Alcademics

In my previous post I tried some ways to see what preparation method makes the best aquafaba: chickpea/garbanzo bean water used in place of egg whites to make cocktails frothy. 

To recap, I found the best aquafaba waters were, in order: 

1. From the can
2. Chickpea flour boiled then letting the solids settle off.
3. Cooking water for chickpeas.

In the next set of experiments I wanted to see if I could produce more water in cooking and see if I could use unboiled chickpea flour. So my aquafabas were:

1. Quick-Soaked Beans Cooked for 90 Minutes in Lots of Water: I did the quick soak method this time: I brought the beans to a boil for 3 minutes, then let them soak for 2 hours before discarding the water. This water had only a slight flour aroma. 
2. Quick-Soaked Beans Cooked for 3 Hours in Lots of Water. This had a touch of flour aroma. 
3. Boiled Chickpea Flour Water: The same sample from the previous experiment. Its aroma was kind of like flour. 
4. Unboiled Chickpea Flour Water: I shook some chickpea flour with water in a jar then let it settle overnight. I used only the lightest of this water to minimize solids. It had a fairly yucky "raw" flour aroma. 
5. Second Cook Water, from previous experiment: After cooking beans, I reboiled half of them for an additional 30 minutes and kept this water.

For the experiments, I used a Disaronno Sour (2 parts Disaronno to 1 part lemon juice), plus 1/2 ounce aquafaba.  

The winners were:

• #4 Unboiled Chickpea Flour Water. The downside to this is that it has the most flavor - I consider it tannic but others might say metallic; plus it's greyish in color compared with the brownish ones. 
• #5 Second Cook Water, which was sort of the control. It tasted better than the winner. 
• #3 Boiled Chickpea Flour Water. This also tasted fine/neutral. 
• Then 1-2, the chickpea water made from long boils with lots of water, didn't produce enough foam to count. 

Conclusions: 

1. My experiments in boiling less beans for a long period of time failed. 
2. Boiled chickpea flour tastes better than unboiled, plus it looks better in the glass. It's not quite as foamy but may be worth the tradeoff. 
3. Regular chickpea cooking water is still pretty decent. It would be worth looking at the costs between using dried chickpeas vs the flour. 

Future Experiments:

If this chickpea flour is working so well, maybe I should try using the smallest scoop possible I can of it. I did try this previously and found that the solids were too problematic, but it's worth another shot. 

I've now tried it and here is the post!