Picture by Michael Murphy (CC-BY-SA)

The soda fountain (Diet Coke + Mentos) has been around the net for quite a while with some spectacular videos available, and it has even made it into a news paper cartoon. People go crazy about this and the largest number of simultaneous fountains is steadily increasing.

Despite the interest, only now did a scientific paper appear on the subject. Many have speculated about what causes the reaction between Mentos and Diet Coke, and some have focused on possible acid-base reactions taking place. Mythbusters investigated this in 2006 (watch episode) and came up with the following factors that contribute to the bubble formation:

Diet coke

• carbon dioxide is what makes the bubbles form in the first place
• in synthetic mixtures aspartam, caffeine and potassium benzoate where shown give better fountains

Mentos

• the most important property is the rough surface which provides plenty of nucleation sites for bubble formation
• the density makes them sink which is ideal as the bubbles formed at the bottom of the bottle help expel much more soda
• mentos contains gelatin and gum arabic which could also reduce surface tension

In the paper “Diet Coke and Mentos: What is really behind this physical reaction?” by Tonya Shea Coffey the findings of the Mythbuster teams are largely confirmed.

By measuring contact angles it was shown that aspartame and potassium benzoate reduce the surface tension of water. Aspartame is a winner, and as an extra benefit clean up is much easier with Diet Coke than sugared Coke. The amount of caffeine however is too low to have any effect. The roughness of the Mentos surface was studied with special microscopes (see picture below). Fruit Mentos have smooth patches, but the coating is not uniform and contrary to the Mythbuster experiment normal Mentos and Fruit Mentos performed equally well with regards to foam formation. The roughness of the Mentos surface was inbetween that of rock salt and the Life savers which suggests that roughness is not a single factor determining the reaction. The Mentos surface is covered with gum arabic which reduces surface tension, and experiments showed that even without Mentos, gum arabic could cause a reaction to occur. It is the combined effects of reduced surface tension (due to ingredients in Diet Coke and Mentos) and the rough surface of Mentos which is the key to understand the reaction.

As expected, the article also confirms that the reaction is more vigours at higher temperatures (i.e. solubility of carbon dioxide deacreases with increasing temperature). It was also shown that Mentos sink faster to the bottom of a 2 L bottle compared with rock salt, Wint-O-Green Life savers and sand (this is a function of size and density, not only density). When bubbles are formed at the bottom of the bottle the bubble has more time to grow as it rises. This causes a more explosive reaction and more soda is expelled from the bottle.

The picture shows scanning electron microscopy images of Mint Mentos (a) and (c) and Fruit Mentos with a candy coating (b) and (d). The scale bars in each image represent the lengths (a) 200 μm, (b) 100 μm, (c) 20 μm, and (d) 20 μm. Fruit Mentos has smooth patches, but the coating is not uniform. (Reprinted with permission from Coffey, T. S, American Journal of Physics, Vol. 76, Issue 6, pp. 551-557, 2008. Copyright 2008, American Association of Physics Teachers)

The question which lingers on my mind is whether Diet Coke and Mentos represent the optimal combination of ingredients to create a soda fountain. With regard to convenience, I guess the answer is yes. But perhaps it’s possible to create an even more powerful reaction? Since lowering the surface tension of water is important, I’m wondering if it would be possible to find a surfactant that could be added without setting the reaction off? Mentos would of course still be needed for the rough surface to provide nucleation sites. In the above mentioned study addition of diluted dish washing liquid was enough to give a pretty good reaction, so this is not an option. But perhaps a couple of drops right on the Mentos surface would work? I definitely need to try this some time.

Extraction of cherries with ~45% ethanol in water

Ethanol is a molecule with both a polar and a non-polar end, so it’s properties are somewhat in between those of water and oil (which will be the topic of the next post in this series about extraction). This is easily illustrated by the fact that both water and oil are soluble in pure ethanol (albeit not at the same time - adding water to ethanol reduces the solubility of oil). Many taste molecules are polar whereas most aroma molecules are non-polar, and the good thing is that ethanol can be used to extract both groups of compounds.

I belive the most widespread use of ethanol for extractions in the kitchen is for sweet liqueurs where fruits or berries are extracted with ethanol and the extract is sweetened with sugar. The word liqueur comes from the Latin word liquifacere which means “to dissolve”, and this is essentially what happens - the ethanol and water extract and dissolve flavor and color from the fruit.

