# Guar Gum - Other Stabilizers



## ligree (Nov 19, 2007)

Hi,

Question for all of you foodie's out there. I've recently been experimenting with guar gum as a stabilizer for frozen goods (popsicles, ice cream, etc.) and have found it to give the product an "off" taste. Even though most resources on the web describe guar gum as "tasteless", I've found it to give a weird bean taste to things. The usual proportion I've been using is 1 tsp guar gum to 1 Q product. 

I've tried smaller ratios but either haven't achieved the consistency I need or reduced the "off" flavor. So, my question is, do you guys/girls have any experience using guar gum and if so, what did you think of it? Did you also experience the weird taste it imparted? If not, what brand were you using? I'm currently using Bob's Red Mill guar gum.

I would be eager to hear about other stabilizers for frozen products that anyone has experience with that didn't impart a strange flavor. 

Thanks!


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## luc_h (Jun 6, 2007)

Hi Ligree,

Guar gum is usually quite bland tasting.

Guar is in fact a legume (bean) the gum is obtained by milling dehusked seeds. Guar gum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I do not know what you purchased but it appears to me to be unrefined. Industrial product are usually refined (washed, filtered then dried) and have no residual taste. (what colour is your product?... it should be light tan in colour)

Guar gum is used, amongst other foods, as a cream stabilizer. It would be unusable if it tasted anything you described. Try another source or obtain some product from a specialty pastry/baking supply store.

Luc H.


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## jillbhooch (Apr 28, 2012)

I tried guar gum but about half as much (same brand you have) and didn't notice a taste difference - but I also did not get the consistency I wanted - have you had any luck since this post?


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## chefedb (Apr 3, 2010)

How old is this product, I have never had a problem. I buy small amounts of all these types stabilizers, gums  and glues so they stay fresh.


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## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

What rhymes with "4-1/2 years too late?"

BDL


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## foodnfoto (Jan 1, 2001)

> What rhymes with "4-1/2 years too late?"
> 
> BDL


Still, the posting and reply can be useful to those of us who use this product-maybe not to the original poster, but maybe others.

We buy guar from Frontier Cooperative. The guar itself is a very fine, almost white, powder. It takes very little to thicken most liquids, but we find that liquids with higher fat or acid content need more guar to come to a nice viscosity. Also, you need to just give it a little time to work. Guar will continue to thicken cool liquids as it sits and you should avoid using too much as it can cause GI problems in some people.

Natural guar and guar gum are different. Natural guar is the finely ground meal of the cluster bean which grows in Central and South America. Guar gum is the intensely gummy extraction of the natural product.


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## jillbhooch (Apr 28, 2012)

Thanks foodnfoto

 I have a client that wants custom popsicles for an upcoming event - didn't seem like too hard of a request and we have some great recipe options but some of them are tending to have too large of ice crystals - we want the kind you get with the "not so fabulous grocery store kind" best explanation is "little slivers of ice crystals" instead of chunky icey ones (I am not explaining very well) but the ingredients I have seen in those store bought ones are guar gum, carob bean gum and carageenan, and assume some kind of combination of those is what is helping get the correct consistency (well and having a commercial machine) so thought guar gum might work on its own (or at least help?)


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## chefedb (Apr 3, 2010)

Ice crystals are also formed by condensation of outside air  entering if a bit warmer then the product itself.


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## foodnfoto (Jan 1, 2001)

Jill-

To get the consistency you describe it would be best to outsource this to and ice pop maker of paleta maker. No matter what you add to the mix, if you are freezing your pops in a conventional freezer, you *cannot and will not* get the texture you desire.

Why?

Because your solution freezes too slowly. Slow freezing causes large, long crystals to form. This is exacerbated by the amount of sugar in your mix.

Ice pop pros use a freezing machine that submerges the molds in an alcohol solution, agitates the solution around the molds and drops the temp to -20C in about 20 minutes. This fast freezing method causes the solutions to freeze very quickly with short, delicately layered crystals.

These machines are expensive and not even produced in the US. Find an artisan ice pop maker and have them produce your pops for you.

BTW the word "popsicle" is owned and trademarked by Unilever. You should not use that word to refer to this product unless you want to hear from their legal department.

"Ice Pop" is the generic term for a frozen treat on a stick.

*Blatant self promotion alert!*

Check out the site for our biz. We make custom pops for any occasion and can ship as well.


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## kiwisully (Aug 12, 2014)

Hi there,

I found your post very interesting and was wondering if you have any advice to share on which freezing system works best? I'm in the beginning stages of starting a small popsicle business abroad and would really appreciate your input. I have found various brands, such as Turbo 8, but don't know where to begin. When you have a moment would you mind sharing your thoughts and experiences? I would greatly appreciate some guidance as to where to look first. Thank you for your time!

