What makes some smoothies maintain consistency? (anyone work for Smoothie King?)

[Pandamonium]

I usually get a smoothie from Smoothie King about once a week. I ask for strawberries, bananas, no sugar, no honey. The smoothie I get maintains its pasty consistency for almost an hour.

Yet when I try to make my own with strawberries, bananas, ice, and water/juice, within 5 minutes my smoothie separates into fruit fraction on top and water fraction on the bottom. What am I doing wrong, or is there something I'm totally missing?

 

[silverpig]

You need an emulsifier. Try adding an egg white or two.

 

[Modelworks]

You are missing all the 'extra' ingredients designed to keep ice cream, shakes, etc creamy smooth when frozen.

http://sci-toys.com/ingredients/ice_cream.html

 

[speg]

Yogurt?

 

[Pandamonium]

Are there any non-dairy emulsifiers that would work in Smoothie recipes? Admittedly I don't have the sharpest palate, but I don't taste dairy in these things.

 

[Clair de Lune]

Must resist......

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Pandamonium
Are there any non-dairy emulsifiers that would work in Smoothie recipes? Admittedly I don't have the sharpest palate, but I don't taste dairy in these things.

I use rice milk in mine, since I'm allergy to dairy. A banana helps with the creaminess. What I typically do is this:

-1 banana
-few cups of frozen berries (only 1 seedy berry though, like strawberries)
-vanilla protein powder
-fill with rice milk and blend

The banana makes it creamy and the frozen berries make it cold and icy.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: silverpig
You need an emulsifier. Try adding an egg white or two.

It has to be something, but isn't an emulsifier something that keeps oils and water together?

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: silverpig
You need an emulsifier. Try adding an egg white or two.

It has to be something, but isn't an emulsifier something that keeps oils and water together?

I think it suspends the tiny globules of oil in the water. Mustard or anchovie paste works wonders for salad dressings. Probably not something you want in your smoothie.

-edit-
good wiki article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulsifier

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: silverpig
You need an emulsifier. Try adding an egg white or two.

It has to be something, but isn't an emulsifier something that keeps oils and water together?

I think it suspends the tiny globules of oil in the water. Mustard or anchovie paste works wonders for salad dressings. Probably not something you want in your smoothie.

-edit-
good wiki article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulsifier

IIRC, an emulsifier doesn't necessarily have to suspend oil in water - it just has to suspend [one thing that isn't normally soluble in water] in water. In the case of a smoothie, it would suspend the "fruit particles" in water so that they don't separate. Oil + water is just the best example of a situation where an emulsifier is needed.

 

[Scouzer]

My smoothies have never separated when sitting... just melt slowly.

This is my smoothie recipe:

8 Ice Cubes
200ml of Strawberry Yogurt
1 Banana (no peel) -- Important for consistency and thickness
12 FROZEN Strawberries -- I even leave the green part on
A dash of milk

= yum.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Aflac

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: silverpig
You need an emulsifier. Try adding an egg white or two.

It has to be something, but isn't an emulsifier something that keeps oils and water together?

I think it suspends the tiny globules of oil in the water. Mustard or anchovie paste works wonders for salad dressings. Probably not something you want in your smoothie.

-edit-
good wiki article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulsifier

IIRC, an emulsifier doesn't necessarily have to suspend oil in water - it just has to suspend [one thing that isn't normally soluble in water] in water. In the case of a smoothie, it would suspend the "fruit particles" in water so that they don't separate. Oil + water is just the best example of a situation where an emulsifier is needed.

I'm pretty sure an egg white will work well. I seem to recall a good smoothie recipe that called for it.

My wife makes good smoothies, but she doesn't use egg white. *shrug*

 

[mb]

Try using frozen fruit and less ice.

 

[bobdole369]

There is no such thing as rice milk. Just like there is no such thing as soy milk. Thanks be to Lewis Black for explaining this. It's because there is no rice or soy titty.

 

[Homerboy]

use frozen fruits versus the ice cubes. Works wonders.

 

[djheater]

Buy some soy lecithin capsules at the health food store, break them open and use a little of it.

