Would you believe it if we told you that there's an ingredient that gels
when it's hot and melts when it's cold?
Well, today we're going to learn about all the different types
of methylcellulose here on WTF.
Hello, and welcome to WTF where we transform food here in the
Modernist Pantry test kitchen.
I'm chef Scott Guerin, and I'm Janie Wang, the owner of Modernist Pantry.
Today, Scott and I are going to be talking about all about methylcellulose,
and if that's a mouthful, that's because it is really hard to say.
So, as you can probably see here, we have bags upon bags upon bags, and
we're going to talk about what they are.
We're going to do a really amazing demo on how do you make hot ice cream
so definitely stay tuned for that.
So let's get into it.
Scott, we have like seven, eight bags in front of us right now.
What is methylcellulose?
So methylcellulose is a plant-based fiber, and one of the biggest things that people
are going to see is like, there's a lot of numbers and letters at the end of them.
So it'll say methyl cell, or methylcellulose, and
then letters and numbers.
And the biggest thing we need to learn is how to read and understand what those are.
So the first letter is always going to be the grade of methylcellulose and
we're actually going to have a sheet on our blog that you can go and look
and see what that grade actually means.
After that there'll be a, usually a number and then followed by another letter.
So that number is, stands for, you know, the beginning of the viscosity.
So if it's going to be, let's just say we have A15C here, so 15C.
C stands for 100, so it's 1500 CP, and that's how people measure the viscosity.
Okay.
And for people who are not familiar with viscosity, it's just how thick it is.
Yeah.
How thick it is.
So obviously the higher the number, the thicker it's going to be, the lower the
number, the thinner it's going to be.
And let's get back right back to that, to that first letter, and I know you just
said, you know A so what is A, in this case that we have A15C here, right here?
So A is a super jelling methyl cell that, if you take it and you put it
into liquid, it's going to gel really firm at a low temperature, and it's
going to make, be able to make something like hot ice cream that we're going
to do a demo of it a little bit.
And then every, you know, there's K there's F there's E, those
all have different properties.
So some of them are better for making your barbecue sauce stick better to the meat.
There's some that are used for pie fillings to prevent that
boil out when you're cooking it.
So there's a lot of different things that we can do with methylcellulose,
you just have to understand which one you need for what application.
Right.
Yeah.
So when we talk about gel string, then we have like A through K and we
say like A is the highest jelling.
What's the C, is there a sequence there?
So same thing with the numbers, like what's the, I guess if you're,
you know, if we're looking at, so we're looking at A15C, we know,
okay, it's a super high jelling.
Yep.
So, for A, yeah, super high jelling, there is a lot to each and every one I
would definitely suggest going on our blog and looking at the chart because
it's not just one thing that it does.
There' many different applications for each type and then we
also have different ones.
So we have A15C and then we also have A4C and that's just a difference
in viscosity, that's going to be viscosity when it's cool, and then
obviously it will gel, it gets heated.
Okay, and do all methyl cells have the same jelling temp and melting temp?
No, every, grade of them has different jelling and melting temperatures.
So, the good thing about A is that it gels at low temperatures.
So it could gel really quickly when you put it into a, we have like just
simmering water here, so I would be able to scoop this in, it's going to
gel immediately around the outside, and the best part about this is people
hear gel and then hot ice cream, it's not going to stay gel forever.
So once it cools, it will start to melt, so it has almost reversed properties.
Right.
So, you know, being one of the most popular questions we always get is,
well, what methyl cell do I use?
Yeah, what's the answer to that?
So the best thing you need to know is, what you're doing.
First off, if you take that and then you are able to go and look
at, our chart and then figure out, okay, if I'm making a sauce, I need,
generally, it's going to be like F50.
You need just a small amount of thickening.
And if it goes on to a, you know, we'll just say barbecue sauce and
pulled pork because that's an easy one for everyone to understand, it
goes on, it's going to cling better.
It's not going to run right off.
So if you're making a sandwich, it's not going to make the bun soggy.
So, it really, it's going to have to go down to, I could mention every
single thing that we do, but this would be a very long video and I'm
sure people are waiting for this.
