Basuragomi's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
basuragomi
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

Lentofu v1.1c

Lentofu v1.1c is based on meat glue (bacterial transglutaminase) as a binder.

I took some concentrate, sifted in a few grams of meat glue and "chicken" (hydrolyzed yeast) flavouring, then let it set. It set into a very soft gel. It was too soft to press or even handle. I ended up decanting the supernatant and mixing it up to add more meat glue (about 1.5% by mass in the raw concentrate), which gave it a yogurt-like texture (before and after):
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I let it set again and then froze the mass. After thawing, it had hardened considerably. The ice crystals had also split it up into a giant fractured mess:
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The best way I can describe the texture is "glorp" - it was soft and squishy, but with well-defined edges. I wasn't very optimistic about the texture here. It handled like a champ though, I pressed out a lot of water and fried it.

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It actually tasted really good with a great texture! The freezing gave it meat-like fibres, and it firmed up as it cooked:

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The WAF was relatively high. The previous front-runner, v1.1b AKA Soylent Pink, was described as "bottom tier chicken nuggets," while v1.1c AKA meat glue got the review "overcooked chicken breast."

The results were actually so in line with my original goal that if I stopped now, I would be happy. I do want to try multiple freezing-gluing rounds however.

I also tried precipitating albumin out of the whey for vegan egg whites. I had acquired a lot of salt so just dumped it in, which should force some albumin out of solution. It worked, but had really low recovery. I think I should try adding ethanol and trying again at freezing temperatures, but it's a lot of work.

The new regrind equipment means that my dregs are finer than ever and can now serve as flour. I'm going to try making brownies or quickbread with it instead of the usual breakfast porridge.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

Your gif reminds me of Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I cannot un-see it. https://turtlepedia.fandom.com/wiki/Krang

Really cool project. The texture in the last photo is looking pretty good!

guitarplayer
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

@mountainFrugal this is seriously funny what you wrote! DW and I laughed out loud for a bit.

@basuragomi, the way you describe v1.1c and by how it looks, I wonder if it would have similar texture to chicken of the woods. It is a delicious edible wild mushroom that grows on deciduous trees, a yellow one.

basuragomi
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Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

@mountainFrugal - you're not alone, the colour and wobbliness of the raw stuff kept reminding me of fresh brains as I was making it. This is probably one of those "don't visit the sausage factory" kinds of products.

@guitarplayer - I've come across chicken of the woods quite a bit but unfortunately have not yet had the opportunity to cook it. I'd imagine lentofu is a bit softer than a typical fungus. I actually was looking into growing mushrooms but their poor protein content is what put me off.

Lentofu v1.2 - protein chips

I've been thinking about how to popularize/commercialize my lentofu research for a while now and this seemed like a really promising approach, targeting backpackers for what seems to be niche but unfulfilled demand for ready-to-eat ultralight protein.

Lentofu v1.2 is very elegant in its simplicity. I previously observed that dried lentofu formed a skin, getting hard and dark while looking surprisingly meat-like. I tried to focus on that, making a shelf-stable protein chip rather than a high water content protein loaf.

The process is simple: make some concentrate, mix in flavouring, cook until its dehydrated. It forms crunchy chips, if you get the conditions just right. I tried two different heating profiles but the cooler profile left the chips relatively raw - not tasty! The hotter profile scorched a bit around the edges, but I have a plan to deal with that.

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The chips are very crispy and taste like pure umami but have a habit of sticking to your teeth. You can also let them sit in your mouth and rehydrate. It's basically pure protein jerky. I made a plain version and an "everything bagel" version. The response from the designated guinea pigs was so good that I took it around to my family and friends as well for more feedback. I got a surprisingly positive response.

The value proposition: It's extremely lightweight, ~90% protein and very little moisture. 1/3rd the price of jerky but more shelf-stable, cheaper than chicken breast on a per-gram of protein basis, and vegan. It isn't as cheap as protein powder but tastes better, is crunchy, ready-to-eat and can be packaged in convenient chip form.

I'm over a year into this project, and so far I've tried to make the following from my lentil derivatives:

- Heat-set gel (v0.1)
- Guar-mix gel (v1.0)
- Starch-set gel (I called this v2.0 for some reason)
- Chocolate egg-replacement muffins
- Angel food cake
- Alginate gel (v1.1a)
- Souffle
- Soylent pink (v1.1b)
- Meat glue (v1.1c)
- Chips (v1.2)

I'd say the only real successes here were the muffins, meat glue and chips, the latter two I'm continuing work on.

