"Ewwww... Processed cheese recipe?!?! Spoons, why would you cross that line?!?!"
Not a lot of bites yet?
. I found your post interesting as I want to improve my cheese sauce making ability while at the same time make it a little bit simplier with less of a mess with double boilers and all. I'm getting some good results that I'll post in another thread (still need to research all of the good information to date on the forum first). What I did want to mention here is that while a lot of home cheese makers may not have sodium citrate on hand we probably have citric acid. Making sodium citrate from citric acid is easy and kind of fun in a Mr. Wizard sort of way:
Making a (tri)sodium citrate solution for cheese emulsification (enough for 300g cheese):
1. Dissolve 2 tsp. of citric acid in 1 Tbs. water in a small glass.
2. Add 2 tsp. bicarbonate of soda
a little bit at a time.
3. The sodium bicarbonate will react with the acid (i.e. fizz and bubble)
4. Stir until all the sodium bi-carb has been reacted (fizzing stops).
You can evaporate the water using a microwave or keep it as a liquid in a small medicine bottle in the fridge. To help emulsify each 100g of cheese add 1 tsp. of the sodium citrate solution / powder along with the milk, salt etc before you place the poly bag into the hot water. If you don't have SHMP on hand you can put a half slice (4g) of processed cheese like Kraft singles.
WARNING: I'm not a chemist and may have the mole ratios off, and I'm not a producer of processed cheeses but it's simple and works for me
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