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US source for atomized glucose and maltodextrin?


paulraphael

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I'm looking for someone who sells retail quantities with reasonable shipping prices. Most importantly, I'm looking for products that report DE numbers. Almost everything I see is mystery ingredients. 

 

In a perfect world, I'd be looking for very low-DE values.

 

Thanks!

Notes from the underbelly

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2 minutes ago, btbyrd said:

Modernist Pantry sells a powdered glucose with a DE of 95+. I don't know if that's what you're looking for though. Modernist Pantry also sells N -Zorbit in retail quantities, if that's the type of maltodextrin you're looking for.

 

I checked the Modernist Pantry powdered glucose page when @paulraphael posted.  Where does it say the DE number?

 

Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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2 hours ago, btbyrd said:

It's on the back of the packaging, but you have to zoom in on the image on their product to read it.

 

Thanks, zooming worked.  You'd think they would want to mention something like that in the product description.

 

Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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15 hours ago, btbyrd said:

Modernist Pantry sells a powdered glucose with a DE of 95+. I don't know if that's what you're looking for though. Modernist Pantry also sells N -Zorbit in retail quantities, if that's the type of maltodextrin you're looking for.

 

I found this, but unfortunately DE 95 powdered glucose is for all practical purposes dextrose powder, which I have plenty of sources for.

 

I ended up buying this on Amazon, which is the right stuff but seems like a terrible deal. 

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Notes from the underbelly

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Have you considered inulin? Around here many professionals are starting to use it. It adds body without impacting sweetness or calories, being a non digestible fiber.

 

 

 

Teo

 

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Teo

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4 hours ago, teonzo said:

Have you considered inulin? Around here many professionals are starting to use it. It adds body without impacting sweetness or calories, being a non digestible fiber.

 

 

 

Teo

 

 

Yes, I've been reading research about it, and am starting to do some experiments. It does impact sweetness somewhat; it has about 35% the sweetness of sucrose. It also impacts freezing point depression (about 65% that of sucrose). So it's on the same spectrum as maltodextrin and dried glucose syrup. Its magic may be that it works in lower concentrations; somewhere between a sugar and a gum. 

 

I'm especially interested in experimenting with inulin in sorbets. There's practically nothing written about it. Do you see an pros doing this?

Edited by paulraphael (log)
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Notes from the underbelly

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I need to say I'm more on the Alice Waters side for these things, if I can avoid stabilizers, glucose and so on then I'm happy. Not in the sense that I think those ingredients must be avoided (locust bean gum is more natural than sucrose and so on, so it has no ethical sense to avoid it), just for ease of production.

I try to keep informed on technical developments, but if I don't try them first hand then I don't feel competent enough. You can see it clearly, since I wrote inulin does not impact sweetness, while you said it does, so I already started with the wrong foot hahahah.

A person I know paid for a consulting from the guys of Carpigiani Gelato University. They suggested the use of inulin and gave some recipes. I don't have those recipes, since that consulting was expensive and the guy self protecting. He told me they taught him to use inulin to add body and that it does not impact sweetness or calories. Seems like I did not receive the correct information.

There are various pastry chefs with ice-cream shops in Italy that cooperate with Carpigiani, I've heard that many of them are using inulin. But people here are really tight, there is still a strong "professional secret" way of thinking (which I personally can't stand).

If you search "inulin carpigiani university" on google, then you can find many pages with some recipes and some talk. Most of them are in Italian, usually google translate make a fine job. If you have some questions, feel free to pm me. Don't take those recipes for perfect, a good amount of people here hate to give away their recipes, so they modify them.

Jordi Bordas is one of the Spanish professionals making research, there was an article on the So Good Magazine website. There he stated that inulin contributes calories, so I'm not sure how much useful things he has to say. As far as I know inulin is not digestible, after reading that article I asked to a couple of friends with a university degree in medicine and they confirmed it's not digestible.

 

 

 

Teo

 

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Teo

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Thanks Teo, I'll check out those links. 

 

That advice about Inulin not impacting sweetness might be reasonable, even if it's not technically quite accurate. My understanding is that inulin is generally used at concentrations between 4% and 7%, so at roughly a third the sweetness of sucrose, its impact on sweetness can be pretty safely ignored. At least if you're trying to keep things simple. 

 

I agree with the whole professional secret thing. I'm glad that in most parts of the culinary world that's disappearing. I suspect that since recipes legally aren't intellectual property (and since you'll never be able to keep your former employees quiet) secrets are too hard to keep. So the real way to get credit for your brilliant ideas is to shout them from the rooftops: publish them. Then everyone will know when someone's ripping you off. The internet has accelerated this shift in thinking. But this idea has caught on more quickly some places than others. 