I have yet to try: bacterial rennet (provisionally v1.1d) and gluten. I think rennet would probably work well.

NewBlood
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by NewBlood »

Hi Basuragomi,
Your experiments are very interesting. Your chips remind me of tempeh chips (https://www.trulygourmet.co/en/tempeh-chips/).
I have an Indonesian friend who brings those back regularly, and they're delicious (not sure how much MSG they add to it, I don't even care).
I wonder if you could use a similar process with lentils.
Apologies if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to do, but I didn't see any mention of tempeh in your journal, so thought it might be of interest.

Edited to add: the link above is just a website I found that seemed to have a good description, not a source I've tried.

basuragomi
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

Thanks @NewBlood. I've had tempeh before but previously had trouble getting soybeans. The local stores carry it now so I might revisit things. It would be a good introduction to dealing with fungus. I've moved away from soy in general because it's hard to get the protein out alone and the okara is so annoying to deal with.

The two things that jump out to me about that link are that 1) the soybean to (what seems like) starch ratio is pretty low, and 2) it looks like prawn chips. I'm not sure how much it's a tempeh chip (i.e. is the whole mass fermented?) versus being a chip with tempeh mix-ins.

Because my chips don't have any starch in them and the heat-set gel it forms isn't very strong, I'm not sure if they'll puff up the same way. But I'll try! If nothing else, this would be a really good use for the floury dregs, maybe with some nutritional yeast thrown in.

NewBlood
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by NewBlood »

From my limited understanding, per my friend's description because I had never had tempeh before and didn't know what it was, the whole thing is tempeh. The white stuff in between the beans is the fungus. I assume you can make it more or less "bean-concentrated"?
(https://www.shutterstock.com/image-phot ... 2038337360)

basuragomi
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

@NewBlood, turns out the protein chips are phenomenally sensitive to heat. No way I can fry them without them instantly charring. The starch chips taste fine but I think it's the wrong kind of starch in lentils as they don't really puff up.

February 2023 update

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Naps taken: 9

Portraits drawn: 17

Busy month, fewer naps. I won a scholarship for getting the highest grades in the department! I also visited Calgary properly for the first time which is why my expenses were relatively high the last two months. Of course, it was -30 the whole week.

I made red cabbage pad thai using my veggie noodle pad thai recipe, which looked pretty funky:

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NewBlood
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by NewBlood »

Ah bummer! Thanks for reporting back!
(Just FYI, I wouldn't describe the tempeh chips as puffy. they're thin and crispy).

basuragomi
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Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

March 2023 update

Image

Naps taken: 9

Portraits drawn: 17

Very busy with school, if the lack of naps and portraits didn't make it obvious. I won another scholarship which will more than cover a conference-vacation.

I made some more progress on the lentofu/leat/protein chip front. Turns out a dry, pure protein product burns really easily since there's no thermal buffering from fat and water. I've been tweaking the process to get the chips just right. One challenge is that getting flavours to be noticeable against the strong umami is pretty difficult. I've been going for gradually more intense flavours in the concentrate as a result, but might try a flavour dust like paprika or nutritional yeast.

I also turned the dregs into a steamed cake which fried up very well, basically like Chinese turnip cakes. I'm going to try adding some baking powder and see if it can be made a bit lighter.

I don't think any of the old images in this thread should go down with the Imgur purge, but if any do let me know and I can repost them. Can't edit the old posts though!

basuragomi
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

Image

Naps taken: 10

Portraits drawn: 10

Term is almost over. I wrote a term paper on how wild Pacific salmon populations are basically collapsing, largely due to human activity, and have practically no hope of recovery in the next thirty years. It was depressing to research. I wrote another one on generating value from recycling oilfield produced water, which is nominally a waste product. Spilled produced water can sterilize ground even *after* replacing all the soil, and there are a lot of spills. I also learned how to use LaTeX and how to really use Matplotlib, which has been fun.

Going to start my thesis next, my advisor seemed very keen on my proposed topic. I've been catching up on maintenance and art things in the meantime.

Grad school reminds me of playing a role-playing game. There's a main plotline that isn't particularly long. If you want to make it a career, you're judged on how many achievements you have - which means doing as many side quests as possible, the grindier the better. You get bonus points for tweeting about your progress too. If I went into this straight out of undergrad I probably would have gotten really into it.

I was gifted a very nice bicycle. The guy who owned it refuses to learn how to do any maintenance, even changing a flat tire, so took it in to a bike mechanic for every single problem. He doesn't even own hex keys. The level at which it became too expensive to maintain was therefore comically low. It's in great condition. I'm going to use it while I refurbish my main bike this summer, then it'll be a loaner for visitors.

Did taxes. I'm finally in a different income bracket than my wife, so we got to split and fully use donations and deductions. We ended up with a much larger refund (+30%) than expected.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

basuragomi wrote:
Sun May 07, 2023 12:41 pm
Term is almost over. I wrote a term paper on how wild Pacific salmon populations are basically collapsing, largely due to human activity, and have practically no hope of recovery in the next thirty years. It was depressing to research. I wrote another one on generating value from recycling oilfield produced water, which is nominally a waste product. Spilled produced water can sterilize ground even *after* replacing all the soil, and there are a lot of spills. I also learned how to use LaTeX and how to really use Matplotlib, which has been fun.
If you'd like some hope in regards to salmon recovery, you can look into the Elwha River dam removal and restoration. This is one of the more inspiring environmental stories from the last couple decades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VipVo8zPH0U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3ooEH3cGHs

Discussions about removing four dams on the lower Snake River have quite a bit of momentum and there is bipartisan support at the federal level. I suspect it is only a matter of time before that happens. It would restore hundreds of miles of habitat for wild salmon all the way through Washington and into Idaho. This would have a massive, beneficial impact on salmon populations in the Puget Sound and is probably the biggest opportunity to reverse trends in declining salmon populations.

avalok
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by avalok »

The only curse with LaTeX comes when you inevitably have to use a WYSIWYG editor again. I wish I could use it at work without irritating colleagues because they cannot (be bothered to learn to) edit the documents I've created. OOI, are you using matplotlib to visualize data, and then importing the images it creates into a LaTeX document as figures?

basuragomi
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

@WRC, Thanks for the links, I've looked up a bit more and digested the information. My scope was limited to the BC populations so missed what's happening down south. It's pretty much the only encouraging piece of news I've read on the situation. Everything else is more along the lines of "look how desperate our measures are getting." I feel like the fishery is doomed to go the way of the Grand Banks cod as farmed fish take precedence.

@avalok Yes, usually after a pass through Inkscape for tweaks. The curse has already hit, I had to edit a decade-old Word file with about fifty different formats, some custom (long-extinct) XML plug-in that it constantly demanded, and a highly modified thirty-page-long table that exploded at the slightest provocation. It was painful before, but now it's existentially painful.

basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

Image

Naps taken: 8

Portraits drawn: Just 2 :( Need to step it up this month!

A giant pile of cash came in from my tax return, ~1.5 years of living expenses. I am a bit embarrassed to say that I just threw it on the pile. It feels like I keep tripping over money that I don't need. I even got paid $100 (a month's worth of food!) to play video games as part of a research study. But the future is hazier than ever with respect to my start-up's capital needs.

Lots of travel this month for conferences. More than covered cashflow-wise, but meant a lot of disruption. I spent a while in Calgary to present a project I was working on through the last two terms. My project actually received way more attention than I expected, and a few people were really excited at the idea of (me) turning it into a startup. Guess that's another idea for the pile.

I serendipitously got some leads for collaboration/consultation on the lentofu chips (lent jerky?). I've been developing a bootstrapping plan based around commercial kitchen rental. I've been trying to speed up the whole process as a result and will try to build a centrifuge and try out vacuum desiccation. People have asked if I'm worried about getting scooped but this is something that the world needs. If someone believes in the idea enough to do all the work realizing it, then I'm 100% for it.

It got very hazy from wildfires just as we left to travel to the mountains:

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The irony of driving a brand-new fossil fueled car (25 km on the odometer) to see a vanishing glacier amidst wildfire haze was not lost on us. It cleared up on our way back down though.

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Then I had less than a week at home and traveled again for another conference. This time closer to home:

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This ship sailed to the arctic a few times - and it doesn't even have an enclosed bridge! The guns still work too.

My wife jokes that I'm the boomer whisperer. I've got just enough knowledge about the boomer classics (military history, home renovation, industrial processes, prog rock, cars) to pique the enthusiasm of certain types and get them going for hours.

