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How to measure and analyse the texture of food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and adhesives.

Thursday 15 January 2015

Texture Analysis in action: the Granule Compaction Rig



Granule compaction test using the TA.XTplus Texture AnalyserThe GRANULE COMPACTION RIG (HDP/GCR*) 

Granule hardness/compressibility testing is important to provide an indicator of the tabletting potential of some materials, or a measure of friability or compaction strength of granules. 
 

Where granules are irregular in form, the testing of single granules is discouraged as repeatability is compromised. In this instance, the testing of a fixed area of sample creates an averaging effect and improves the repeatability of the results. 

Tuesday 13 January 2015

Snack Product Texture Measurement and Analysis

Biting a crunchy crispBreakfast cereals and snack foods such as tortilla chips, potato crisps, corn puffs and prawn crackers have many features in common, both in their manufacturing processes and in their product characteristics. 

Many of these products are made from similar types of raw materials and tend to be processed as doughs at much higher temperatures than those used for conventional baked products.

Although the final products in the breakfast cereal and snack food markets are distinctly different in their appearance, they all tend to have low residual moisture contents and similar brittle crispy textures.

It’s time to perform Textural Magic! Part Three

Gastronomy on a plate 2
Performing textural magic with the use of new food preparation techniques

The Croquanter Technique – creating crunchy fruit and vegetables


Dehydrating foods is a process which has been carried out forever but, more recently, molecular gastronomy chefs have been using the dehydration technique in very creative ways.


Crunchy Sheets is a technique developed by molecular gastronomy Chef Ferran Adria to create a variety of shapes of crispy sheets of ingredients such as fruit, vegetable and yogurt with the addition of caster sugar, isomalt and/or glucose. The crunchy sheets are made at relatively low temperatures (under 80°C) to preserve the delicate aromas of the main ingredient and a dehydrator is used to obtain the crunchy texture.