Homemade dry pasta too brittle

[Rasmus]

I tried making dried pasta, but it falls apart when I cook it and "shreds" a lot of flour when boiling, almost making it to some sort of very light oatmeal.

I have tried two recipes for the dough, and though the second one kept together better, it wasn't good either. Any advice?

This is what I did:

1. The dough

(a) One dough recipe I took from Modernist Cuisine: 400 g semola + 100 g all purpose flour + 100 g water + 28 g white wine + 5.2 g salt. I didn't have alum powder at home, which may be the problem there, but the result was so brittle that I doubt that would have made much difference.

(b) The second dough was just 300 g semola and 150 g water.

 

2. Kneading

Dough kneading machine.

 

3. Extrusion

Pasta extrusion machine.

 

4. Drying

Food dryer for 4-6 hours (forget exactly) until completely dry.

Maybe too dry?

 

5. Cooking

The first cooked very fast, almost like fresh pasta.

The second took more like 7 minutes or so.

[blue_dolphin]

Alex on YouTube recently struggled with making dried pasta. Maybe this will help….or not…

 

[Rasmus]

Good tip! Funny, that is the same exact extrusion machine that I have, except mine is maybe 10 years older, and his failure is exactly like mine.

But he isn't solving the problem in this video. I hope he does that in a later one.

It's strange that his experiment isn't matching the science, as he seems to keep the pasta dry the entire time, whereas both that professional pasta maker and the science seem to say that he should move between dry and moist environments.

As I live in a very moist environment I will try this.

Thank you!

3 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

Alex on YouTube recently struggled with making dried pasta. Maybe this will help….or not…

 

 

[Annie_H]

Alex has been on a pasta binge for a couple months. I think he will get there eventually, lol. I was going to post the same video. But he missed a few key points like moisture in the rest periods. Still entertaining. His string test missed that the fan blows/sucks in, not out. In, then dispersed more efficiently out and around the sides more evenly. 

I do like his research visiting commercially made quality pastas. 

Very cool you have a quality bronze die extruder. 

My only experience is with fresh, then partially dried, Atlas rolled flat sheets, then cut to various widths. But most often is laying out flat on towels for 4-6 hours, covered with kitchen towels, then bundled and frozen. Not ever bulk processing. We have enough emotional steam for just a few pasta meals from fresh. 😜--kitchen a mess. 

 

 

 

 

 

[AAQuesada]

This may be a (very) stupid question but I'm going to ask it anyway.

 

Why do you want to dry the extruded pasta? I've done plenty in restaurants it lasts a good 5 days refrigerated. And can be portioned and frozen for later use. The only reason to dry extruded pasta is to retail it as far as I can tell anyway. 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Bingo.   From my perspective, we make pasta at home in order to have fresh pasta.   Erse, why not just buy De Cecco or some artisan product?   

[Rasmus]

Fresh and dry pasta taste totally different. And also it is to store it.

 

1 hour ago, AAQuesada said:

This may be a (very) stupid question but I'm going to ask it anyway.

 

Why do you want to dry the extruded pasta? I've done plenty in restaurants it lasts a good 5 days refrigerated. And can be portioned and frozen for later use. The only reason to dry extruded pasta is to retail it as far as I can tell anyway. 

 

[AAQuesada]

well, yes but, fresh extruded semolina pasta and dried extruded semolina pasta shouldn't taste that different. 

 

🤷🏽‍♂️ Cada loco con su tema. lol i've tilted at my own culinary windmills, so i will just wish you good luck!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Whenever I've tried to dry extruded pasta my beautiful handiwork has cracked horribly.  I haven't revisited the project since I acquired a blast chiller.  Maybe that would help.  Drying semolina pasta at room temperature sure doesn't work for me.

[jedovaty]

I went through this last year - in addition to a good machine, you need proper humidity and temp.  I had some back and forth with Pastaidea support, and we came to the conclusion, most people dry way too quickly - it needs time, nice and gentle.  A comfortable room temp at 65-70% humidity should work for most shapes, and can take up to a week.  Depending on your machine, more delicate shapes are probably not possible and will be prone to cracking.  For example, with my philips, bucatini will crack while the macaroni/rigatoni shapes are solid.  Not sure about food safety here with using only semolina and water. 

 

There is at least one mybook group that also does a lot of end-user support for pasta extrusion.  I don't use twitface, but if you do, look these up and you'll find a lot of recommendations for making and drying extruded pastas.

 

On 6/18/2022 at 5:44 PM, AAQuesada said:

Why do you want to dry the extruded pasta? I've done plenty in restaurants it lasts a good 5 days refrigerated. And can be portioned and frozen for later use. The only reason to dry extruded pasta is to retail it as far as I can tell anyway. 

I'm not the one to whom you addressed this question, however, in addition to "Cada loco con su tema", here's another paradigm that works   I enjoy extruding my own pasta, but some of the dies are a real pain in the arse to clean.  Therefore, I will make a lot at one time, much more than I could eat in one or two sittings.  I also have very little room in my fridge and freezer, therefore, drying makes sense for me.  It's all about reaching the ultimate lazy/self-made balance. 

Edited June 20, 2022 by jedovaty (log)

[AAQuesada]

5 hours ago, jedovaty said:

It's all about reaching the ultimate lazy/self-made balance. 

Great post! And I really do feel, at least for me, nothing gets people to work harder than wanting to be lazy 😂🤣

[chromedome]

1 hour ago, AAQuesada said:

Great post! And I really do feel, at least for me, nothing gets people to work harder than wanting to be lazy 😂🤣

One of my father's navy buddies complained about always getting the scut work. Overhearing this, the offending CPO sauntered up to my father and the other sailor present (once the complainer was safely out of earshot) and told them with a big grin "You want to know the most efficient way to get something done? Assign it to the laziest guy around for a few weeks in a row, and watch how he does it, and then get everyone else to do it that way too."

[Margaret Pilgrim]

2 hours ago, chromedome said:

One of my father's navy buddies complained about always getting the scut work. Overhearing this, the offending CPO sauntered up to my father and the other sailor present (once the complainer was safely out of earshot) and told them with a big grin "You want to know the most efficient way to get something done? Assign it to the laziest guy around for a few weeks in a row, and watch how he does it, and then get everyone else to do it that way too."

 

This concept has been a family joke/mantra for years.    Our version, when there is a process that is labor intensive and/or boring, put the laziest person on your staff on that job and they'll quickly devise an efficient way to do it.  (Certainly works for me.   I can trim hours of tedium and detail off a project.   Maybe because I hate following directions.)