Abstract
Since the quality of frozen food depends on the size of ice crystals, many studies have investigated the growth mechanisms of ice crystals in frozen foods. Recently, it was found that in the typical freezing process, the finer ice crystals formed in soybean gels with large-scaled supercooling incidentally occurred during the cooling process (we called it “supercooled freezing method”)as compared with that formed by freezing without supercooling at the same cooling rate. In order qualify the mechanism of the ice crystal growth in supercooled freezing method,the effect of breaking temperature of supercooling on the ice characteristics of soy bean gels, including their effects on drip loss , was investigated. The results revealed that a lower breaking temperature of supercooling provided the finer ice crystals and large number of ice crystals. Further, a lower breaking temperature of supercooling produced the lower volume of drip loss. It was suggested that these results were related to the higher degree of ice nucleation at low breaking temperature of supercooling.
