How can I break an emulsion making carotene butter?
I am making carotene butter by mixing clarified butter and carrot juice.
The idea is that I now need to separate the carotene infused butter from the juice. The only problem being that they are very well emulsified together.
I tried blending it more until the heat and friction would break it, but that has not happened, even after more than 5 minutes of blending on high (my blender's limit. I tried heating the liquid to a boil but this did nothing either. Lastly, I tried decanting it, but it barely separates even after a long time.
How can I break the emulsion?
Best Answer
Chill it.
The butter will solidify and upon remelting the emulsion will be broken.
I've never had a butter emulsion not break after chilling.
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Quick Answer about "How can I break an emulsion making carotene butter?"
POUR BLENDED INGREDIENTS INTO A SMALL POT; BRING TO BOIL On low heat, warm the carrot butter until boiling. A raft of cellulose from the carrot juice will form on the top. Turn the heat off and let rest for two minutes. This will result in better separation.How do you break butter water emulsion?
Butter itself is an emulsion. When butter is heated and begins to melt, this emulsion breaks \u2014 the butterfat naturally separates from the milk solids and water. But you can prevent this by whisking the cold butter into a little hot water while it melts, thus creating a melted emulsion of butter.How do you break emulsion in cooking?
Emulsion sauces are made by mixing two substances that don't normally mix. To do this, you have to break one of them into millions of miniscule droplets and suspend those droplets in the other substance by vigorously whisking, or better yet, blending them in a blender or food processor.How do you fix emulsions?
Fixing any broken egg-based emulsion requires the same method: Create a new emulsion, then whisk the broken one into it. You can do this by placing a teaspoon of lemon juice (or water) in a clean bowl and adding a small amount of the broken emulsion, whisking to form another, stable emulsion.How do you fix emulsion in chemistry?
Emulsions can be disrupted by the addition of brine or salt water, which increases the ionic strength of the aqueous layer and facilitates separation of the two phases by forcing the surfactant-like molecule to separate into one phase or the other-this technique is known as salting out.How emulsions make food butter (I mean better)
More answers regarding how can I break an emulsion making carotene butter?
Answer 2
How you break an emulsion depends somewhat on whether the continuous phase is aqueous or oily, oil droplets in water or water droplets in oil. I suspect you have oil droplets.
These are just a few methods I would try (in addition to those already mentioned earlier by users Sobachatina and fyrepenguine) if I were faced with this, but I have not tested them on your exact combination.
Adding warm or hot salt water (0.5% by weight salt in water) into it and stir
Thermal treatment: Extreme heat cycles (freezing and heating)
Particle charge disruption methods (all different methods not steps in a single method) :
- Adding vinegar and stir
- Dissolving agar or gelatin hot water and add to emulsion, stir and let it settle and then separate the oil from the gel (1-2% by weight)
- Add salt (0.5% steps by weight) to gel solution above and stir into emulsion
G-force: If you have a centrifuge, there should be enough density difference between the two phases to achieve a complete separation.
Carotene has a strong preference to stay in the oil while salt, vinegar strongly prefer water.
As an aside, with aggressive agitation and when subjected to high shear, you tend to end up with a very stable emulsion. This is why my preferred way of this type of 2-phase liquid-liquid extraction is to use gentle stirring over more time rather than using a blender. Even periodic shaking is preferable. Diffusion across the interface will allow the extraction to happen with time. If you use a thermometer to monitor the temperature of the contents inside most kitchen blender, even in high speed mode, there is no heating effect from friction (except for very high power ones as pointed out in comment below), but You are very likely to create electrically charged droplets which is great if you are after a stable emulsion. Very high speed blenders capable of heating by cavitation can make the emulsion more stable than less stable. There is also the likelihood of aeration to accelerate enzymatic browning.
It is too easy to just focus on the best way to extract (small particles for high surface area and short diffusion path) in the least amount of time, and lose sight of the entire process which still requires separating the oil phase from the water phase. Extraction between two very mobile phases is relatively painless, but emulsion breaking can be painful, and you want to avoid doing one step really well only to create a hard problem for later.
In a very crude experiment today, I found that starting with pulped pressure-steamed carrot, using a gold coffee filter cone and repeatedly dripped clarified butter through with patience worked very well, no emulsion (just a layer of water phase below to decant away). In fact, if you really want efficiency, retain some carotene butter for next time, start the extraction with fresh pulp and melted carotene butter in the first couple of runs, then use pure clarified butter for subsequent once. (Counter-current extraction technique). Strictly speaking it is no longer liq-liq extraction but leaching but the concentration gradient principle is the same.
PS
This is another technique that is much more sensible/workable in a home kitchen.
Shred the carrots, finer is better but coarse shredding works well enough. You can optionally blanch this if you are concerned about browning.
Put into a bag with hot clarified butter at above 75C, expel as much air as you can or vacuum the bag before sealing. Sous vide at 75C or use a hot water bath (well below boiling) for 3 hours or longer. Decant off the now orange coloured oil phase. You can keep the carrot pulp to make crisps or discard it. If you are obsessed with extraction efficiency, cook it for a day, but I suspect numerically you would not get to the same degree as the juice/emulsion method, but then this is practically just a single extraction-separation step without any emulsion headache.
Answer 3
(By no means is this a method that I know will work, but it is a decent last resort)
I'm just going off of what I've learned from chemistry, but another possibility is adding salt water if Sobachatina's suggestion of chilling it doesn't work. The salt water should mix with the carrot juice, and the increased polarity should separate out the the butter. Here's a link to list of techniques (not all of them suitable for cooking) to break up emulsions.
Answer 4
Just let the mixture stand for a few hours. Just like in milk, the butter should rise to the surface.
If then additionally you chill it for half an hour or so, the solidified butter should be easy to scoop off. If you freeze it it is probably not going to work.
If this does not work, you might actually have to churn it, like with milk. Shaking your container might be a good option if it is not too big.
No sweat. Or almost. LOL!
Answer 5
take a small portion, put it into a small but solid container, tie it with a small cord, and let it turn in air drawing circles. Be carefull when you stop it may spill everywhere!! It's very "preistoric" centrifugation but it may works :D
Answer 6
Put it in a small container and shook like crazy. Butter separated easily fine the water and was very creamy. Saved 1/4 oz. Phew!
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