurising the jar i would kill any microbes/ spores in the jar and so eliminate any possibility of them growing inside. Which is why people do that when they can things. I think i'll just try it out. I would imagine that the flame from a kitchen torch reaches well above the 72 degrees c needed to pasteurise so im not sure that would be a good indicator of whether it would work or not. thanks very much for the reply.