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CALCULATION OF MOISTURE CONTENT OF A FORMULATED FOOD SYSTEM TO ANY GIVEN WATER ACTIVITY
Author(s) -
LANG K. W.,
STEINBERG M. P.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
journal of food science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 150
eISSN - 1750-3841
pISSN - 0022-1147
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2621.1980.tb06527.x
Subject(s) - water content , chemistry , moisture , sugar , desorption , mathematics , chromatography , analytical chemistry (journal) , thermodynamics , food science , organic chemistry , physics , geotechnical engineering , adsorption , engineering
The objective of this work was to develop a working equation for calculating moisture content of a formulated food system giving the desired a w . It was hypothesized that the total moisture content at a given a w is equal to a weighted‐average of the moisture bound by each component at the given a w . A mass balance equation based on this hypothesis was tested with mixtures of starch, casein, sugar, salt, propylene glycol, and ground beef in binary and ternary. combinations. In 22 determinations, the discrepancy between calculated and measured moisture contents ranged from ‐3.52 to +3.82% with an algebraic average of ‐0.014%. A t test showed the equation valid at 1% confidence level. The regression line for calculated vs experimental had a slope of +1.0191 and intercept of ‐0.0044. The coefficient of determination was 0.9976. It was concluded that the mass balance hypothesis is valid at a w 0.90‐0.33 for both desorption and absorption.