Optimising acceptability of new prebiotic low-fat milk beverages

The purpose of this work was to optimise the acceptability of two low-fat milk beverages with different types of inulin (CLR and TEX!) using Response Surface Methodology. Sixteen formulations of beverage with each inulin type were prepared, varying inulin concentration (3–8%), and sucrose concentration (0–8%). A group of 50 consumers evaluated the acceptability of the samples and tested the appropriateness of some sensory attributes intensity (colour, vanilla flavour, sweetness and thickness) using just about right scales. Response surface plots showed that formulations containing 5–8% CLR and 4–6.5% sucrose and formulations containing 4–6.5% for both TEX! inulin and sucrose were located in the optimum region. The sweetness and the thickness were the attributes that most affected the acceptability of the samples. The two low-fat samples (one for each inulin type) selected as the optimum showed no differences in acceptability (α = 0.05) between them neither when compared with a full fat control sample.