Potential application of ultra-high pressure homogenization in the physico-chemical stabilization of tiger nuts' milk beverage

- The effect of UHPH on the physico-chemical stability of tiger nuts' milk beverage was evaluated.
- UHPH-treated beverages showed better colloidal stability than the conventional treated.
- UHPH treatments improved the oxidative stability of beverages.
- UHPH treatment is a potential technology to obtain a beverage without additives.

The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of UHPH treatments (at 200 and 300 MPa and 40 °C of inlet temperature) on the physico-chemical characteristics of tiger nuts' milk beverages, in comparison with the raw beverage and the product treated by a conventional homogenization-pasteurization (18 + 4 MPa, 80 °C, 15 s) without stabilizers (H-P1) or with them (H-P2). The long term evaluation of samples showed that UHPH-treated beverages presented the highest colloidal stability, principally against creaming, due to the reduction in particle size and the new particle interactions, even if comparing with H-P2 beverage. Peroxidase activity showed the highest reduction after applying 300 MPa treatment, and regarding fat oxidation reactions, 200 MPa-treated beverage appeared to be the most stable. In this sense, the UHPH is presented as an emerging technology for obtaining tiger nuts' milk beverages free of additives with improved physico-chemical characteristics.