Ultrasound Doppler based in‐line viscosity and solid fat profile measurement of fat blends

Abstract

Summary This study reports the use of upgraded ultrasonic velocity profiling with pressure difference methodology; extended from previous work demonstrating true in‐line rheological and solid fat content (SFC) characterisation of complex opaque fat blends, subjected to scaled dynamic processing conditions. The experimental results have successfully confirmed previous non‐invasive, in‐line measurements for instantaneous velocity and rheological profiling of complex opaque fat blends [ International Journal of Food Science and Technology 43 (2008) 2083]. A method for in‐line measurements under dynamic processing conditions to obtain the SFC of a fat blend was developed and successfully tested for a 30% palm stearin and 70% rapeseed oil system over a temperature range of 10–40 °C. These measurements correlated well with standard SFC values from pulsed‐nuclear magnetic resonance (p‐NMR) measurements deviating not more than +/– 2% SFC points from the standard p‐NMR values.