Some also make their own spirits by infusing spices and herbs. One example is aquavit which is based on carraway combined with a number of other spices for complexity such as dill, coriander, anis, fennel, liquorice, cardamom and lemon. Commercial aquavits are distilled, but at home it’s suffices to filter of the spices and herbs. As a result home made aquavits are always amber colored (such as the one pictured in a previous post).

For extractions like these, one always uses diluted ethanol, typically 30-60% ethanol in water would be used, and most often somewhere around 40-50%. One reason for this is that higher concentrations of ethanol would extract to many bitter and astringent compounds. Another reason is that in some (most?) countries it is illegal to posess, buy and/or sell ethanol at higher concentrations for consumption (pure ethanol for technical use is denatured if sold in normal stores and requires special permissions if used in laboratories).

Apart from the steping herbs and spices in ethanol to make liqueurs, the only other example of relevance for the kitchen I can think of is for extraction of vanilla beans to make pure vanilla extract. This is quite surprising actually, and although I really don’t know if ethanol is used for extraction in professional kitchens, it is my impression that ethanol extractions are underutilized in the kitchen.

There are several benefits with ethanolic spice and herb extracts:

• fast - no need to wait for the spices to be extracted since they have been “pre extracted”, you can taste the dish immediately and add more spice extract if necessary
• no residues - seeds, leaves or bark are filtered off before use
• convenient - spice extracts are an excellent way of adding clean, concentrated aromas
• stable - spice extracts keep very well (although the storage may also change the flavor profile somewhat and “mature” the flavor)
• new flavors - some spices and in particular herbs will change upon extraction and storage and this can open up new possibilities (this needs quite some experimentation though - some herb flavors change to the worse…)

What are your experiences with ethanol extractions in the kitchen?

Extraction of peppermint leaves with hot water

Water is a polar molecule, meaning that one end has a small negative charge and the other a small positive charge. Because of this water is a very good solvent for other polar molecules and ions. For instance water is the solvent of choice for substances that provide taste, be it salt, sour, sweet or bitter as these are normally quite polar molecules.

A general rule is that the solubility of molecules and ions increases with the temperature of the water. Extractions are therefore faster if the water is boiling. This is the reason why we use hot water to extract tea leaves or ground coffee beans, even if we want to prepare ice tea or ice coffee. But by lowering the temperature and extending the extraction time we can change the relative proportion of what we extract. It therefore makes perfectly sense that different temperatures are recommended for different types of tea. Using different temperatures for the same kind of tea will of course also influence the flavor profile.

Polar molecules are more easily extracted than non-polar molecules. This is evident if we leave a tea bag for a long time in hot water. The bitter taste is due to the slow extraction of large polyphenol molecules which are less soluble in water. If tea is brewed at a lower temperature, less of the bitter tasting substances will be extracted.

Although water is polar, less polar and even non-polar substances can be extracted with water, especially if the water is boiling hot. You do this every day when prepare coffee. If you take a close look at cup of freshly brewed coffee you can notice small pools of oily substances floating on top of the coffee. The more severe conditions used when extracting coffee to make an espresso ensure that even more oily substances are extracted. Other examples of extraction using water in the kitchen include preparation of stock, soups and gravies.

The principle of extraction is simple, but a number of questions remain largely unexplored with regard to flavor: How do ions affect extraction? What role does pH play? How does temperature influence flavor? There is surprisingly little research on this that includes a sensory evalution.

Read about the physics behind the balancing fork trick.

8. Experiment!

Dare to experiment and try new ingredients and procedures. Do control experiments so you can compare results. When evaluating the outcome, be aware that your own opinions will be biased. Have a friend help you perform a blind comparison, or even better a triangle test to evaluate the outcome of your experiments.

In a scientific context, an experiment is a set of actions and observations performed in the context of solving a particular problem, in order to support or falsify a research hypothesis. In a kitchen context, the problem to solve would typically be related to taste, aroma, texture or color. And the required actions and observations would be cooking and eating.

