Thermal behaviour of lyophilized egg yolk and egg yolk fractions

Despite its importance from a technical point of view, the influence of temperature on rheological behaviour of lyophilized egg yolk and egg yolk fractions has not yet been studied. In this work, the effect of temperature on rheological properties of these products have been analysed by means of stationary and oscillatory measurements. Firstly, the Arrhenius equation was employed to assess the influence of temperature on viscosity. In addition to temperature effect, solid content showed to be determinant on viscosity, while particle size, water holding capacity and wettability influence on rheological behaviour of samples were not critical. Secondly, rheological changes during heat-induced gelation of the samples were also investigated by means of dynamic tests and the critical network exponents at the gelation point were calculated. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was also performed using the Statgraphics Plus to evaluate experimental data. Results show that proteins of egg yolk fractions possess a similar network structure before and after gelation, while egg yolk structure is clearly modified by gelation process. Composition and structure is the main responsible of differences between samples.