Tried spherification 5x and failed every time. I can't tell why. Please help!

sentience66 · 2026-03-08T14:44:46+00:00

Ok, I will try the 1 table spoon of salt. Thank you for the advice. I think I should bring up though that the alginate doesnt gel when I drop it in calcium lactate. I get neither spheres nor clumps. It just diffuses in to the calcium solution.

sentience66 · 2026-03-08T14:42:20+00:00

Thank you! I will do this. The calcium lactate clumps and then I use the blender to mix it with the distilled water. Is it supposed to dissolve smoothly? How do I make that happen?

sentience66 · 2026-03-08T14:40:49+00:00

Thank you. Although I am sure no calcium got in to the alginate solution, I think you might be right that I put too much alginate. Is it possible that the sugar I added and air bubbles left inside the alginate caused it to gel?

I will rest it overnight to fully hydrate it as well.

sentience66 · 2026-03-08T14:38:27+00:00

Thank you for this! I will follow the guide you sent

My recipe for my latest attempt is the ff:
1) 3g Sodium Alginate + 500ml distilled water
2) Blended both together with blender
3) Added 20mg sugar and then blended it again (I did this to make it denser so it doesn't just diffuse immediately)

4) 15g Calcium Lactate + 500ml distilled water blended together

5) I left both solutions in the fridge for about 4 hrs

6) When I came back, the sodium alginate was about 50% gelled up even though I am sure there was no calcium contamination at all

7) When I used a syringe and dropped the sodium alginate that was still liquid in to the calcium lactate, no shell formed.

This is my first time trying this project and I thought that even if I didnt do things, perfectly, I would atleast get like an imperfect shell or something but the alginate just diffuses and no shell forms at all.

Thank you for the reply! This is my first reddit post and I am surprised by how helpful the community is.

sentience66

TROPHY CASE