Mix 10 cups of Yellow Dent #2 corn extract with one drop sulfuric acid, one teaspoon Alpha-Amylase, one teaspoon Glucose-Amylase, and one teaspoon Xylose, strain through a cheesecloth, and heat. Then, once the slurry has reached 140 degrees, add Glucose Isomerase, bring to a boil, let cool, and enjoy!

Sound appetizing? That's the recipe for

small-batch, artisanal High-Fructose Corn Syrup that artist and designer Maya Weinstein , 32, came up with after months of research, recipe testing, and ingredient sourcing for her DIY HFCS kit , her thesis project for her M.F.A. in Design and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design.

Maya Weinstein with a finished vial of her DIY high fructose corn syrup.

High-Fructose Corn Syrup is the bogeyman hiding under the bed of the modern diet. It's not all that different from table sugar, but thanks to tax laws and the economics of giant ag companies, it's cheaper than almost any other sweetener. Fairly or not, it's gotten pegged as a major offender in America's wave of obesity. And even though you can find it in almost every product on the market, from soda pop to whole wheat bread, you can't just buy HFCS by itself. Anywhere.

Everything you need to make your own HFCS.

Which is why Weinstein decided to make it herself. She visited the BA Test Kitchen yesterday to show us the end result, a one-of-a-kind (for the time being) DIY HFCS Kit, the first of what Weinstein hopes will be a series of "citizen food science" kits that let people make industrial ingredients in their home kitchens. But even just figuring out a recipe for HFCS is harder than it sounds, especially considering some of the more obscure biochemical catalysts involved.

"I emailed corn refinery associations, I cold-called some people, and got no information," she said, but had a breakthrough after watching the 2007 documentary King Corn and reaching out to its creators, who mixed up their own batch of HFCS in the movie. Once she had a basic recipe, though, the next step was getting her hands on the ingredients.

A $50 bottle of Glucose Isomerase.

The key to turning normal corn syrup (made up mostly of glucose) into HFCS (made up mostly of, you guessed it, fructose) is the last ingredient to go into the mix, Glucose Isomerase. Not at all coincidentally, that was also the hardest to find. The tiny bottle than Weinstein brought with her to the test kitchen cost $50 by itself, and had to be ordered from Hampton Research , a professional research lab supply company. And these catalysts are the reason that Weinstein can't add "organic" to the "small-batch artisanal" tag on her project: even if you used organic corn, most of the catalysts are genetically modified in a lab (the glucose isomerase, for instance, was made from the Streptomyces rubignosus bacterium).

"The whole reason why companies use high-fructose corn syrup is that it's really cheap to make," Weinstein said, "partly, I think, because the same companies that manufacture these enzymes are also manufacturing corn." But her kit for making the same stuff at home cost $70 to $80, just to end up with a little jar. This is an art project, however, not a business plan for a sweetener start-up: "I'd like to give this recipe to people and let them do what they will," Weinstein said. "It's all about doing it yourself, taking the ideas of open sourcing technology and applying them to food. By taking back these foods that aren't ours, deconstructing them and reconstructing them, maybe we can disrupt the industry a little bit."

Maya Weinstein straining the HFCS slurry through a cheesecloth.

All in all, the process takes a night spent soaking the corn (Yellow Dent is a type of high-starch field corn that's also used for ethanol production; i.e., not the corn you'd eat on the cob), and then about three hours of actual prep time, heating, straining and adding the catalysts to the mix.

We had Matt Gross, the editor of BonAppetit.com, give the small-batch, artisanal high-fructose corn syrup that Weinstein made for us a taste-test. His verdict:

"Mm! Tastes like corn candy." Once all the chemical manipulation is done, Weinstein filters the syrup through diatomaceous earth to remove a lot of the color and corn flavor before boiling it down into a thicker syrup. But in its catalyst-fresh form, it still looks like it might be made from corn, and even starts to separate a little after a few minutes sitting in the bowl. "It's unflitered, it's DIY," Weinstein said. "It's Brooklyn-style!"

He likes it!

Next, Weinstein hopes to spread the DIY HFCS kit as far as possible, and keep working on the "citizen food science" project. She's already started figuring out how to make bleached, fortified white flour ("you let it cure for a little while in hydrogen peroxide") and wants to make her own Red Dye #40 ("that, I believe I need a scientist for"), and is on the hunt for more funding. "I tried to put it on Kickstarter, but they didn't really understand what I was doing," she said, "they said my business plan was unclear."

You can check out the DIY HFCS project at her site , and get in touch with her if you're interested in getting one for yourself. In the meantime, though, we're guessing you won't have a lot of trouble finding sources of high fructose corn syrup, already packaged in ready-to-go recipes, at stores near you.

Weinstein's recipe for DIY HFCS, scanned from a tiny business card.

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