MSG (Monosodium Glutamate) is a flavor enhancer used to add a meaty/savory (often called umami) flavor to a dish. You might even have some in your pantry (though more likely it is in something that is in your pantry). What you might not know is that you can grow it into a large crystal.
[Chase] does an excellent job walking through the details of the process. MSG is one of the many common household substances that can grow into a crystal such as table salt, alum, fertilizer, sugar, or Epsom salt to name a few. The idea is quite simple — just create a supersaturated solution with your desired crystal material and then suspend a string in it; but the execution has some nuance. To create a medium that’s super saturated, heat some water and mix in equal parts of MSG. Then let it cool once it has all dissolved and split it into two parts, one big and one small. You need to create a seed crystal, so place the small solution in a shallow dish and let a crystal percolate out over the new few days. You attach one of the seed crystals that grow to a string and suspend it in your solution. There are several gotchas around how to properly harvest the crystals but [Chase] enumerates them for you.
We’ve covered [Chase’s] efforts before when he grew crystals out of Rust. He is on a quest to grow all five flavor stones: salty, sweet, sour, umami, and bitter and we wish him all the best. What we would also love to see is the whole process of MSG from start to finish, making your own MSG.
Please re-read your second sentence. I don’t think you intended to just repeat yourself. Maybe “more likely it is IN something in your pantry”, I’m guessing.
Also in second paragraph “let a crystal percolate out over the new few days”.
The sentence works, it’s proper English. Mayhaps it’s the reader? It’s in the pantry or in something that’s in your pantry… Laymen language
That’s because it was corrected. The “in” that I have capitalized wasn’t originally there. But thank you for your concern.
Oooohhhhhhh! Pretties!
I have always liked these “sputnik” crystal clusters.
Hey, Chase here. Thanks for featuring the article!
Here’s some extra information if you guys are interested. The MSG crystals are quite hardy, though you can still break them if you try to. If kept in a dry place, they will slowly dehydrate in air and turn white. This can be prevented by coating them with a layer of nail polish. I’ve also had many people ask me how they taste like. It’s exactly the same as MSG – but the flavor is less concentrated than MSG powder due to it having less relative surface area. They are also kinda spiky, so it’s not a good idea to eat them.
Growing crystals is an amazing hobby, and it’s remarkable how you can just *grow* beautiful crystal clusters at home. I’m almost done with the bitter and sweet crystals, and I’ll publish the guide for them soon. Until then, have fun!
I have some guesses for what will be the sour crystals, but am especially looking forward to the bitter crystal!
If you don’t make a gauntlet to hold all these crystals I will be disappointed!
Aaah MSG. I actually always have some on hand in pure form because, well, I know how to science and don’t have fear of chemical names, plus it makes almost everything taste amazing. It’s great to keep your sodium intake a lot lower, and high sodium will kill you faster than most other things in your diet.
I learned about MSG because of Uncle Roger
Does anyone else notice that the crystal on the picture kind of looks like a chicken.
Yeah it does :) little chicken will grow on you… But only if your supersaturated… Or is crystallized cholesterol?
Silkie
Very pretty. A much better use for the stuff than as a flavoring. A lot of folks have issues after eating foods laced with MSG. Myself I get migraines that are simply debilitating. Sleeping problems are also common. Keep making pretty crystal structures out of it and keep it out of my food, please.
You must have a pretty bad time finding food to eat then. MSG is naturally found in a ton of different foods, like meat and tomatoes to name just 2 very common ones.
No they don’t. Please stop spreading this myth. People put things like this out there and then other people take it as fact and decide it’s an issue for them as well, potentially missing out on getting actual help for what could be an indicator of a real problem in the worst case, and an easily fixed issue in the best. Then, whenever they have a reaction, they just say “oh, I guess I must’ve had some msg,” instead of fixing their issue. Most likely that’s what happened to you – you read bad info and applied it to yourself. Whether you’re sensitive to something else and mistaken about the cause or you’ve created a psychosomatic response that triggers when you think you’ve consumed it (which would inarguably be a real reaction to perceived msg consumption, but not caused by it), you don’t process msg in a way that can cause those sorts of reactions. As someone else pointed out – it’s in almost everything. Meat, cheese, tomatoes, virtually all fast food, premade/quick cook meals, chips, movie popcorn, seasoning mixes, bullion, pretty much all condiments, canned food like soups (as well as ramen packets), eggs, breads, many fruits, mushrooms…I mean it’s in more stuff than it’s not. If you truly have a food reaction, especially if it’s so debilitating that you’re actually avoiding ~80% of all food due to a msg concern, see a real doctor/allergist. They can help you track down the actual issue and improve your quality of life. Please accept this as helpful information and not an argument. Or take it as an argument if you need to (your commenting with this under an article that isn’t about consuming msg & using the word “laced” makes me wonder if this is a hill you love to fight on, but hopefully it isn’t), and next time you’re seeing a doctor for some reason, run it by them while you’re there to prove yourself right, and if they suggest you look further into the issue, listen to them at least. Best of luck!
