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Summary
The aim of this work was the characterization of various instantized cocoa beverage powders with regard to their wetting behaviour in a standardized test. Brand name powders
from local superstores were compared to each other and to model powders instantized in
the laboratory by steam jet agglomeration. Basic powder properties such as agglomerate
size or fines content in a mixture were varied to study possible effects on the wettability
of this product group.
Keywords
Introduction
335
336
Materials
Instantized cocoa beverage powders were
acquired from local superstores. Five different
brands from minor and major manufacturers
(Nestl, Vevey, Switzerland, Kraft Jacobs
Suchard, Bremen, Germany, and others) were
chosen for investigation. The products, labelled
A, B, C, D, E and F in the text below, contained
1920% low-fat cocoa, 2030% glucose and
5060% sucrose, as stated by the manufacturers.
All powders contained lecithin and, to our knowledge, all were instantized by agglomeration. For
comparison, beverage powders consisting of lowfat (12% fat) cocoa, lecithin (lecithin-cocoa ratio
1 : 19) and sucrose were mixed, milled and steam
jet agglomerated in the laboratory (for details on
steam jet agglomeration see Hogekamp et al.,
1996 and Hogekamp, 1997). A typical particle
size distribution of ground sucrose is shown in
device.
Results
Preliminary tests
To get an impression of how different testing liquids might affect the wetting time, the wetting
time of a powder sample was tested using water
and milk of varied fat content. The wetting time
of powder A was tested with three different types
of UHT milk (i.e., 0.3%, 1.5%, 3.5% fat content)
and with deionized water (conductivity < 0.5 mS).
It was found that a higher fat content in the
milk leads to longer wetting times (7 min 47 sec,
9 min 7 sec and 11 min 3 sec, respectively). With
water the wetting time is much shorter (2 min 48
sec), as it contains no fat droplets, dissolved protein etc. Low-fat UHT milk (1.5% fat content)
appeared to be a good compromise testing liquid
for cocoa beverage powders and was used for all
further experiments.
To get a first impression of the dependency of
the wetting time of a fully soluble powder on the
average particle size, sucrose of different particle
size was investigated. The influence of adding a
non-wettable component like cocoa can also be
judged by comparing with these results. Crystal
sugar (sucrose) ground at different milling speeds
337
338
x50,3 /mm21
twet /sec21
41.6
66.3
56.1
30.0
62.5
16.3
63.7
13.7
77.8
10.3
105.7
6.0
132.4
3.7
were chosen for the experiments. First, all particles above a given size were removed from the
sample by screening. Then, the wetting time of an
8 g sample of the remaining fines was tested.
In this experiment, it was found that removing
the larger particles had little influence for mesh
sizes between 0.28 mm and 1 mm. The wetting
time changed slightly from 7 to 13 sec. Carrying
out the experiment with particles below 0.2 mm
mesh size increased the wetting time to < 5 min.
Lowering the maximum particle size even further
increased the wetting time to almost 30 min, as
now the powder mainly consisted of fines plus
some very small agglomerates. The resulting wetting times are shown in Fig. 3.
Influence of ageing
The experiments described above were repeated
after the powder had been exposed to ambient
conditions in the open bag for one month. No
significant difference in wetting time could be
found for the fines , 0.2 mm, but the wetting
339
340
In this experiment, mixtures with higher content of fine particles showed longer wetting time.
The wetting time for mixtures with up to 40%
fines was between 13 and 15 sec. At higher fines
contents, the wetting time increased. In the mixture with a fines content of 60%, the wetting time
doubled to 30 sec. The resulting wetting times are
shown in Fig. 5.
Influence of the removal of fines from the
powder
In some cases, the instant properties of a powder
are adjusted by incorporating a screening step in a
production line to reduce the amount of fines
(which are then recirculated). Experimental work
on this subject (similar to that carried out above)
was carried out with cocoa beverage powder A.
This powder was separated into two fractions by
screening at 200 mm. Fines (, 200 mm) and
agglomerates (. 200 mm) in varied proportion
were then mixed together and the wetting time of
these mixtures was tested.
Again, it was found that for a higher content of
fine particles, the wetting time increased. For this
product, though, the behaviour was different, as
the wetting time increased continually with rising
amount of fines. A much wider range of wetting
Wetting time/s
A (all sizes)
A (355450 mm)
B (355450 mm)
C (all sizes)
C (355450 mm)
D (all sizes)
D (355450 mm)
E (all sizes)
E (355450 mm)
F (all sizes)
F (355450 mm)
167
11
47
7
6
37
13
840
425
38
15
341
342
Acknowledgements
Conclusions
References
Hogekamp, S. (1997). ber eine modifizierte
Strahlagglomerationsanlage zur Herstellung schnell
dispergierbarer Pulver. Dissertation, Universitt
Karlsruhe.
Hogekamp, S., Schubert, H. & Wolf, S. (1996). Steam jet
agglomeration of water soluble material. Powder
Technology, 86, 4957.
Schubert, H. (1979). Grundlagen des Agglomerierens.
Chemie Ingenieur Technik, 51, 266277.
Schubert, H. (1993). Instantization of powdered foods.
International Chemical Engineering, 30, 2845.