 

Edited to add:

The Bordas article says that there's more than one type of inulin, and they have significantly different properties. This could explain quite a bit of the contradictory information.

 

 

 

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I've read some pages, there are many people stating different things, lots of contradictions out there. I tend to be skeptical when pastry chefs talk about scientific stuff, the vast majority of them lack the science basics, so they repeat what they are told, most times changing something critical without noticing they are doing so. To be called inulin it must be a certain kind of fructose chain, with certain kind of bonds, the human body has no enzymes that can break these bonds. This means inulin is not digestible, so it has no calories for human consumption, I can't see any way to contradict this fact. So the lots of people stating that inulin has calories are just uninformed, when someone makes just a basic error then I'm skeptical about all the other things he/she states.

Seems like Bordas was referring to short chain inulin (less than 10 fructose molecules) and long chain inulin (more than 10 fructose molecules). Short chain inulin seems to have 35% the sweetness of sucrose, while long chain inulin seems to have 0% sweetness. That 35% seems like an average data, I doubt that inulin with 3 fructose molecules has the exact sweetness of inulin with 9 fructose molecules, then suddenly inulin with 11 fructose molecules drops to 0 sweetness. I suppose that the shorter the chain, the higher the sweetness. So that 35% should just be an average value for short chain inulin, which can vary quite a bit depending on the distribution of the % of the various units of fructose. From the few infos I gathered, the generic inulin used in ice-cream is the high-performance inulin (chain with more than 10 fructose molecules), that is what is sold commercially as inulin. Short chain inulin should have quite different properties, especially about solubility and viscosity, but it seems like the research on this is strongly limited.

 

Totally agree about what you write on "professional secrets". Best example is Pierre Hermé: he published all his real recipes for macarons, the result is that everywhere in the world people are copying them. Did his business get affected by this? Does not seem so, exact contrary I would say. We are not talking about multinational businesses like Coca-Cola, we are talking about small scale artisans: pretty hard that competitors will affect your local business. Besides that, the sad thing is that people who are more adamant about "professional secrets" are just copying stuff from another source, so they are not protecting something they invented themselves, they are just jealous of what they learned.

 

 

 

Teo

 

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Teo

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That's interesting about the short vs. long chain inulins. None of the scientific sources I've looked at mention this overtly, nor do the places selling it in the US (it's one of these annoying ingredients that's sold as a fitness supplement, a health food, and sometimes also a culinary ingredient. So half the people selling it won't even understand your questions.

 

My information seems to be on the short chain variety, which may be more common here. What adds to the complexity is that (according to one study) perceived sweetness drops radically with low dilutions. So what has 35% sucrose equivalent at high concentrations may only have 10% SE at low concentrations. I imagine that with standard usage being below 4%, even the sweet variety is behaving more like 10% SE. 

 

Also thanks again for the tip to search Italian sites. Searching for "Inulin Sorbet" turns up next to nothing. "Inulini Sorbeti" goes on for pages!

Edited by paulraphael (log)
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Notes from the underbelly

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Relative sweetness is one of the many things that puzzle me when talking about balancing ice-creams and sorbets. The usual table for the SE values is made at a given concentration and a given temperature. If we change these 2 variables then we get different results. Besides that, we need to consider all the other components in a recipe: amount and type of fats change flavor perception; acid, salt, bitter, peppery components alter sweetness perception. All the balancing formulas I've seen are based on a system of linear equations, in reality things are not linear, they are much more complicated. Each class of molecules affects the features of all the other classes. This to say that recipes with the same POD can give a very different sweetness perception in the mouth; I've always seen POD, PAC and all the other parameters as generic guidelines, not as perfect rules.

Another thing to consider about inulin is the possible problem caused by hydrolysis. If we use inulin in a fruit sorbet, are we sure that the fruit we are using does not contain an enzyme that affects inulin? Unwanted enzymes are behind the corner with a lot of fruits, so if we are using a fresh fruit containing inulinase (haven't found infos about natural sources containing it) or similar enzymes, then we risk that during the maturation phase of the sorbet that enzyme is going to transform inulin in fructose, giving us the exact opposite effect than the original one that lead us to choose inulin.

There is another thing about stabilizers: how does inulin affect them? Most probably some of the stabilizers will create bonds with some inulin, this can lead to dramatic changes in texture (maybe good, maybe not), and these changes will depend on the molecular weight (how many fructose molecules are contained in the chain) of the inulin we are using.

Things are much more complicated than a system of linear equations here. We could get different results just using a fresh fruit or a pasteurized fruit puree.