My grandmother has been getting more forgetful the last few years, but it's progressed to lapses in attention. I stood right next to her and called her loudly but she didn't even realize I was in the room. The family has started the process of moving her into a more suitable living situation. It really should have started two years ago when she set her kitchen on fire, but she was very stubborn until this last incident. It's going to be a big change since we live the closest and I'm sure there's going to be a giant shitstorm regarding the property and every step of the process. I'm going to defer as much as possible to the older generation, but I obviously want her to live in comfort above all else. Mental decline isn't pretty, but I hope to have the chance to recognize my own state before I become a danger to myself or those around me.

basuragomi
Posts: 419
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

Lentil protein chips

I've done some more work on developing my protein chips. Thanks to my guinea pigs, I'm converging on a final product specification.

I've recently tested:
- varying baking times to balance tooth sticking vs browning
- a coagulating heat soak to speed up the drying step (this produced the crumbles - basically imitation bacon bits - not something I want to compete with)
- rennet (total failure for now)
- varying chip thicknesses
- varying drying substrates
- using a flavouring dust rather than flavouring the chip body

Unfortunately people are strongly divided on thin (phyllo pastry) versus thick (kettle chips) chips.

These are the variants I'm working with right now, with bottom right my preferred product:
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Nutritional yeast and smoked paprika both had fans. I'm going to try honey garlic and kombu/shiitake next.

The next step is to shift from product to process. You can see that I'm not getting consistent large chips. I also need to significantly speed up the process to get my target throughput. I think I can address things with specialized equipment.

One big advance is in dealing with the byproducts. I ground the dregs further, added a buttload of spices and turned it into falafel, or "lelafel." I made it into a thin sheet for pan frying rather than balls. It was pretty good with ample hummus as a kind of falafel pita. Unlike the previous porridge it had a positive WAF, i.e. she willingly ate it and asked for seconds:
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This could be developed further, the starch can be separated to get a high-protein flour and then used for bioplastics, insulation or just eaten.

I also managed to scavenge the albumin from the whey in a way that managed to collect it all together, giving me a vegan egg white omelet:
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It tastes just like egg whites, which isn't really a strong endorsement. You can see that it takes an accidental whipping quite readily too.

This is reassuring, since I think that with reverse osmosis I can generate a viable raw egg white substitute for things like angel food cake. If I could keep every part of the lentil for human consumption while adding value at each step it would be a big win.

I've detailed the overall process earlier, and it hasn't significantly changed. I'm still getting about 17% mass recovery versus 20% in the literature.

Right now the ideal pipeline is like this:

Lentils
Ground lentils
Lentil starch, lentil flour, albumin whey, legumin concentrate
Lelafel, vegan egg whites, protein chips
RO permeate, wastewater (good fertilizer?)

I'm now able to separate out two kinds of protein and potentially still leave the dregs as an edible product - with the same macronutrient profile as wheat flour. I'm hoping to collaborate with my university on food safety and digestibility assessment in the future.

basuragomi
Posts: 419
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

June 2023 update

One year since quitting! The only thing I miss is the spare freezer at work. I even visited a salt mine this month to confirm.

Naps taken: 12

Portraits drawn: 37

I made some more progress on the lentil jerky, trying out alternatives to vinegar for precipitation. I learned how to make cheung fun, which I made with lentil starch - another byproduct of the lentil jerky production.

I repaired, set up and put into use my new-to-me bike. It just needed airing up, a new rear brake nut, toeing-in the brakes and seat adjustment. I bought a chainbreaker to kick off refurbishing my old bike. I know that it isn't strictly necessary, but it is much more convenient when the chain is still on the bike. I learned that you can use old bike chain for very makeshift hinges, which I will use on a new project idea. I will refrain from commenting further to avoid sapping motivation.

I finally cleaned up and set up my garden for the season - basil, NZ spinach and some sort of honeybee wildflower mix. Better late than never.

guitarplayer
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Your portrait practice (also @mF's drawing practice) inspire me to start recording songs.

basuragomi
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Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

Glad to hear it (if you're willing to share)! I realized I never posted any of the portraits, so here's a sample:
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It's just 5-minute sketches, nothing fancy, but I am doing a lot of them.

basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

July 2023 update

Naps taken: 8

Portraits: 10

Summer is here! Doing all the summer things. Bubbles, fringe fest, biking up the river, biking to Niagara Falls, gorging on local fruit. I disassembled my main bike for refurbishment and will be fixing up the following:

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It's been ridden hard through a few winters since the last refurbishment so the rust is getting concerning again. The bottom bracket and wheels are still newish. I ride almost exclusively on the tops and have brake handles meant for that so that's why the handlebar angle is so weird. At least the grease has held up.

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