Xantham Gum (Speling?!?!)

[jacksplat]

Hey,

Saw that Jimmys Food Factory the toher day and he used sumthin called xantham gum that looked like good gunge mix. Lo and behold - next day I saw it in health food store. Has anyone used?

PS - I f anyone wants to help me try it out in sheffield ur more than welcome!!

Jack

[carson dial]

Xanthan gum is a fun hydrocolloid that you'll often see in things like ketchup or salad cream; it is shear thinning - very viscous at rest, but becomes more fluid when stirred or squeezed. Even better, a little xanthan goes a long way - use about 1% in a liquid (you add it in a mixer/blender) and you'll get a rather thick gel!

If anybody wants to test, a simple recipe:

100g / mL water
10g sugar
1g xanthan gum

Mix the sugar and xanthan together in a bowl and then add to the water. Blend vigorously. (as you can imagine, the possibilities for coloured and flavoured gunge just leap out here )

The above recipe with a drop of blue food colour!

vlcsnap-2011-01-22-17h35m05s177.png (661.78 KiB) Viewed 8989 times

[Ophite]

I believe that's the stuff that Get Your Own Back used in the gunge.

I'm not entirely sure why we haven't experimented with it more, as it's probably easier to get than Natrasol/Methocel, and is more pH stable. But it'd work better for a pool than a pouring gunge, because it goes thinner when it's poured.

While you could flavour it, and it would be safe to swallow, I don't (obviously) recommend flat-out eating it, as the effect on your stomach could be... unpleasant.

[alext]

I mixed it without the sugar that carson dial used, and this is the result:

http://www.splosh.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7402

Depending on the bowl, I mixed with 1%, 1.5% and 2% - you can get a small 100g tube from Tesco for about £2.40 in the gluten free aisle, and based on my tests this would happily made up about 8-10 litres. A little cheaper than nastrasol, but definitely better for different things - it works pretty well for pouring, but is a little runnier when doing so. For a pool/bath/headdunking it'd be pretty good though.

[dunktankbabes]

We did a shoot with this stuff some time ago however we added a few magical ingrediants. !!
You can see the results on our download store at ,
www.gungetankbabes.com
and look out for the 3 videos with Hayley and Cuddly Jo Jo. It was pretty awsome stuff to use. Sadly we haven`t had a chance to film any more with it although I do have a few sackfuls of it.

[rubberjin]

Just a quick post from an occasional lurker
I found Xanthan gum in Asda the other day - about £3 for 100g = ~10 litres of gunge. Find it in the "Free from" section where they keep all the food that doesn't contain any dangerous traces of food.
Does need mixing well or it clumps up, but made a pretty good gunge (like being covered in lube really!) which didn't smell of anything, or mark/stain, and washed away very easily from both skin and bathroom

Also turned up on google that it's sold as a sort of bulking agent for the bodybuilding crowd, but I'm built like Mr Muscle so not wandering innocently into any muscle shops any time soon.

Keep up the messy work guys!