Formation and stabilisation of microbubbles in acidified milk products

Abstract

In recent years, several studies have attempted to use gas as a fat replacer. However, large bubbles affect the creaminess perception negatively. Therefore, this study examined whether microbubbles behave oppositely and are able to enhance creaminess. The first part of this study addressed the formation and stabilisation of microbubbles in an acidified milk model matrix. After optimising the gas injection process and the matrix formulation with different hydrocolloids, it was possible to generate microbubbles with a mean bubble size of 34 μm. The second part of this study investigated the influence of microbubbles on textural parameters like stiffness, yield stress and viscosity compared with large bubbles. It could be shown that in the model matrix containing microbubbles an increased stiffness arose with increasing gas volume fraction while the opposite trend occurred for large bubbles. However, such an effect did not occur for the yield stress and viscosity.