Section 01 · Coagulation · the flagship piece

Four ways to stop a protein dissolving

A salt bridges what was floating apart. A wash carries off everything except the part that stretches. A mould runs threads through a tray of beans until it lifts as one slab. A whisk parks protein on the surface of a bubble. Old techniques, legible reasons, and nothing you cannot keep on a counter.

hero curdling — Pale greenish-yellow whey means the protein has gone into the curd. Milky whey means it is still in suspension.

The register — four techniques, four sets of conditionsAgent · condition · endpoint · fault

01 Coagulationsoy milk → curd

Agent: Gypsum · nigari · GDL
Condition: 75–90 °C, one stir
Endpoint: Whey runs clear yellow

Divalent ions bridge two protein molecules at once, or a delayed acid removes the charge that was keeping them apart. Either way the network builds outward and the water ends up outside it.

Stir twice and the bridges tear: fine sediment that never presses into a block.

02 Washingdough → gluten

Agent: Cool running water
Condition: Rest, then a bare simmer
Endpoint: Wash water runs clear

Gliadin flows and glutenin resists; worked together they cross-link into a net that holds the starch. The water takes the starch and leaves the net, about two thirds of the weight gone.

Wash before the dough has rested and the net shreds; boil it hard and it sets open and spongy.

03 Culturebeans → cake

Agent: Rhizopus oligosporus
Condition: Warm, narrow band, air moving
Endpoint: Tray lifts as one slab

Mycelium grows into the gaps between dehulled beans and binds the tray into one sliceable block. Towards the end the cake makes its own heat, so the box is watched rather than set.

Too warm and the mould dies back; too cool and it never starts.

04 Foambean liquid → peak

Agent: Air, acid, sugar
Condition: Room temperature, no fat
Endpoint: Peak folds at the tip

Protein driven to the surface of every bubble unfolds there and links with its neighbours into a film. The film is the entire structure, and fat competes for the same surface.

Whip past the peak and the film ruptures — a broken foam nothing brings back.

The fifth section, Faults, collects those failures on their own — what went wrong, and at which step.

SectionsFive · 26 pieces · the full index

Worth reading firstA selection, not the list

Hands hold a round tray with a dough ball resting in cloudy starch wash water

Washing

Washing out the starch

Knead a flour dough under water and the starch clouds away, leaving an elastic mass of gluten behind. The water runs clear when you are finished.

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Hands wrap a floured round dough ball in cloth beside bowls of dough pearls and cheese cubes

Culture

A mould that knits

Rhizopus grows through cooked beans and binds them into a sliceable cake. It is a controlled fermentation with a narrow temperature range.

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Melted chocolate with a small whisk in a white ramekin on a wooden board

Foam

Air in bean water

The liquid from cooked chickpeas holds air because of the proteins and saponins dissolved in it, and behaves remarkably like egg white.

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01.3Temperature windowA narrow band either side of which the same coagulant does the wrong thing. 04.4Over-whippingThe point past which the foam breaks and cannot be brought back. 05.4The cake that greyedLeft too long, too warm, or wrapped too tightly.

Labs we ferment beside.Named, in order, with no logos

Principal supporters

Also supporting

Laboratories and kitchens whose work runs alongside ours.

Every one of them is the same instruction: stop dissolving, and hold a shape.