I do want to just keep going on the thickness and understanding of the
thickness, because if you are looking at them, they're not all, you know,
if it's A15C, the C stands for 100, so there's two zeros at the end so it's
1500, but the K100M which is our highest viscosity, the M stands for a thousand.
So it is 100,000 CP.
So that is the most viscous of all of these.
And then we go all the way down to F50 and there's no letter
after 50 so it's actually just 50 CP or 50 on the viscosity scale.
You can go from almost no viscosity to like a crazy amount
of thickness with the 100 M.
Yeah so it starts very thick before you even heat it.
And then obviously, sometimes there's differences between that.
So the K100M you can heat it and it will slightly gel, but it's not going
to gel as much as an A, so there's a lot to learn and that's why we definitely
need you to go check out that chart.
Yeah.
So if there's any takeaway, it's go to the blog and read the chart because,
otherwise it's going to be very hard to know exactly what you're going to need.
And so it kind of, you know, now that we've kind of covered all the numbers
and all the letters, we also have two other types of methyl cell here.
So we have a one called HV and one called LV.
You want to talk briefly about like what they are and how to, when and
how people might want to use them?
Yeah.
So HV and LV don't have the numbers at the end, so people can't necessarily
look at it and say, oh, I know that this is thicker or thinner than other methyl
cells that we're going to be using.
The HV stands for high viscosity, that's around 1500 CP.
It doesn't have another grade to it, it doesn't have a writing after it, and then
LV is low viscosity, so around 400 CP.
So if you need just a slight thickener, go with the LV.
If you need something a little bit more viscous, go with the HV.
Those are the two most common ones that, if you want to just
use it just for a little bit of thickening, use the HV and LV.
If you want to get really deep into what you're doing, then you can
use the more advanced methyl cells.
Yeah.
So kind of a fun fact, not necessarily food-related, but the LV can also be used
to make slime for if you're, if you have kids like Scott and I, making slime with
them, you can use methyl cell to do that.
It's also commonly used as a dietary fiber.
So, in case you didn't know, so you could use it for that as well,
although we don't tell people how much to use because we don't know.
But speaking of applications, what are some of the other kind
of common applications of methyl cell that people might come across?
Like I said, methyl cell is used in so many things.
It can be used from something as simple as making your ice cream, you know,
have less crystals, to the cling of a barbecue sauce to hot ice cream.
Before when I said I couldn't name them all, I probably can't
name every single one right here.
There's so many uses for methyl cell.
Absolutely.
And I know there's also two types that we are not even
covering today, what are those?
Yes, so we have microcrystalline methylcellulose and carboxyl
methylcellulose and those are completely different and we'll do
something on them, in a future WTF, just because we don't want to confuse
anymore, you know, just trying to just stick with the HPMC's and the MC's.
Okay.
So I know that in a couple of minutes here, we're going to jump straight
into this demo of the hot ice cream.
But before we do that, another common question that we often get through email
and people calling in is, what is HPMC?
So what is HPMC versus, well what is HPMC period, and then how is
it different from regular MC?
So HPMC stands for some of the grades of these methylcellulose.
So the E, the F, the K, those are all HPMC and those will gel at a
slightly lower temperature, and they also mix in cold very, very
easily, but they won't mix in hot.
So there's slight little properties, that are different between them.
The A-grade is MC, that's regular methylcellulose, and that's the one that
we're actually going to be using today.
All right.
So we can see the properties of that.
So if your head has not already exploded from everything we just said, let's watch
a really cool demo about hot ice cream.
I'll just move these out of the way.
The hot ice cream is really good.
So I have an ice cream base here, and this is a basic ice cream base,
there's going to be a recipe on the blog for it, and I added water to it.
So it's not like a custard base, I don't add eggs, I don't have to heat it to a
certain temperature to kind of do that.
So it's actually a very thin base, but you can actually see
when I take a little scoop out of here, you can see the viscosity.
It's much thicker because I took, some really strong coffee, it was a cold brew I
made, and then I added methyl cell to it.
And this is the A15C.
So you can see how thick it is, and it's very simple, I'm just going to
take it just like an ice cream scooper.
