Try using defatted soy flour instead of dairy! Replace the protein from quark 1:1. Going to make another batch soon, but it seemed to work exceptionally well. Shelf stable, far more environmentally friendly and harms zero cows.
So if I understand you are gradually adding water to the soy flour to create a soy milk which is then substituted for skim milk? You still go through the heat, vinegar process to create the quark? Sorry, I do aerodynamics and butcher wood (not generally at the same time), not chemistry.
Water and lime, cover and blend first to prevent the lime from becoming airborne. Then add the soy, pigment, and rest of the water and blend again. Defatted soy flour is 50% protein. You can just add it directly without isolating the protein like you’d have to do with milk. Whatever else makes up the remaining 50% (carbohydrates) does not interfere with the paint working. I think regular soy flour is only maybe 20% protein and I suspect that would not work, since you’d be adding a ton of it to get to the desired amount of protein and the paint would be too thick and chemically dilute. Please try it out and share your results! Soy is a really incredible plant, make paint and glue with it, make tofu and soy milk, eat it, just don’t feed it to animals!
Great work—the paint in the video clips looks exactly right. Curious why we all get those white bumps, but it does seem like you found a great way to make the Monte Carlo work!
Great write-up Jon! I really appreciate the structured approach and I'm very happy to see you were able to get good results!
For what it's worth, I suspect the small balls could be quark "spalling" from the milk having been industrially pasteurized / denatured prior to the quark process. And then perhaps the pigment interaction was just a coincidence. I have tried to recreate but haven't seen it yet.
FYI small black balls from an iron oxide pigment can happen, this is a known phenomenon.
I don't think that the small balls are quark spalling because I made a huge batch of quark and used it for several batches of paint — Monte Carlo Blue was the only one that had the hard white balls form.
Great new info, thanks for sharing! I had tried (and failed) to recreate the little balls, but now it sounds like there's a new direction to investigate!
Try using defatted soy flour instead of dairy! Replace the protein from quark 1:1. Going to make another batch soon, but it seemed to work exceptionally well. Shelf stable, far more environmentally friendly and harms zero cows.
Now THAT is an interesting idea!
Can you give details on how you use/mix this? I assume with water? Ratio?
45g water +21g +40g + 90g + 50g [+ 50g if still too thick]
68g defatted soy flour [34g protein]
Same as Nick Kroll’s recipe and application technique for the rest, which you can find in his book or American Peasant substack. Next time I’m going to add maybe 40g of water at the bottom of the blender and then the rest on top of all the powder to prevent the powder from getting stuck to the sides. Also will try adding tannic acid for a future test, which researchers in China developing soy glue reported helps with the crosslinking structure (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652621031917?fbclid=PARlRTSAQDLodleHRuA2FlbQIxMABzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA8xMjQwMjQ1NzQyODc0MTQAAae1kPYAxq9ONsc5OYjYf0AsiwrwZhX11XCBnAy2tEv2jZxYKjthNzhgkBPU7g_aem_SrCXl9_ycYwU0a8QQuGqXg). But it worked great without it
So if I understand you are gradually adding water to the soy flour to create a soy milk which is then substituted for skim milk? You still go through the heat, vinegar process to create the quark? Sorry, I do aerodynamics and butcher wood (not generally at the same time), not chemistry.
Water and lime, cover and blend first to prevent the lime from becoming airborne. Then add the soy, pigment, and rest of the water and blend again. Defatted soy flour is 50% protein. You can just add it directly without isolating the protein like you’d have to do with milk. Whatever else makes up the remaining 50% (carbohydrates) does not interfere with the paint working. I think regular soy flour is only maybe 20% protein and I suspect that would not work, since you’d be adding a ton of it to get to the desired amount of protein and the paint would be too thick and chemically dilute. Please try it out and share your results! Soy is a really incredible plant, make paint and glue with it, make tofu and soy milk, eat it, just don’t feed it to animals!
Great work—the paint in the video clips looks exactly right. Curious why we all get those white bumps, but it does seem like you found a great way to make the Monte Carlo work!
Great write-up Jon! I really appreciate the structured approach and I'm very happy to see you were able to get good results!
For what it's worth, I suspect the small balls could be quark "spalling" from the milk having been industrially pasteurized / denatured prior to the quark process. And then perhaps the pigment interaction was just a coincidence. I have tried to recreate but haven't seen it yet.
FYI small black balls from an iron oxide pigment can happen, this is a known phenomenon.
Thanks! And that’s good to know RE iron oxide.
I don't think that the small balls are quark spalling because I made a huge batch of quark and used it for several batches of paint — Monte Carlo Blue was the only one that had the hard white balls form.
Great new info, thanks for sharing! I had tried (and failed) to recreate the little balls, but now it sounds like there's a new direction to investigate!
Interesting. Thanks for sharing!