It's an emulsifier (that's in EVERYTHING) that's sold as a health supplement for dementia (No good basis for the claim btw).

 

[Ksyder]

Originally posted by: mb
Try using frozen fruit and less ice.

This is the the correct answer. Don't use ice!! Just freeze all of the fruit and use whatever liquid you are using, and add it slowly until you get the blender to blend. You will have smoothies with the texture you are looking for then. It took me a long time to figure this out but since I have stopped using ice and starting freezing all of the fruits or whatever I've had superior results.

 

[xboxist]

I just picked up one from Smoothie King this morning. I saw the chick put in scoops of non-frozen fruits, a ton of ice, and about 8 tiny portions of various powders, which I'm assuming are additional flavors/vitamins. But maybe one of those powders is the key to the consistency? /shrug

Tastes great, and is holding it's form after 1.5 hours in the cup.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Bacon fat fixes everything.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: xboxist
I just picked up one from Smoothie King this morning. I saw the chick put in scoops of non-frozen fruits, a ton of ice, and about 8 tiny portions of various powders, which I'm assuming are additional flavors/vitamins. But maybe one of those powders is the key to the consistency? /shrug

Tastes great, and is holding it's form after 1.5 hours in the cup.

Adding protein powders or other surfactants could definitely have the effect the OP is looking for. Essentially, the goal would be to prevent a large decrease in viscosity at elevated temperatures. Yogurt and proteins have very complex rheological properties, which is why the smoothie is a solid in the cup but is drinkable through a straw (shear thinning). /dorky ramble

 

[Delita]

http://www.lulu.com/content/4956212

Shown here [NSFW Language]:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAft_dMWxBg

 

[Ksyder]

The problem I've experience with using ice is that it is simply not possible to pulverize the ice into fine enough pieces to mix into the fruit. Essentially they stay independent of each other. What you get is small ice shards suspended throughout the smoothie that are doing their best to cool down the non frozen fruit by convection, and the ice starts to liquefy and at that point it would be mixed with the fruit, giving you the consistency. Different blenders minimize this effect though, and the commercial blenders at smoothie king are definitely going to blend the ice to a fine enough texture that you probably won't notice.

But as a general rule, I've found that getting rid of the ice in favor of frozen fruit and chilled ingredients will give you a much more smooth and homogeneous texture than adding ice to non frozen fruit.

I used to run a smoothie stand at hippie fests, etc, and used ice and non frozen fruit together for years, and never thought anything of it but only in the last couple years was I able to figure out that using ice was the deal breaker of making smoothies that had the smoothest consistency. Ice is good for some smoothies but generally if I can get away with not using ice I prefer not to.

 

[richardycc]

I doubt that people that work at smoothie king know what they put in their smoothies...they just follow the directions, a scoop of this, a scoop of that to make such and such. min wage FTL.

 

[Ksyder]

Originally posted by: xboxist
I just picked up one from Smoothie King this morning. I saw the chick put in scoops of non-frozen fruits, a ton of ice, and about 8 tiny portions of various powders, which I'm assuming are additional flavors/vitamins. But maybe one of those powders is the key to the consistency? /shrug

Tastes great, and is holding it's form after 1.5 hours in the cup.

The key to their consistency is the $500 blenders they use! You will not get as good of results with a cheap home blender.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Ksyder

Originally posted by: xboxist
I just picked up one from Smoothie King this morning. I saw the chick put in scoops of non-frozen fruits, a ton of ice, and about 8 tiny portions of various powders, which I'm assuming are additional flavors/vitamins. But maybe one of those powders is the key to the consistency? /shrug

Tastes great, and is holding it's form after 1.5 hours in the cup.

The key to their consistency is the $500 blenders they use! You will not get as good of results with a cheap home blender.

That's true. I went through 3 blenders before finally saving up and buying a Blendtec. I cringe whenever I think of the price tag, but I use it every single day and absolutely love it. No smoke, no broken blades, no busted motors - it simply pulverizes everything I put in there. In fact, I have to be careful for some recipes so that it doesn't puree them *too* much