Effects of coconut sugar and stabilizing agents on stability and apparent viscosity of high-fat coconut milk

This study was aimed at determining the physical properties of sterilized high-fat coconut milk (30%) as affected by coconut sugar (10–30%) and stabilizing agents, namely carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC, 0.6–1.0%) and Montanox 60 (0.6–1.0%). The emulsion stability (ES) and rheological properties were determined after thermal processing at 121 °C for 60 min. At similar sugar content, increasing concentration of CMC or Montanox 60 resulted in an increase in ES. The concentrations of CMC and Montanox 60 in the range of 0.8–1.0% were found to give the ES in the range of 81.16–91.15%. These conditions were selected to conduct the rheological measurements. It was found that all samples exhibited pseudoplastic behavior with the flow behavior index (n) between 0.63 and 0.84. The results suggested that suitable ratio between coconut sugar and stabilizing agent contents should be specified in order to obtain a high quality of processed sweetened coconut milk.