How to sub agar agar for gelatin in strawberry icebox pie?

[bythebay]

I got some agar agar flakes so I could test out this strawberry icebox pie recipe that was suggested to me in another thread. http://www.cookscountry.com/recipes/d...

After looking up some directions online on how to use it I'm a little confused about how to proceed. Do I cook it in a bit of water and add it in the step that calls for gelatin? Do I add it dry and ground up like I read elsewhere? I some a thread on here that talked about diluting it? I'm so confused now on how to use it. Any help? I've used it before, but I can't remember what I did exactly.

[babette feasts]

Did you melt it? Agar melts around 170F, and needs to be heated in order to work. You should not have been able to detect the flakes themselves at all.

[bythebay]

There's a step in the recipe where the fruit mixture (including agar agar) simmers for about 2 minutes. I don't know if that's enough to melt it. If not, do you know at what point in the process I would melt it? Thank you!

[bythebay]

I didn't grind the flakes and they were too prominent in the final product, next time I'll grind them first in a coffee grinder. Otherwise I used a ratio provided on the PETA site for converting gelatin to agar agar and that worked well.