y'all ever hear of calcium citrate?

[just me]

I love to cook and really I just like to experiment and play mad scientist so I was reading up on 'molecular gastronomy' which best I can tell takes a lot of money and specialized equipment in most cases. One thing I did take note of however was that many on the inter-tubes were raving about how easy it is to make a cheese sauce when using calcium citrate. Forget the milk/cream/flour/butter and all that other stuff typically called for.

Just add 1/8th tsp CC to a pot, enough liquid to cover the pot bottom, turn on the heat, stir to dissolve the CC and then start adding the shredded/crumbled cheese of your choice and a perfect cheese sauce results.

I am still trying to understand the actual science behind it, but I guess the CC has the ability to destroy the bonds between protein molecules (or something like that) so that an ordinary block of cheese pretty much becomes a liquid in it's presence. Just my got CC in the mail yesterday and gonna try a cheese sauce tomorrow.

Wondering if any of y'all have heard of this and/or have used it.

[Dingfod]

I had not heard that, but it makes sense to me. I know from personal taste experimentation that SweeTarts candy will dissolve bubble gum in your mouth if they're chewed together. However, SweeTarts contain calcium stearate rather than calcium citrate.

[just me]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

I had not heard that, but it makes sense to me. I know from personal taste experimentation that SweeTarts candy will dissolve bubble gum in your mouth if they're chewed together. However, SweeTarts contain calcium stearate rather than calcium citrate.

I actually mistyped, it is sodium citrate, not calcium citrate. I was thinking about calcium due to my polishing off a bottle of tums per week due to heartburn. Even so, this chemistry stuff is not my strong suit, but I still find it fascinating.

[lisarea]

I have heard of that and wanted to try it, so I'm totally for you trying it and reporting back.

We might have talked about it somewhere here before, and I think someone pointed out that it's only a good idea if the whole point of cheese sauce is just to melt the cheese.

I'd still totally try it if I had some sodium citrate, but I don't want to buy some big 55 gallon drum of the stuff, use an eighth of a teaspoon, and decide I don't like it.

Originally Posted by just me

I actually mistyped, it is sodium citrate, not calcium citrate. I was thinking about calcium due to my polishing off a bottle of tums per week due to heartburn. Even so, this chemistry stuff is not my strong suit, but I still find it fascinating.

Calcium is fascinating, but please be careful if you do decide to play around with it.

Look Around You: Season 1 Pilot - Calcium - YouTube

[just me]

I did try it and I can report it works as advertised, but with a caveat.

What I did was used a recipe to determine the ratio of cheese to calcium citrate. I was told this would result in a thick sauce suitable for nachos. Worked exactly as advertised. Only ingredients were calcium citrate, enough milk (maybe a TBS) to dissolve the CC in and shredded cheddar cheese. Melted and turn into a sauce so fast and easily it seemed like voodoo magic.

That is the plus part of it. The negative part of it is this method of turning cheese into sauce didn't avoid other common problems. The biggest one was that as the cheddar sauce cooled it solidified. When refrigerated it had a texture/consistency very similar to Velveeta. When I attempted to reheat it to get it back into a sauce consistency the cheese 'broke'. The fat separated from the cheese and the cheese curdled into clumps. I microwaved it, perhaps if I heated it more gently in a sauce pan I would have gotten better results.

Anyway, my final verdict is that CC works as advertised. It works voodoo magic on cheese and turns it into sauce faster than Jesus could make bread and fish. Once the sauce was made however, it still is subject to solidifying when cooled and trying to reheat it runs the risk of the cheese throwing a fit and squeezing all the fat/oil out into a hopeless mess. I suspect this is only true of 'hard cheeses' like cheddar that are dry and hard by nature. Less aged, softer cheeses may be less prone to solidifying and separating.

[Dingfod]

I can skip straight to the last step by microwaving cheddar cheese until the fat separates.