 

I'm happy you found some good stuff in Italian. I suggest you to use "sorbetto inulina" to maximize the results. I spent some time reading various pages, but there are no clear infos: most pages give vague descriptions, plus there are lots of contradictions. The only sure thing is that there are a good amount of professionals that are trying to sell their classes or their consulting jobs. Problem is that all the ones I saw are pastry chefs with no formal scientific education. This is a subject where I would never pay anyone who is less than a university professor.

 

 

 

Teo

 

Teo

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4 hours ago, teonzo said:

Relative sweetness is one of the many things that puzzle me when talking about balancing ice-creams and sorbets. The usual table for the SE values is made at a given concentration and a given temperature. If we change these 2 variables then we get different results. Besides that, we need to consider all the other components in a recipe: amount and type of fats change flavor perception; acid, salt, bitter, peppery components alter sweetness perception. All the balancing formulas I've seen are based on a system of linear equations, in reality things are not linear, they are much more complicated. Each class of molecules affects the features of all the other classes. This to say that recipes with the same POD can give a very different sweetness perception in the mouth; I've always seen POD, PAC and all the other parameters as generic guidelines, not as perfect rules.

Another thing to consider about inulin is the possible problem caused by hydrolysis. If we use inulin in a fruit sorbet, are we sure that the fruit we are using does not contain an enzyme that affects inulin? Unwanted enzymes are behind the corner with a lot of fruits, so if we are using a fresh fruit containing inulinase (haven't found infos about natural sources containing it) or similar enzymes, then we risk that during the maturation phase of the sorbet that enzyme is going to transform inulin in fructose, giving us the exact opposite effect than the original one that lead us to choose inulin.

There is another thing about stabilizers: how does inulin affect them? Most probably some of the stabilizers will create bonds with some inulin, this can lead to dramatic changes in texture (maybe good, maybe not), and these changes will depend on the molecular weight (how many fructose molecules are contained in the chain) of the inulin we are using.

Things are much more complicated than a system of linear equations here. We could get different results just using a fresh fruit or a pasteurized fruit puree.

 

I'm happy you found some good stuff in Italian. I suggest you to use "sorbetto inulina" to maximize the results. I spent some time reading various pages, but there are no clear infos: most pages give vague descriptions, plus there are lots of contradictions. The only sure thing is that there are a good amount of professionals that are trying to sell their classes or their consulting jobs. Problem is that all the ones I saw are pastry chefs with no formal scientific education. This is a subject where I would never pay anyone who is less than a university professor.

 

 

 

Teo

 

 

I think you're right that it's folly to try to accurately model something as complex and full of emergent properties as ice cream. But I find it's quite possible to produce useful models. For example, if my model tells me that a certain change in sugar balance is going to increase sweetness by 10% ... but the actual effect is an increase of 12% ... this may still be useful to me, even if it's not strictly accurate. It probably gets me closer than an educated guess would have, and so it saves me a round (or two or three) of trial and error. If, on the other hand, the sweetness went in the opposite direction, or if it went up by 80% ... then you could argue that the model is worse than nothing.

 

As it happens, over the last few months I've been building models to help formulate ice creams and sorbets . Usually my experience resembles the first example. It gets me really close. Occasionally, it's way off. This is educational; it helps me fix the model. 

 

Predicting sweetness has been pretty easy. While research shows wide variances in perceived sweetness across different concentrations and temperatures, it turns out that in ice creams we're not working with such wide ranges. And differences in sweetness of plus or minus  a few % don't seem all that significant. I haven't found fat content to affect sweetness much. Acid content makes a big difference in other foods, but the range of acidities in ice creams is fairly low. 

 

Bitterness is another story. Ingredients like cocoa powder have a significant impact. There's a pretty simple solution; assign these ingredients a negative PAC value. Sounds a bit simplistic, but it really works!

 

Freezing point depression is just chemistry and math. It turns out the math is about five times as hard as I'd imagined (i've had to consult with dairy PhDs on two continents to get my models working right) but once it's done it's done. 

 

Modeling the effects of hardening fats is more difficult, because as far as I can tell no one's done it before. I've started with some wild guesses and gradually am refining them (in another thread, Jo told me her pistachio ice cream wasn't doing what my model suggested. Valuable information. I realized I was overestimating the saturated fats in nut oils compared with cocoa butter). 

 

Your questions about enzymes and inulin are interesting. I found one study that explored the breakdown of inulin, but in response to ph and storage time. They found that after 2 weeks in storage, strawberry sorbet does exhibit breakdown of inulin into mono- and disaccharides. But not sooner. 

 

Otherwise, all I've been able to find is examples of fruits and inulin playing happily together, including commercial pineapple sorbets that use inulin. It's possible that the enzymes are deactivated by cooking. But it's also quite possible that these enzymes are just proteolytic and so don't bother polysaccharides. 