An essential part of the scientific method is that new knowledge is gained when, based previous knowledge, an assumption is made and tested. In the kitchen, this is exactly what you do when you taste your concoctions repeatedly as you cook. And it is also what makes you an experienced cook, because you remember and learn from your previous successes and mistakes. It might sound very complicated, but here’s how it goes:

1) Observation: soup lacks flavor
2) Hypothesis: adding something with flavor might help
3) Experiment: add more spices
4) New observation: soup tastes more (or less)
5) Hypothesis is either supported (or rejected)

Of these steps, I think observation is the easiest. Coming up with a hypothesis however can sometimes be difficult. If you have lumps in your custard or a sauce that’s separating, it isn’t always easy to think of what to do. This is where books on popular food science and molecular gastronomy might help you.

Think outside the cook book! I mentioned in previous post that you should always question authorities and cook books. And even when you have a recipe that works, remember that it’s nothing more than a suggestion. For instance, it can be useful to know when to be sloppy and when to be accurate with measurements. The smaller amount you measure, the greater the precision should be. Let’s consider a hypothetical recipe that calls for 1000 g flour and 1 g of saffron. Whether you use 999 or 1001 g of flour makes no difference, but using 1 or 2 g of saffron will be quite noticable. A good rule of thumb is that you should measure to within +/- 10% of the given amount. But again, don’t follow this blindly. Experience will show when you can be even more sloppy.

Thinking of good experiments to do requires both creativity and experience, and there are many sources of inspiration. The molecular gastronomy movement has come up with a number of books and blogs which point towards new ingredients and procedures. There are several approaches to flavor pairing (i.e. a general one based on experience and a chemical one based on impact odorants). Further more there’s a lot of inspiration to get from regional cooking - also for molecular gastronomists! Lastly, I think considering not only the food but the whole atmosphere and the setting of the meal is important, because our senses are connected!

The best way to judge the outcome of a new procedure or ingredient is to compare it with the original. I’ve previously termed this “parallel cooking”. In scientific contexts it’s very common to do control experiments and I can’t see why this shouldn’t be done in the kitchen routinely. Im convinced that this could have saved us from many kitchen myths!

Once you’ve done your parallel cooking, you have to taste it. If you did the cooking, you’ll probably have an opnion or expectation that the new dish is better or worse than the original. The big problem here is that due to confirmation bias, if you know what you are eating, this will influence your perception of it. Therefore it’s crucial to do a blind tasting (or a double-blind tasting). Have friend help you label each dish with random three digit numbers (to avoid thinking about ranking) and give them to you. If the dishes can easily be recognized due to color, it’s important that the lights are turned down or that you are blindfolded. State which dish you prefer and have your friend reveal the identity of the dishes tasted.

A slightly more sophisticated test is the triangle test which is commonly used in the food industry. The tester is presented with three samples of which two are identical and the task is to pick the odd one out. Using statistics, it’s possible to evaluate the outcome of repeated tests. The number of correct assignments in a number of triangle tests required for you to be 95% sure there is a difference are given in the table below. Read more about simple difference tests here.

Bionomial distribution for a triangle test (p=1/3) at 0.05 probability level. A more extensive table can be found here.

It seems that this would be the ultimate way to determine whether or not there is a difference between pepsi and coke. It’s more than 50 years since the first experiments were conducted. The theory is simple, but in the real world things aren’t always that simple. Read the entertaining story about Fizzy logic.

There are several examples of experimental cooking out on the net, and I thought I’d share some of them with you as this might illustrate my ideas on the subject.

Many cooks have strong opinions about how garlic should be treated. Should it be minced, crushed or microplaned? And does this really influence the taste and aroma? Or does it only affect the degree of extraction and hence the intensity of the flavor? Dominic of Skillet Doux had a excellent post on this subject in 2006, Deconstructing garlic. The task was formulated as follows:

The subject of this experiment is the effect that various methods of breaking down garlic have on its flavor when used to prepare a dish. The hypothesis is that not only does mincing garlic create a different flavor than crushing it, but also that mincing is the preferred method for pasta sauces. Furthermore, the experiment is intended to determine if microplaning garlic achieves a character different from mincing or crushing.

In his conclusion, Dominic writes ” I was surprised to discover that the difference between the minced and crushed garlic sauces was even more significant than I had previously thought”. Check out his post to find out which kind of garlic treatment he prefers for his pasta sauces. As a side comment it can be mentioned that a group of researchers in 2007 studied the effect of cooking on garlics ability to inhibit aggregation of blood platelets. They found that crushing could reduce the loss of activity upon heating. But unfortunately they didn’t report anything about the flavor.

