Enzymes in Pineapple or Why Your Jello didn’t Gel...
Blog 12/3
Enzymes in Pineapple or why your Jello didn’t gel
As we carried on with demonstrations in Food Science, we had a demonstration come up on the effect of enzymes in pineapple on protein. The enzymes in pineapple are the reason that you can’t put fresh pineapple in Jello. (In case you didn’t know, if you put fresh cut pineapple in Jello, it stays liquid.) One reason that the Jello doesn’t gel is that the protein in the Jello is denatured by the enzymes. This means that it is broken down to the point that it cannot hold the structure required for the liquid to solidify.
The enzyme in the pineapple is called Bromelain. Bromelain is denatured by heating, however. This means that canned pineapple and conventionally dried pineapple will not have that effect on the gelatin. The pineapple that we used for the video was freeze dried, however, because that was all that I could get. COVID, ya know. The only thing they had at the store was these freeze dried pineapple packs. (I forgot I had more of those. I should eat them.) Because freeze drying doesn’t require heat, the enzymes were intact. The result was that only the Jello with the canned pineapple solidified.
One thing that many people don’t realize is that Jello is not some magic powder that is manufactured from thin air. Gelatin is an animal based product made from extracting it from bones of animals. You can simulate this effect yourself at home by making stock with bones or making bone broth. The gelatin is removed from the bones when you boil them and when you put this stock in the fridge it becomes a rather odd “meat Jello.” Don’t eat it cold though. It’s weird. The Jello and gelatin that we purchase is not vegan. Vegan “gelatin” is usually seaweed based. Pineapple wouldn’t interfere with that type of gel formation.
There are a few other things that I discovered when filming this video:
Pineapple changes in appearance a lot with the different ways it is processed.
You can get red jello stains out of a wood cutting board with rubbing alcohol.
Jello with pineapple is much better than I remembered.
Liquid Jello tastes weird.
Shout out in this video to my Mrs. Patmore’s Kitchen whisk I got at the Downton Abbey Exhibit at Biltmore Estates last year.
Especially big shout out to www.2puggles.com. This is my dear friend Steve’s company. He makes all sorts of amazing wood products like earrings, cutting boards, and clocks. You should check him out. I discovered in my filming that the granite countertops were reflecting badly in the videos and were almost impossible to keep shiny and clean looking for the duration of the video. I asked Steve to make me a cutting board and he delivered! I measured my counter, sent him the file and he made a beautiful piece of artwork that makes my videos look so much cooler. It also gives me a handmade “watermark” that makes sure that my videos are alway associated with my YouTube Channel. Thank you Steve! You have made my videos so much prettier!
Watch the video below! And don’t forget to subscribe!