Keely


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## pitufina73 (Mar 26, 2012)

Foodandfoto, very interesting! I made ice cream with KA ice cream bowl and the ice cream freezes as a rock, i need to let it sit until it get a bit soft.... 

Thanks for your post, will research more, i dont like adding extra ingredients that i dont know...


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## laurenlulu (Sep 9, 2012)

Adding dissolved gelatin creates a smoother mouth feel


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## wee isle (Mar 31, 2015)

My wife and I have been making numerous small batches of ice cream in the past few months, as we are intending to start making some for sale in our local market (west coast of Scotland). Initially we made Vanilla ice cream that we really liked, in terms of flavour. But we knew we had to improve how it sits in the freezer, and so I went on an ice cream making course, and was told to add gum powders for stabilising the ice cream in the freezer. So I bought Guar Gum powder, and Locust Bean powder, and Xanthum Gum powder, and created an even mix of these 3. (They each have their strengths and weaknesses, so the advice is to mix them.)

We have been adding one teaspoon (5ml / 2 gm) of this mixed gum powder to our basic 1.5 litre batches. Seems fine, but not when it comes to making Vanilla. We could not get rid of an unwanted "powdery" flavour. So we finally made two batches yesterday, identical to each other except one had the gum powders and the other did not.

Result? It was very clear to us that the gum powder mix is the culprit. The batch without the powder did not have the unwanted odd taste, and was the flavour of Vanilla Ice Cream we had been aiming for.

I notice that Haagen-Daz do not add these powders to their Vanilla ice cream.

By the way, to help the scooping softness, we added 25 ml of veg. glycerine to the batch. It definitely helps keep the ice cream a bit softer once it has got down to really cold temp in the freezer, but doesn't appear to add any unwanted flavour at all.

The machine we are using is a Cattabriga MTM K20, which is great in that it uses between 1.5 litres and 2.5 litres of ice cream mix, and turns it into ice cream in about 6 minutes. As it is a horizontal batch freezer, you can't add inclusions in the making. Other than that we have found it to be a great machine to work with.


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## luc_h (Jun 6, 2007)

what you are describing seems more like an undissolved powder issue.

these powders require very strong vigorous agitation to dissolve properly in preferably warm liquid.  Try incorporate the powder blend using an immersion blender in 1/4 of the volume of warm liquid then slowly add the rest of the liquid while blending.

the bottom line is if you don't see improvement using the gums don't use them but if well incorporated they will help minimize or prevent ice crystal formation when stored in a freezer (which is due to the freeze thaw cycle of frost free freezers within refrigerators).

Luc H.


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## Poopsie (May 3, 2018)

Well... I'm writing this response nearly 11 years after it was initially logged. I just found the site and it looks like a great resource so hopefully you guys may have some advice and I'll do my best to help as well. 

We manufacture frozen fruit bars and started with a Turbo 8 but recently upgraded to a Turbo 25 due to our popularity. Since our turnover was so high, we did not have many problems with our products icing up in our freezers. Now that we have started selling to grocery stores, our pops have a slower turnover. Without any stabilizers in them, the pops are icing up (look frost bitten) after a few weeks. So... we need to start adding stabilizers to the pops. I have started playing around with Xanthun Gum as well as Guar Gum and found that the products have a much smoother texture but tend to lack a bit of flavor. What I am a bit curious about is what ratios to use.

Xanthan Gum suggests using 1/4 a tsp per cup of gluten free flour while Guar Gum is twice the recommended amount of Xanthan Gum. So... for liquids with pulp in them it's a different kind of measurement. I started using 1 tbls of Guar Gum for every 16 cups of liquid and it seems okay without much of a taste difference. Please note, this is not a straight liquid but a pulpy liquid. If anyone has suggestions on the consistence, I would appreciate hearing back from you. While I've been in business 5 years, adjusting our recipes seems like a strange concept. But, I need to adjust them to reduce the problems to reduct the icing of the pops. Thanks everyone!