Other food bloggers have also adopted experimental cooking with emphasis on systematic and thorough testing. Examples include Chad’s experiments with gellan, konjac and iota/kappa carrageenans, Michael Chu’s parallell cooking of bacon and his eggplant test and Papin’s comparison of orange juices - to mention but a few! And I shouldn’t forget Dylan Stiles either whom I mentioned in part 5 of this series:

A challenge with aroma molecules is that they should remain intact during storage and not be released until cooking (or even better, until consumption). A example would be to install a Liebieg condenser over your pot. Dylan Stiles has explored this in his column Bench Monkey by placing a bag of ice on top of the lid. He claims that his roommates preferred the curry which has been cooked under “reflux conditions”. The study was performed in a double blind manner (which I will come back to in part 8 of this series).

An extreme example of the application of the scientific method to cooking appeared in the news last spring when the recipe for the ultimate bacon buttie was revealed by scientists from Leeds University. Commissioned by Danish Bacon, the study evaluated more than 700 variations of a bacon buttie. They even came up with a “formula” for the perfect bacon buttie and quantified the required crispiness and crunchiness. The news story was picked up by many news agencies, so although it wasn’t necessarily ground breaking science, at least it was clever marketing.

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Check out my previous blogpost for an overview of the 10 tips for practical molecular gastronomy series. The collection of books (favorite, molecular gastronomy, aroma/taste, reference/technique, food chemistry, presentation/photography) and links (webresources, people/chefs/blogs, institutions, articles, audio/video) at khymos.org might also be of interest.

Slightly off topic (but with links to both food and science): At this time of the year it’s time for the IgNoble prizes - the entertaining cousins of the more serious Noble prizes! And once again several of them are awarded to food related research (in the broad sense that is):

NUTRITION: Brian Wansink of Cornell University, for exploring the seemingly boundless appetites of human beings, by secretly feeding them with a self-refilling, bottomless bowl of soup. REFERENCE: “Bottomless Bowls: Why Visual Cues of Portion Size May Influence Intake,” Brian Wansink, James E. Painter and Jill North, Obesity Research, vol. 13, no. 1, January 2005, pp. 93-100. Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, Brian Wansink, Bantom Books, 2006, ISBN 0553804340.

CHEMISTRY: Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center of Japan, for developing a way to extract vanillin — vanilla fragrance and flavoring — from cow dung. REFERENCE: “Novel Production Method for Plant Polyphenol from Livestock Excrement Using Subcritical Water Reaction,” Mayu Yamamoto, International Medical Center of Japan. PRESS NOTE: Toscanini’s Ice Cream, the finest ice cream shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, created a new ice cream flavor in honor of Mayu Yamamoto, and introduced it at the Ig Nobel ceremony. The flavor is called “Yum-a-Moto Vanilla Twist.”

MEDICINE: Brian Witcombe of Gloucester, UK, and Dan Meyer of Antioch, Tennessee, USA, for their penetrating medical report “Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects.” REFERENCE: “Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects,” Brian Witcombe and Dan Meyer, British Medical Journal, December 23, 2006, vol. 333, pp. 1285-7.

In case you wondered - this is in fact real research which has been published in scientific journals. The IgNoble slogan reads “First it makes you LAUGH, then it makes you THINK”. Enjoy!

When chopping onions, propanethial-S-oxide is liberated. If this compound is not a chemical, what is it then?

There are many misconceptions about chemicals, and one of the most common ones is that food should be “free” of chemicals. For example, in the article “The future of cuisine?” the journalist writes:

“… the ingredients used in molecular cooking are natural, free of chemicals…”

Most of the hydrocolloids used in molecular gastronomy are certainly of natural origin, I don’t disagree about that. But “free of chemicals” is ridiculous… All ingredients used in the kitchen are chemicals (in a broad sense), albeit some very complex and not always very pure onces!

One of my motivations for being involved with molecular gastronomy and popular food science is to promote the understanding that all food is made up of atoms and molecules. Therefore I would like to present to you the organisation Sense about science which tries to combat common chemical misconceptions. According to their site which is well worth a visit they “promote good science and evidence for the public”. As a chemist I found the section Making sense of chemical stories particularily interesting. I think the report Misconceptions about chemicals (downloadable pdf) should be downloaded and read by every journalist writing a story about molecular gastronomy (or any other everyday science topic for that sake). And I think it should be quite interesting for the readers of this blog as well. Here’s a short summary:

You can lead a chemical-free life
The chemical reality is that you cannot lead a chemical-free life, because everything is made of chemicals. Chemicals are substances and chemistry is the science of substances – their structure, their properties and the reactions which change them into other substances. Claims that products are “chemical free” are untrue. There are no alternatives to chemicals, just choices about which chemicals to use and how they are made.

