COMPARISON OF VISUAL AND AUTOMATED COLORIMETER FOR REFINED AND BLEACHED COTTONSEED OILS

Color as a fundamental quality of edible oils has been determined prim arily by visual comparison. The automatic colorimeters introduced rece ntly made it possible to avoid op erator variability associated with v isual color measurement. The feasibility of using an automatic colorim eter, Colourscan, to measure the color of refined and bleached cottons eed oils was investigated. Good agreement, r(2) = 0.99, between automa tic color readings vs. visual color measurement by using the Lovibond- AOCS Color Scale was obtained. Near-linear correlation of light paths from 133.4 to 2.5 mm permits dark oil to be assessed with the automati c colorimeter.