Going in and out of the freezer can be tough on bakery products, especially ones consumers do not expect to be frozen. Thankfully, gums and starches not only help baked goods make the frozen journey, but they improve overall texture, taste and stability. The key to this is moisture retention. But what if I told you that you could get even more moisture retention with gums and starches – just by adjusting the way you mix?
The Rapidojet technology uses a high-pressure stream of liquid to fully hydrate dry ingredients, almost instantly. With our specialized modifications, such as a hydrocolloid mixing chamber, you’ll see the power of Rapidojet transform your use of starches and gums. As these ingredients are optimized and gel binding increases, your products will see improved moisture retention. This in turn will help with viscosity, thickness, freezing and re-thawing, as well as product stabilization and softness.
Starches
Let’s start with starches. We ran a series of tests with a pre-gel corn starch at different concentrations, and the results were astounding. With a 5% solution, there was a pronounced swelling effect over 30 minutes.
A pre-gelatinized starch was optimized with the Rapidojet mixing chamber. The idea with the mixing chamber is to reduce splash and only use the power needed to re-hydrate. During this pre-gel test, the mixing chamber on Rapidojet produced the regular 9% viscosity with just 8%.
When viscosity tests were performed, Rapidojet-hydrated starch solutions were proven to be thicker compared to controlled samples produced by conventional mixing. In other words, if you are mixing with Rapidojet, less starch will be needed to reach your required levels of viscosity.
How about hydrocolloids?
If you work with hydrocolloids, you probably know how difficult they are to hydrate. In most cases, plant personnel use high shear mixing equipment along with super-heated water to activate this lumpy mess. Not only does this take time, but the hydrocolloids are not fully optimized.
With Rapidojet, a blend of xanthan and locust bean gum at a 3% solution was tested. What resulted was an instantaneous, homogenous, lump-free gel using room temperature water. Viscosity tests revealed that this was too thick of a gel for our customer. Therefore, we reduced to a level of <3% to obtain the desired viscosity. This resulted in a machine return on investment (ROI) for the customer of less than one year.
Make ingredients live up to their full potential
As these tests show, the ingredients we use go a long way in improving final products. However, when they are mixed in a way that allows them to be fully optimized, the same ingredients can go much further. For many food producers, the Rapidojet technology allows them to push the limits.
Discover how Rapidojet can push yours!
