Romain Bertin
Software Engineer · Applied AI · Food R&D
I use software, AI and experimentation to understand and optimize real-world systems.
This is my public notebook for building, testing and explaining systems at the intersection of software engineering and Food R&D, from optimization and applied AI to formulation, physical models and experiments.
Latest writing and experiments
2026
- Why the same temperature fluctuation damages two ice creams differentlyTexture Stability Index connects two temperatures to the amount of water that melts and refreezes, while thermal history explains what the product actually experiences.Ice cream · Food physics · Heat shock · Ice crystals · Shelf life
- Lactose crystallization: Looking beyond lactose contentLactose crystallization depends on liquid water, temperature, supersaturation, molecular mobility, and storage time rather than lactose content alone.Ice cream · Food physics · Lactose · Crystallization · Formulation
- What makes ice cream creamy?Creaminess emerges from ice fraction, crystal size, air and fat microstructure, serum rheology, oral lubrication, and sensory perception.Ice cream · Food physics · Rheology · Tribology · Sensory science
- Inside a flour blend: strength, tenacity and extensibilityBuilding a technical profile for a flour blend from W, P, L and protein values without confusing calculation with laboratory measurement.Flour · Dough rheology · Formulation · Alveograph
- Can we predict ganache texture from formulation?A step by step estimate of ganache firmness from composition, fat crystallization, particles, water, time and temperature.Ganache · Food physics · Rheology · Formulation · Chocolate
- How much ice forms in ice cream?A comparison of Goff and Hartel, Chen, Tchigeov, Schwartzberg, and DSC methods for estimating ice fraction.Ice cream · Ice fraction · Food physics · Formulation
- How water temperature controls dough fermentationHow water temperature, hydration, friction and preferments influence final dough temperature and fermentation consistency.Bread · Dough temperature · Fermentation · Formulation
- Why ice cream never freezes completelyA practical exploration of freezing point depression, freezing curves, and models used to predict ice formation in ice cream.Ice cream · Freezing point depression · Food physics · Formulation
- Modeling microbial fermentation with XGBoostSimulating microbial growth data and using gradient-boosted trees to predict fermentation outcomes under noisy experimental conditions.Fermentation · Machine learning · Microbial modeling
- One nutrition label, many possible recipesA chocolate-hazelnut spread shows why matching a nutrition label does not identify one unique recipe.Food science · Inverse problems · Bayesian inference · Formulation
- Reverse hot chocolate recipe for fun and profitReverse engineering a Piedmont hot chocolate formulation with nutritional analysis, heuristics, and constrained optimization.Food science · Mathematical optimization · Inverse problems