The rheology of starch dispersions at high temperatures and high shear rates: a review

Engineering design of continuous processes for liquid and semi-liquid foods involves a complex heat transfer and fluid flow coupling, which strongly d epends on the rheological behaviour of fluid foods. Most of these processes are performed at temperatures above 95 degreesC. Lack of rheological data is one major problem encountered during numerical simulation and equipment design of liquid food processing at high temperatures. Insufficient rheolog ical studies in the literature have been conducted with food products under these conditions. This paper presents a literature review of experimental devices and methods used to obtain rheological data for starch dispersions at temperatures below and above 95 degreesC. Results and gelatinization mod els from the literature are analysed and discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Scien ce Ltd. All rights reserved.