 

Clearly, "more research is warranted," to quote every scientist ever. But it seems pastry chefs have been using the stuff in combination with commercial stabilizers and every variety of fruit for some time now, and no one's complaining about weirdness. They seem to like it. 

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7 hours ago, paulraphael said:

I think you're right that it's folly to try to accurately model something as complex and full of emergent properties as ice cream. But I find it's quite possible to produce useful models. For example, if my model tells me that a certain change in sugar balance is going to increase sweetness by 10% ... but the actual effect is an increase of 12% ... this may still be useful to me, even if it's not strictly accurate. It probably gets me closer than an educated guess would have, and so it saves me a round (or two or three) of trial and error. If, on the other hand, the sweetness went in the opposite direction, or if it went up by 80% ... then you could argue that the model is worse than nothing.

 

Yup, that's the correct attitude. I was not criticizing you, mine was a generic complaint towards the hundreds of professionals that say that those balancing formulas are the perfect bible. A useful guideline more than certainly, a perfect bible not. We are still way behind, as you confirmed saying that you are still making corrections.

 

 

 

7 hours ago, paulraphael said:

Predicting sweetness has been pretty easy. While research shows wide variances in perceived sweetness across different concentrations and temperatures, it turns out that in ice creams we're not working with such wide ranges. And differences in sweetness of plus or minus  a few % don't seem all that significant. I haven't found fat content to affect sweetness much. Acid content makes a big difference in other foods, but the range of acidities in ice creams is fairly low. 

 

We can predict a range of sweetness. We can predict a range of everything, not the exact final result. We artisans are still required to fine tune the recipe with trial and error.

 

 

 

7 hours ago, paulraphael said:

Your questions about enzymes and inulin are interesting. I found one study that explored the breakdown of inulin, but in response to ph and storage time. They found that after 2 weeks in storage, strawberry sorbet does exhibit breakdown of inulin into mono- and disaccharides. But not sooner. 

 

I haven't read the full study, I just skipped to the point where it talks about fructan decrease. It refers to storage at -22°C. I was asking about the possible maturation at +4°C. This depends on the production method, of course, some people totally skip it, the others use different amount of hours. If someone prepares the sorbet base and lets it rest for some hours at +4°C (maturation phase), then he should consider this phase too. Enzyme activity varies with temperature, most of the times the higher the temperature the higher the activity. I think it's pretty safe to say that inulin hydrolysis (enzymatic or acidic or both) is  quicker at +4°C than at -22°C, probably by a couple orders of magnitude.

 

 

 

7 hours ago, paulraphael said:

Otherwise, all I've been able to find is examples of fruits and inulin playing happily together, including commercial pineapple sorbets that use inulin. It's possible that the enzymes are deactivated by cooking. But it's also quite possible that these enzymes are just proteolytic and so don't bother polysaccharides.

 

Vast majority of enzymes are deactivated by heat. That's why I made the distinction between fresh fruit and pasteurized fruit purees. Commercial sorbets are made with pasteurized purees for safety reasons. The guy I know who paid big money for the Carpigiani consulting received recipes to be made with commercial frozen fruit purees (if a consultant gives me a recipe for banana sorbet that asks for frozen banana puree then I say him goodbye at that exact moment). If an artisan is aiming for quality, then he should go for fresh seasonal fruit and avoid frozen purees. The few research available for inulin was made in industrial settings, aka pasteurized fruit purees. The same study you linked says "particularly important in our study, because the production of sorbets involved pasteurization of the raw materials (to provide microbiological safety of the product)". This means that when using fresh fruits those values could be much much higher. Only way to know is making lots of research: artisans don't have the equipment nor the money to do that, industries have equipment and money but are not interested in this kind of research because they use pasteurized purees and not fresh fruit.

Personally I'm not going to use pasteurized fruit purees for sorbets, that goes against taste quality. To motivate the use of inulin I would like to have some serious data on hydrolysis, otherwise I just risk to get higher productions costs (both as ingredients and labor) and end up with a sorbet with a small fraction of the starting inulin and a sensible addition of fructose.

 

 

 

Teo

 

Teo

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How long do your sorbets stick around after you make them? One thing we can also generalize about enzymes is that their activity slows in the cold. If your sorbets all get eaten within a couple of days, it seems less likely that enzymatic breakdown would be minimal. 

 

I don't think this is a case where a highly scientific test is necessary. You could make a couple of sorbets with fresh fruits known to have high enzyme activity, one batch with inulin and one without. Compare.   Then store them for several days and compare again. You won't know if, say, 15% of the inulin has been broken down, but you'll know if it's still good, and if there's still a pronounced difference between the two versions. 

Notes from the underbelly

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