Ice crystal interspacing in frozen foods

In this paper we show that the ice crystal growth in food and biomaterials is a function of the freezing rate. Our experimental data and literature data on other biomaterials collapse to a single curve, if plotted against the freezing rate. The fitted correlation is compared to scaling rules developed for dendrite interspacing during directional solidification of alloys. We argue that the food freezing process is reasonably comparable to the solidification process in alloys, as is apparent in the comparable exponent in our fitted scaling rule with the one commonly used in alloy solidification.

► Crystal size is a strong function of freezing rate.
► Crystal size follows theory dendrite interspacing.
► Data frozen biomaterials collapse to single curve.