Abstract
The spray-dried egg white proteins and freeze-dried ovalburnin were each dry-heated under a trace amount of water at 120° for 6h. The rheological and microstructurel characteristics of the heatinduced gels of the prepared four samples were compared before and after dry-heating. Every 10%sample solution (w/w) with and without NaCl (concentrations: 0,1 and 3% (w/w)) was heated at 80° for 15min. Gel strengths, creep curves and scanning electron microscopic microstructures of the resultant gels were compared. The dry-heating treatment induced improvements in rheological properties in the increasing gel strength and elasticity and in the microstructure on formation of a rather uniform three-dimensional network of interconnected protein strand particles which were closely packed. The dry-heated egg white proteins resulted in the formation of harder gels in the absence of NaCl which were different from the other gels.
