การพัฒนาครีมน้ำผึ้งไทยด้วยกระบวนการตกผลึกแบบควบคุมด้วยคลื่นอัลตร้าโซนิค

Abstract

Thai honey is a naturally sweet and supersaturated sugar solution consisting of mainly glucose and fructose, and there are many types of Thai honey. In most honey, the excess glucose is cause of crystallization which is unacceptable to consumers and crystallization will produce the non-uniform crystal, and gritty texture. The control of crystallization for producing in a creamed honey product can increase the market value, and it is a very interesting product for developing for the honey industry in Thailand. However, the process is not easy to produce, especially in the crystallization process. Ultrasonic is an efficient tool for enhancing and controlling crystallization. Therefore, this research aims to improve Thai creamed honey process by control of crystallization with ultrasonic treatment to obtain a smooth texture. The optimal creamed honey process was investigated by concerning the factors that affect the crystallization and the quality of creamed honey with enhance for the final product stability, suitable storage condition, and final product stability were then studied. Finally, the crystallization model of creamed honey investigated for better control the texture of product and design creamed honey model prototype with food engineering design concept and economic analysis. The glucose per water ratio (G/W ratio) is the main parameters to distinguish the control of honey crystallization and showed that sunflower honey got the value not less than 2.16, in contrast, longan and wild honey is lower than 1.70. It confirmed that sunflower honey is rapid crystallization and longan and wild honey is slow or non-granulating honey. The suitable method for increasing the G/W ratio in non-granulating honey and unaffecting with honey properties is the glucose addition. The control of crystallization process with ultrasonic treatment of creamed honey is starting from liquid honey is heated with ultrasonic treatment at 40 kHz (55°C, 30 mins) for pasteurizing and clearing any crystals. Then, the liquid honey is rapidly cooled down in the rate of 6.5°C/min for taking the honey temperature to reduce to below 20°C in the least time. The amount of seed addition is approximately in the range of 7.50 - 15.0%, depends on the G/W ratio. Rapid agitating not over than 1,300 rpm has been fully incorporated into the liquid honey and treated with ultrasonic at 40 kHz, intensity 0.15 Watt/cm2 for 5 mins as post-treatment. The storage time for obtaining a firm texture (hardness value is 12 - 15 N) is 2 days in creamed sunflower and longan honey, and 6 days for creamed wild honey, and further place in room temperature for 1 day for easy to spread or a soft texture. The stability of a product is the product shelf-life guarantee in creamy product. Almost creamed honey can keep in low temperature (18-22°C) without any variation of stability for more than 6 months. Monitoring of honey crystallization kinetic from the absorbance measurement at 660 nm and simulating with the Avrami equation were the suitable model for explain the crystallization behavior of honey. The developed method's total processing time is about 40 mins, enhancing efficiency into 40% by comparing with Dyce's method (70 mins) and the storage time reduced from 19 days to 3 days. Finally, the creamed honey maker model prototype presented and design as following developed process by control of crystallization process with ultrasonic treatment. The economic analysis and break-even analysis were evaluated and could be the machines' sales price equal to 450,000 THB. The profit attributed to the sales volume got higher than 1,500 kg of creamed honey product.