M. Gallart et al., FOAM MEASUREMENTS IN WINES - COMPARISON OF PARAMETERS OBTAINED BY GASSPARGING METHOD, Journal of agricultural and food chemistry, 45(12), 1997, pp. 4687-4690
Two procedures for foam determination, based on the method of gas spar
ging, were applied in samples with different foam capacities. The foam
ing parameters measured by Maujean et al. (1990) [maximum height (HM),
stability height (HS), and stability time (TS)] and Robillard et al.
(1993) [foam expansion (E), foam stability (L-F), and Bikerman coeffic
ient (Sigma)] were compared. HM, E, and L-F were positively correlated
(r > 0.9), so E and L-F do not provide additional information on wine
foamability. Furthermore, measurement off in samples with low foamabi
lity is unreliable, and in samples with high foamability E is less abl
e to discriminate foaming properties than HM. TS did not have any pred
ictive relationship with the other parameters, so it could be used as
a parameter of another aspect of foam. Sigma is preferable to HS, beca
use it is independent of determination conditions. The precisions of H
M and TS were low (80%) in some wines, but the coefficients of variati
on were related with the mean values. The most appropriate parameters
to characterize the foam capacity of several wines were HM, Sigma, and
TS.