A natural clouding agent from orange peels obtained using polygalacturonase and cellulase

Clouding agents (CAs) provide high cloud stability when they are diluted and added to fruit beverages. Natural CA could also give the visual appearance and sensorial aspect of a natural cloudy fruit juice beverage. In addition, natural CAs are preferred over the synthetic ones by consumers. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to obtain a natural CA from orange peel that provided high cloud stability of fruit beverages. The treatment included the use of polygalacturonase (PG) and cellulase (C) to hydrolyze most of the peel components. Orange peels treated with 69 mg/kg of C and 90 μl/kg of PG during 80 min at 48 °C led to a CA that provided a cloudy stable solution on a fruit beverage. This CA presented a cloud stability of 94.7 days that represented a turbidity reduction of 9.1% after 9 days under fridge temperatures. Otherwise, the treatment conditions to get the highest cloud stability were not coincident to those necessary to preserve the color or to obtain the greatest extraction yield of the CA.