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## Khaleesijenny (May 5, 2018)

Poopsie said:


> Well... I'm writing this response nearly 11 years after it was initially logged. I just found the site and it looks like a great resource so hopefully you guys may have some advice and I'll do my best to help as well.
> 
> We manufacture frozen fruit bars and started with a Turbo 8 but recently upgraded to a Turbo 25 due to our popularity. Since our turnover was so high, we did not have many problems with our products icing up in our freezers. Now that we have started selling to grocery stores, our pops have a slower turnover. Without any stabilizers in them, the pops are icing up (look frost bitten) after a few weeks. So... we need to start adding stabilizers to the pops. I have started playing around with Xanthun Gum as well as Guar Gum and found that the products have a much smoother texture but tend to lack a bit of flavor. What I am a bit curious about is what ratios to use.
> 
> Xanthan Gum suggests using 1/4 a tsp per cup of gluten free flour while Guar Gum is twice the recommended amount of Xanthan Gum. So... for liquids with pulp in them it's a different kind of measurement. I started using 1 tbls of Guar Gum for every 16 cups of liquid and it seems okay without much of a taste difference. Please note, this is not a straight liquid but a pulpy liquid. If anyone has suggestions on the consistence, I would appreciate hearing back from you. While I've been in business 5 years, adjusting our recipes seems like a strange concept. But, I need to adjust them to reduce the problems to reduct the icing of the pops. Thanks everyone!


Hi, 
I am also curious as to how to get better consistency. To me, it seems the less sugar I use, the thinker and better consistency I have when I make coconut fudgesicles. I never have rock-hard pops but I do get ice crystals a lot when I use more sugar. (I think this may be because it freezes more slowly?)

Poopsie-what did you do with your Turbo 8? I want to buy a used one but I'm not sure where to look. I contacted the company directly to get a quote but I have not heard back yet.

I think there are many things at play here as far as consistency goes-freezing time, ingredients, and temperature. 
Flash freezing is super expensive, but probably the most effective. 
I am going to experiment with these gums and see what happens. Has anyone tried working with citric acid? 
To me it sounds a little gross, especially because I would like to avoid using any food additives, but now I am stuck on getting the perfect consistency.

Thanks for your time and thoughts everyone!


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## Poopsie (May 3, 2018)

Hey - my suggestion to you is to go to someplace like William Sonoma or Amazon and get something called A Zoku. This is a self-contained system that creates frozen pops in a smaller format and in about 15 minutes. This is what we use when experimenting on new flavors and costs about $50. It may save you some time and expense along the way.

Sugar is a goofy ingredient as it's purpose (aside from sweetening) is to help keep the cream or the liquids from freezing into a solid mass like an ice cube. It essentially lengthens the freezing time of what is being frozen such as ice cream on in your case the fudge pops. From what I remember, you have to be pretty careful with the amount of sugar you use as too much will not allow your products to set up correctly. Add in a longer freezing time and you're really going to have problems.

In essence to the subject on the post, a buddy of mine went to the PA Ice Cream School and most of the instructors and classmates agreed that Guar Gum is the best in ice cream. It helps to thicken and make the texture much smoother. I'm not sure the quantity but you can likely find more threads on respective recipes. I've now played with a few of our recipes using Guar Gum as it's a bit less expensive and tends to be more forgiving.

I can't quite remember the rules and I do apologize if I'm not supposed to post a website but here are some other stabilizers out there...
https://underbelly-nyc.blogspot.com/2016/05/ice-cream-stabilizers.html

For the Turbo 8, I have not sold the machine as it is now a back up system and what we can transition from our water based Turbo 25 to the air cooled Turbo 8 in colder months. I'm in the Midwest and not in the warmest of zones for year round pop eating.


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## Khaleesijenny (May 5, 2018)

Poopsie said:


> Hey - my suggestion to you is to go to someplace like William Sonoma or Amazon and get something called A Zoku. This is a self-contained system that creates frozen pops in a smaller format and in about 15 minutes. This is what we use when experimenting on new flavors and costs about $50. It may save you some time and expense along the way.
> 
> Sugar is a goofy ingredient as it's purpose (aside from sweetening) is to help keep the cream or the liquids from freezing into a solid mass like an ice cube. It essentially lengthens the freezing time of what is being frozen such as ice cream on in your case the fudge pops. From what I remember, you have to be pretty careful with the amount of sugar you use as too much will not allow your products to set up correctly. Add in a longer freezing time and you're really going to have problems.
> 
> ...


Thanks for all of this information! 
Yes-I have found the more sugar I use, the worse off I am. (Which is actually good because I was wanting to go a more sugar-free route anyways.) 
I have heard about the Zoku, but I want to make about 80 at a time. Maybe for experimental purposes I'll purchase that and when I want to start selling them I'll invest in a Turbo 8.

How long does your machine take to make the pops?

Also, thanks for sending the link.


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## nickgoods (May 18, 2018)

I never tasted an “off taste” from products with guar gum

But as far as stabilizing ice cream/gelato 

I have been using either cornstarch or tapioca /arrow root

No need to even use cream or egg


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