What is the difference between gelatin and agar-agar

Cook­ing is more than an art or a sci­ence. On the one hand, to pre­pare a real­ly tasty dish, you need to use strict­ly defined ele­ments in the spec­i­fied pro­por­tions. On the oth­er hand, there is always some free­dom of action, and some con­stituent ele­ment can be replaced by anoth­er.

And that is why cook­ing some dish­es is dif­fi­cult. For exam­ple, if you want to gel a prod­uct, then which thick­en­er is bet­ter to use — gelatin, agar-agar, or even some kind of pectin? And what is the dif­fer­ence between these ingre­di­ents, why are they not always com­plete­ly inter­change­able?

In this mate­r­i­al, we will fig­ure out what is the dif­fer­ence between gelatin and agar-agar — and what is bet­ter to use when prepar­ing cer­tain dish­es.

Gelatin

Gelatin is a gelling agent of ani­mal ori­gin. That is, when dis­solved in a liq­uid, it acquires a gel-like tex­ture, due to which it can hold vol­ume. As a result, it can be used to make jel­lies, jel­lies and sim­i­lar prod­ucts.

How­ev­er, the inten­si­ty of the man­i­fest­ed gelling prop­er­ties direct­ly depends on the con­cen­tra­tion of gelatin in the prod­uct. For exam­ple, if added in lim­it­ed quan­ti­ties, it can act as a thick­en­er. To this end, it is used in sauces, pud­dings, and some­times baked goods.

Gelatin is an ani­mal prod­uct. It is obtained from the skins, bones and ten­dons of cat­tle. In fact, it is almost pure pro­tein — up to 98% of the mass is occu­pied by pro­tein com­pounds. In prin­ci­ple, this is why gelatin “melts” at a high, but not exces­sive tem­per­a­ture, and freezes only in the cold.

Excel­lent gelling prop­er­ties make gelatin an almost uni­ver­sal prod­uct. It can be used to pre­pare a wide vari­ety of dish­es with a char­ac­ter­is­tic “melt­ing” tex­ture and volu­mi­nous tex­ture. In addi­tion, in dis­solved form, it is com­plete­ly trans­par­ent.

How­ev­er, gelatin is also not with­out draw­backs. First, it has a slight after­taste. There­fore, it is def­i­nite­ly not rec­om­mend­ed to add it to prod­ucts in large quan­ti­ties. So, with an over­abun­dance of this ingre­di­ent, the fin­ished dish acquires a char­ac­ter­is­tic, not too pleas­ant “meat” after­taste.

Sec­ond­ly, if a real­ly thick and hard con­sis­ten­cy is required — for exam­ple, when prepar­ing mar­malade from fruit juices — then gelatin sim­ply can­not cope with this. It thick­ens to about the same lev­el regard­less of the amount. Of course, you can try to evap­o­rate the prod­uct at an aver­age tem­per­a­ture — but why, when there are oth­er thick­en­ers?

So, let’s sum up.

It is also worth not­ing that gelatin dis­solves at high tem­per­a­tures, and thick­ens at low tem­per­a­tures. There, the opti­mum pour point is up to +4 degrees. Under room con­di­tions, it will “cap­ture” for a very long time and not very effec­tive­ly.

There­fore, it is not suit­able for cook­ing dish­es that can­not be cooled, for exam­ple due to “sep­a­ra­tion” due to low tem­per­a­tures.

agar agar

Agar-agar is a plant based thick­en­er. With it, you can achieve both a light and airy tex­ture, and a very dense one. For exam­ple, both marsh­mal­lows for “Bird’s Milk” cakes and rather dense and hard mar­malade from nat­ur­al juices are pre­pared with the addi­tion of agar-agar.

The tex­ture of the fin­ished dish depends on sev­er­al fac­tors, and the amount of thick­en­er added is just one of them. The tem­per­a­ture and method of prepa­ra­tion is also impor­tant. Agar-agar “seizes” quite quick­ly, so with the same con­sis­ten­cy of it, you can get both an airy souf­flé and a rather elas­tic marsh­mal­low.

Agar-agar is a prod­uct of com­plete­ly plant ori­gin. It is obtained from sea­weed. There­fore, it is suit­able for veg­e­tar­i­an and veg­an diets, and in terms of nutri­tion­al val­ue, it is almost com­plete­ly (95%) a car­bo­hy­drate. And com­plex, “starch type.”

Agar-agar is the most ver­sa­tile. It is added to any dish­es, the con­sis­ten­cy of which needs to be made thick­er. It is used in sweets, pas­tries, soups, sauces, even some meat, veg­etable and fish dish­es. It can also be used for gelling — and you can achieve both a “trem­bling” and “elas­tic” con­sis­ten­cy. How­ev­er, this com­po­nent is rarely used in jel­ly, since the fin­ished dish does not hold its shape well, can fall apart or deform even when serv­ing, and is also opaque.

The fact is that agar-agar itself is opaque. And when cook­ing, it makes the solu­tion rather “cloudy”. As a result, trans­par­ent dish­es — jel­lies, aspics, jel­lies — based on this ingre­di­ent are not very beau­ti­ful.

So, let’s sum up.

Agar-agar has anoth­er impor­tant advan­tage — it thick­ens already at 40 degrees. That is, the dish “seizes” at room tem­per­a­ture, you do not have to put it in the refrig­er­a­tor. True, it is required to dis­solve agar-agar in hot, and even bet­ter, boil­ing water. Gelatin is more prac­ti­cal in this regard.

Which is better — gelatin or agar-agar?

So, gelatin is a gelling agent, and agar-agar is a thick­en­er. How­ev­er, both of them are still suit­able for mak­ing jel­ly. But the dif­fer­ence between these ingre­di­ents is more sig­nif­i­cant than it seems.

In gen­er­al, gelatin and agar-agar can act as an alter­na­tive to each oth­er. But there are some dish­es in which they can­not be replaced. For exam­ple, in “trem­bling”, ten­der jel­ly, in trans­par­ent jel­ly or aspic, it is rec­om­mend­ed to use gelatin. But in sauces, souf­fles, marsh­mal­lows, marsh­mal­lows, mar­malade and some oth­er prod­ucts, it is bet­ter to use agar-agar.

And, of course, gelatin is not suit­able for veg­e­tar­i­ans.