Hey guys? Help me brainstorm how to make a new drink I'm kicking around.

[xiphias]

It's called the "Boba Libre".

See, the "Cuba Libre" is the official bartender name for a rum and coke. "Boba" are those tapioca pearls that you get in bubble tea.

And it's not quite working yet. I can't get the texture of the boba right. I may just need to practice with normal boba for a while.

So, you boil the tapioca pearls for, like, 25 minutes, then you let them cool for half an hour, and they'll supposedly stay appropriately chewy for several hours after that.

I've been doing the boiling in rum instead of water, and then putting the rum-soaked boba into a glass and pouring Coke over it.

It's almost working. But the texture is just a little off.

Any thoughts? The pot the boba boil in is sealed tightly to keep any alcohol vapors from escaping, and to keep oxygen out, so that the whole thing doesn't just catch on fire -- and it's a glass lid, so I can watch the alcohol condense on the top of the pot and drip back down in.

Should I be boiling the boba longer, assuming that the mixture is boiling at, say, 200 degrees F (93 C), instead of 212 F / 100 C? (Alcohol has a boiling point of 173 F/ 78.3 C, and distilled liquors are usually 40% alcohol, 60% water, so would that mean that it's boiling at about 200 degrees? Or would it mean that the alcohol is floating around as a vapor, and that then the water boils normally?)

Does anyone know anything about the specific chemistry of tapioca?

Comments

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I can't stand either rum or boba, but my experience with cooking grains of stuff (rice, oatmeal, barley) in stuff other than water. Well, including some water, but not JUST water. Broth, milk, juice, etc. They don't have such a drastic boiling point difference as rum, but I've found they're all much better for flavoring grain than for cooking it to the right texture. It's a significant trade-off, and I have not found a way around it by adjusting the cooking time or temperature...the only way I can get good texture is to dilute the flavored liquid or do some pre-cooking in plain water.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Yes. It's kitchen chemistry; the starch in the tapioca will react differently to different liquids, which also react differently to being boiled. It wouldn't surprise me if the solvent nature of alcohol will react differently with the tapioca starch than plain water would. That could certainly affect the texture of the finished product.

Alas, I don't know enough chemistry to tell you what's going on or how to correct for it. You need a collaborator who's into "molecular" cuisine.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

That's more or less what I'm hoping for in this brainstorming.

A little secret about the molecular cooking movement and molecular mixology? Y'all are as smart as any of the folks doing it, and smarter than most.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but they get to play with Really Cool Stuff. (-: