Download or read book Understanding Melt Behavior of Ice Cream written by and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ice cream is a complex, partially frozen food with a microstructure composed of ice crystals, air cells, fat globules, and partially-coalesced fat globules all dispersed in an unfrozen serum phase (sugars, proteins, stabilizers). The effect of the microstructure on drip-through rate has been of great interest. Much of the literature attributes a decrease in drip-through rate to an increase in partially-coalesced fat. It was hypothesized that as dasher speed, overrun, emulsifiers (MDG and PS80), and fat content increased, partial coalescence would increase while drip-through rate would decrease across all experiments. In addition, it was hypothesized that the microstructure components could be used to predict the drip-through rate of ice cream products. In this current work two main studies were carried out. The first study was a survey on the microstructure, compositional, and sensorial properties of United States commercial ice cream products. In the second study (controlled ice cream study), experiments were carried out to control partial coalescence and drip-through rate through varying processing conditions (dasher speed (250 RPM, 500 RPM, 750 RPM) and overrun (50%, 75%, 100%)) and formulation parameters (emulsifier ratios (100:0, 90:10, 80:20 - mono- and diglyceride:polysorbate 80 (MDG:PS80)) and fat content (6%, 9%, 12%, 15%)). Experiments were also run with no added emulsifiers. From the survey, commercial ice cream products varied widely in composition, structure, behavior, and sensory properties. From a multivariate pairwise comparison test, it was determined that ice crystal size, percent destabilized fat, total fat, and total solids inversely correlated with drip-through rate. No statistically significant correlation was determined between instrumental analysis of drip-through rate and sensorial melt rate. Furthermore, creaminess and greasiness both had an inverse relationship with drip-through rate while sensorial melt rate did not correlate with instrumental measured drip-through rate. In the controlled ice cream study, as emulsifiers (especially PS80), dasher speed, and overrun increased, partial coalescence increased. However, drip-through rate did not always correlate with partial coalescence, as hypothesized. In addition, as fat content increased, partial coalescence increased from 6% to 9% but not between 9% and 15%. Furthermore, no difference in drip-through rate was determined as fat increased. Overall, there were various microstructure components that affected melt behavior of ice cream. The interaction of the size and number of air cells and partially-coalesced fat globules seemed to greatly affect drip-through rate. The amount of remnant foam corresponded with drip-through rates. With this knowledge, we were able to gain a better understanding of the effects on microstructure components and their interactions on drip-through rate.