Search

Few studies reported the impact of hydrocolloid addition on starches after heat moisture treatment (HMT). In this study, potato starch is modified by HMT under different moisture content (18–35%), and the impact of konjac glucomannan (KGM) addition on the pasting, gel texture, and rheological properties of potato starch after HMT are investigated. The results showed that after HMT, the granule structure of the starch is changed with higher heat stability, shown as higher pasting temperature and trough viscosity. The impact of KGM addition is similar on the potato starch before and after HMT, but the change extent of the latter is larger in most cases, such as decreased pasting temperature and gel hardness, increased peak viscosity, breakdown viscosity, and final viscosity. This indicated that KGM benefited the gelatinization behavior of HMT starch but might not enhance the retrogradation process. The intrinsic high viscosity of KGM in water resulted in a softer starch gel and also contributed to the enhanced shear stress of the mixture paste. Therefore, the impact of KGM on the HMT starch is more significant than the original starch, and this guided the use of HMT starch in the food industry with other hydrocolloid involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A good aromatherapy experience of an incense stick with filter material depended heavily on the barrier effect of the filter material particles and the comfort temperature of the aroma. The lack of accurate methods to determine the aroma temperature greatly hindered the quality control and product development of aromatherapy. In this study, a novel method was proposed to measure the temperature of the filter material and aroma with an negative temperature coefficient thermistor and a needle thermocouple. The experimental results showed that the measurement accuracy of this method was up to ±0.01°C, and the surface temperature distribution of the filter media and the extracted aroma temperature can be obtained quickly and accurately. It was found that under the two different heating methods, the aroma temperature produced by heating non-combustion was significantly higher than that produced by the non-flaming combustion. Different aroma delivery intervals also had significant effects on the aroma. This paper showed that this novel method could contribute to quality evaluation of filter sticks for aromatherapy products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An edible film containing both hydrophilic and hydrophobic components could have good mechanical and moisture barrier properties at the same time. Previous research indicated the high potential of konjac glucomannan (KGM) and ethyl cellulose (EC) film in the development of novel edible films, and this study aimed to further improve the hydrophobicity and film properties by addition of curdlan to prepare KGM/curdlan/EC ternary composite films. Results indicated that the addition could significantly change the water contact angle, moisture barrier properties, and mechanical properties of the KGM/EC films, and the optimum addition amount is considered to be 20% of the total weight of KGM and EC. The SEM images, FTIR, and XRD results indicated that the molecular interaction between curdlan and other film components is relatively weak, and this is probably cause by that curdlan remained in the triple‐helix structure under the preparation condition. Therefore curdlan should mainly act as the filling components of the films, and too low or too high addition amount led to decreased mechanical and water vapor permeability properties. The obtained results may offer suggestions to prepare ternary composite edible films with curdlan addition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]