Processed
Coarse Crystal
B tier
Coarse ammonium bicarbonate crystals are an older or industrial cut that must be crushed before they meet a dough. Some traditional bakers still buy lump or crystal hartshorn and pound it. In a factory the coarse cut may be a warehouse form on its way to a mill, not a ready-to-sift ingredient. If you bake with visible crystals you will get soapy, ammoniac hot-spots. Pestle them to a powder and use them as food-grade powder. They keep a little better than a fine dust because less surface is exposed, which is the only good argument for the jar.
Track this ingredient
Characteristics
Preparations
Traits
History
Hartshorn and ammonium salts were sold as coarse crystals and lumps to be pounded in the bakery.
German druggists still offered crystal baker's ammonia beside the new fine powders.
Coarse crystals remained a bulk industrial form before in-plant milling.
A few traditional bakers kept buying crystal hartshorn for the ritual of pounding.