Man-made chemicals are inherently dangerous
The chemical reality is that whether a substance is manufactured by people, copied from nature, or extracted directly from nature, tells us nothing much at all about its properties. In terms of chemical safety, “industrial”, “synthetic”, “artificial” and “man-made” do not necessarily mean damaging and “natural” does not necessarily mean better.

Synthetic chemicals are causing many cancers and other diseases
The chemical reality is that many of the claims about chemicals being ‘linked’ to diseases simply tell us that that a chemical was present when an effect occurred, rather than showing that the chemical causes the effect. Caution is needed in reporting apparent correlations: it is in the nature of scientific experiments that many disappear when a further test is done or they turn out to be explained in other ways.

Our exposure to a cocktail of chemicals is a ticking time-bomb
The chemical reality is that, although the language of “cocktails” and “time bombs” is alarming, neither the presence of chemicals nor the bioaccumulation of them, in themselves, mean that harm is being done. We have always been exposed to many different substances, because nature is a “cocktail of chemicals”. Modern technology enables us to detect miniscule amounts of substances, but the presence of such a small amount of a specific substance does not mean that it is having any discernible effect on us or on future generations.

It is beneficial to avoid man-made chemicals
The chemical reality is that, insofar as there is a ‘need’ for anything, synthesised and man-made chemicals have given societies choices beyond measure about what they are exposed to and the problems they can solve.

We are subjects in an unregulated, uncontrolled experiment
The chemical reality is that there is an extensive regulatory system that strictly controls what chemicals can be introduced: what experiments can take place, what can be used, for which purpose and how they should be transported, used and disposed of.

Apart from the “free of chemicals” misconception there is the whole natural/organic vs. synthetic/conventional food debate. But I think I’ll leave that for a separate post.

Update: Several commenters below have pointed out that Sense about science is funded by various lobby groups. An article by George Monbiot explores this in great detail. It’s OK to be aware of this, but I still feel their statements regarding “Misconceptions about chemicals” are very much to the point and well worth reading.

[”Sense about science” was found via The Sceptical Chymist. Thanks!]

Although I recommend the use of a thermometer, sometimes it’s convenient to know how you can also manage without. If you mix water at two different (but known) temperatures, you can easily calculate the temperature after mixing. Just multiply the temperature of each part with the relative amount. For example, if you have 3 dL at 100 °C and 7 dL at 10 °C (which happens to be the approximate temperature of my tap water), this gives (3 dL x 100 °C + 7 dL x 10 °C) / 10 dL = 37 °C which is just perfect for dissolving fresh yeast when making bread.

You can also do it the other way around. Let’s say you have boiling water and you know that your tap water is approximately 10 °C. If you want water at approximately 37 °C, you can do as follows:

Start by writing what you have to the left (100 °C and 10 °C) and what you want in the middle (37 °C). Subtract: (100-37) = 63 and (37-10) = 27. And voilá - you need 27 parts water at 100 °C and 63 parts at 10 °C (and 27:63 simplifies to 3:7 which is what we found above). Now of course if you really wanted water at 37 °C, you would simply put your finger in to see if it’s at body temperature…

Are there any practical applications of this? Yes - a simple, but elegant way to prepare fish would be to drop a fish of known weight and temperature (fridge @ 4 °C or freezer @ -18 °C) into water that has been brought to boil. Cover pot and turn off heat. The amount of water would be calculated based on the desired temperature of the fish. We are assuming here that there is no heat loss to the surroundings, which of course isn’t quite true. How fast pot of water will cool depends on how much water you use and on the pot. This can be corrected for, and luckily someone has already done it. More on this in my post on how to cook fish in cooling water.

We can apply the temperature calculation from above to figure out roughly what the temperature will with this cooking method. 800 g of fish from the fridge (4 °C) and 2,4 L of boiling water gives a temperature of (0,8 x 4 °C + 2,4 x 100 °C) / 3,2 = 76 °C. The cooling curves for a pot with 2,5 L of water suggest a temperature loss of 15-20 °C in 30 min which would bring us down to 55-60 °C which - considering that no thermometer is used - is quite good.