wheat paste for pasting shells

[leedrill]

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Wheat-Paste

 

im sure most people use wallpaper glue or types of methyl cellulose of sorts has anyone tried or do they use home made wheat paste like in the link above

 

i hope someone can help with some input to a cheap paste that can be produced in a way like this

[AirCowPeacock]

I make my own wheat paste. Just regular old wheat paste.

[Zumber]

Yes, i do same steps as shown in the link above.

 

[Mumbles]

This was the first time I've heard of someone adding sugar. Those are basically the steps though. I typically use 3 cups boiling water, and 3 cup cold water made into a suspension with 1c flour. The longer you boil it, the thicker it gets, but you can always dilute later.

 

Adding Benzoates or salicylates tends to make it last longer. Even so I typically store mine in the fridge or it turns into a science project pretty quick.

[BlastFromThePast]

I've made wheat paste twice now via this method. I've gone the microwave route to avoid a messy saucepan. If you go with the microwave route you really need to be careful about how long you leave it in there for, as Mumbles said, the longer it boils the thicker it gets. For me I found 1 minute to be too much and had a difficult time diluting it down from there to get the right consistency. The first time I did it I put it in for maybe 35-45 seconds and it was perfect! I used 1:4 ratio for flour to water, and make it in small batches as I dont have benzoates nor salicylates.

 

Mumbles, I know you're good with chemistry and the like. I left it in a sealed container at room temp for +5 days, and when I opened it, it let out a whole lot of gas, not to mention it smelled somewhere between death and decay. Is this simple fermentation of the flour. If so, what is the fermentation yielding, aside from the gas? which is CO2?

[leedrill]

cheers everyone and thanks mumbles for the tip how much benz or sali should i add to say 100grams of paste

[Mumbles]

Eh, I dunno. I never really measure. A gram or two is probably plenty.

 

It works best against bacteria and yeast in my experience. The paste will still mold eventually if left long enough. I add it to gum arabic solutions too.

 

Paste will sour first. Typically this is a fermentation of sorts. It normally smells pretty bad. My best guess is that it gets infected with bacteria that convert sugars and starches into acetic and propionic acids. Propionic acid in particular isn't very pleasant in more than trace amounts. If you let this go long enough the paste will sort of separate. Water will rise to the top, and a paste will form on the bottom, and it will smell terrible. It's actually still functional at this point for pasting, but you need to avoid chlorates if you're using it as a binder for stars or comets.

[BlastFromThePast]

It's actually still functional at this point for pasting, but you need to avoid chlorates if you're using it as a binder for stars or comets.

 

Which chemical that forms as part of the breakdown/decomp makes it incompatible with chlorates. Sorry I'm getting off topic here a bit, I used to be into chemistry and then gave up as I never could remember for the life of me the necessary forumlas, conversions, etc...

[nater]

Acidic compounds increase the sensitivity with chlorates. So, the acids created by fermentation would be the chemicals responsible. If you have ever made sourdough bread, you intentional ferment a mash of flour and water. (yeasts too, but naturally occuring yeasts will add to the process and affect the flavor)

[BlastFromThePast]

Ah, so both the acetic and propionic acid would be the increasing sensitivity factors, regardless of the fact that neither of them have sulfur compounds in them.

[Nessalco]

I've really come to like paste made from wheat starch.

 

It comes in two forms. Usually you find standard wheat starch (dim sum flour) that needs to be cooked to make a paste. Four tablespoons of starch to two cups of water. The per-gelitanized form requires no cooking - just whip it up in a blender. Five to six tablespoons per two cups of warm water, depending how thick you want the paste. I add one teaspoon of CMC to either one which stabilizes them nicely.

 

Wheat starch paste spoils very slowly - I've had a bottle around at room temperature for several weeks, and it showed no sign of spoilage.

 

Kevin O