Pro tip, add a pair of new line character to separate the paragraphs of your message.
It isn’t hard to do and makes the text a lot more readable:
No they don’t. Please stop spreading this myth. People put things like this out there and then other people take it as fact and decide it’s an issue for them as well, potentially missing out on getting actual help for what could be an indicator of a real problem in the worst case, and an easily fixed issue in the best.
Then, whenever they have a reaction, they just say “oh, I guess I must’ve had some msg,” instead of fixing their issue. Most likely that’s what happened to you – you read bad info and applied it to yourself. Whether you’re sensitive to something else and mistaken about the cause or you’ve created a psychosomatic response that triggers when you think you’ve consumed it (which would inarguably be a real reaction to perceived msg consumption, but not caused by it), you don’t process msg in a way that can cause those sorts of reactions.
As someone else pointed out – it’s in almost everything. Meat, cheese, tomatoes, virtually all fast food, premade/quick cook meals, chips, movie popcorn, seasoning mixes, bullion, pretty much all condiments, canned food like soups (as well as ramen packets), eggs, breads, many fruits, mushrooms…I mean it’s in more stuff than it’s not.
If you truly have a food reaction, especially if it’s so debilitating that you’re actually avoiding ~80% of all food due to a msg concern, see a real doctor/allergist. They can help you track down the actual issue and improve your quality of life. Please accept this as helpful information and not an argument. Or take it as an argument if you need to (your commenting with this under an article that isn’t about consuming msg & using the word “laced” makes me wonder if this is a hill you love to fight on, but hopefully it isn’t), and next time you’re seeing a doctor for some reason, run it by them while you’re there to prove yourself right, and if they suggest you look further into the issue, listen to them at least. Best of luck!
Really?
Yes, text walls aren’t particularly good if one wants to convey a message to others.
If one wants to make an argument, it is generally good to make said argument easy to read so that others actually read it. Or rather, doesn’t get lost in the text while reading it.
Now most people these days just blabber on in one continuous string of text. And it is no wonder that people these days have a shortening attention span when most people writing longer texts makes such little effort into making it readable.
Of course, if you lead with a style tip, the person you’re addressing is likely to say “F*off” and not even get to the factual issues.
MSG is not in “almost” everything. Glutamate is in a lot of stuff, but MSG is a salt of Sodium and Glutmate that can be refined out of sources of Glutamate. The resulting product can be added to food with lower concentrations of Glutamate to add or increase the umami profile.
No, it isn’t an allergy but a tolerance issue. Adverse reactions to MSG are well documented, and it’s called MSG sensitivity for one. Most people can push through and end up with no reaction after repeated exposure. Very similar to different reactions to certain spices, such as cayenne, the tolerance can be increased by constant consumption.
The sour might be something like aluminium potassium sulphate, it’s quite bitter. It’s pretty easy to get hold of, it’s usually found in underarm deodorant. It has quite beautiful crystals.
Did you mean bitter? I’m thinking citric acid, ascorbic acid, or malic acid for sour.
Most alkaline salts are bitter. I’d try sodium carbonate (AKA washing soda, in the detergent aisle). As a hydrate it will probably give up some of its water of crystallization when removed from the mother liquor, unless it’s coated with something.
Spiky crystals are actually collections of imperfect crystals, not single crystals. It can be quite a chore to get a clean single crystal of some compounds; some tend toward inclusions and other imperfections.
He’d better watch out. Guy Fieri is probably on his way right now to take all of the flavor stones for his Flavor Oven Mitt.