You know what I'm just going to clean up just a little bit so I can
get it to my pan, and so I have this liquid and immediately when I put
it in into here, it's going to gel.
So I'm almost going to sink the ice cream scooper in, and then,
Okay, you don't want to plop that in there.
No, because it's going to hit the water, it's going to spread a little bit.
I'm going to try and keep it in this shape as best as possible.
And will I be able to do that 100%?
Not really.
No pressure Scott, live on TV.
I'm just going to put it in here, scoop it out.
Yep.
It's going to sink to the bottom a little bit there.
And what I have here is I have a little crumble that I'm going to put my ice
cream on top of, so I do brown butter solids, which I just take some brown
butter, I had a little bit of milk powder and make it nice, crispy, I dry that out
with a little bit of our N-Zorbit M, so if you watch our, past WTF episodes, we
actually have a WTF episode on N-Zorbit M.
And then I take our culinary crystals, another star of a WTF.
So I take that and then I mix it in here and there's a little bit
of English toffee flavor drops.
So I really try and get as much of that kind of roasted quality to it.
So I'm just going to put a little bit on here, just a little bed for my hot
ice cream, my hot cold brew, ice cream.
You like that, hot cold brew.
Coming to a bar, to a coffee shop near you.
Yeah, hot cold brew.
So I take out my hot ice cream, just with the scooper that I just did.
And then I'm just gonna plop it right on top here.
And as you can see,
Oh, it's making the crystals pop like crazy.
Yes, so I put the crystals in there so it sounds hot when
you put on that hot ice cream.
It sounds like it's sizzling, which is awesome.
Right?
Yes.
Can I eat it?
Yeah, you can eat it right on here.
Alright.
So I've never had hot ice cream, so this is the first
time I'm eating hot ice cream.
It's probably hot, so just give it a second.
So go right ahead.
So the best part about hot ice cream is that the outside will gel and then it'll
take time to get to the middle, so it's going to start to be a little bit soft
in the middle and that's totally fine.
So, you can kind of see this and I wanted to kind of cut away from this side.
You can kind of see that the inside is now still liquid.
Still liquid, yeah, so it's going to be just like melting ice cream and over time,
the outside will start to melt as well.
So you should get all the, you know, qualities of coffee, but a
little bit, bumped up by all the roasted stuff that's in the crumble.
Yeah.
I really liked the crumble with it and it's not like burning your mouth hot.
It's nice and warm.
It's definitely still something totally different from what people are used
to, but no, one's going to be like hot ice cream, that's impossible.
But now you can do it with a little help from methyl cell.
Yes, and then the fun of having it sizzle when it hits the plate and it's ice cream.
Yes, and I think the pop rocks are just perfect with it because
you can do like a complementary flavor or a contrasting flavor.
Yep.
So if you go to our website, modernistpantry.com, you can go to
culinary crystals, and you can make whatever flavor of hot ice cream you
want, and you can make whatever flavor of the culinary crystals, the popping
candy, and you can mix and match and make whatever you want, but I love
that, you know, it sounds hot when it hits the plate, and I think that's very
important when people get it at the table.
You can also do this tableside, which is a common practice for people.
And I like kind of what we did here too, because like, even after the ice
cream has gone those crystals are still popping away, and it just, you really
just get that continued experience.
Amazing, Scott, as always.
All right, we're going to wrap up this episode, anything we want to
leave folks with before we sign off?
Definitely check out our sheet on the blog, that's gonna go into
everything about methyl cell, HPMC, the properties of all of them.
If for some reason you didn't catch something here, go there,
go to blog.modernistpantry.com, it's going to be there and you
can really pick what you need.
Great.
Well, from here in the Modernist Pantry test kitchen, I'm Janie
Wang, and I'm Scott Guerin.
We hope you enjoy today's episode, and if you want these great recipes and these
awesome ingredients, first, you're going to have to like comment and subscribe.
And then you're going to go to blog.modernistpantry.com where
you can find those awesome recipes and you can ask a chef.
And to get these great ingredients, go to modernistpantry.com.
And until next time, we'll be here in the Modernist Pantry test
kitchen, helping you transform food.