JP2612310B2 - High melting point agar - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to high melting point agar.

[Conventional technology]

Agar has long been known as a food, and its chemical composition is a β-D-galactopyranose group linked at 1,3 and a 3,6 ambidro-α-L-galactopyranose group linked at 1,4. Is a complex substance comprising a neutral polysaccharide called agarose, which is alternately repeated, and an acidic polysaccharide called agaropectin as a generic term other than agarose containing uronic acid, pyruvic acid, sulfate, and the like. This agar usually contains about 50 to 70% by weight of an agarose component, and the residual ratio of sulfate groups as an indicator of agarose purity is 1.7 to 3.0% by weight, and its melting point (gel such as agar) In the case of a gelling agent, the temperature at which the gelling agent is dissolved once and the solidified gel is redissolved by heating is slightly different depending on the type of agar original algae. ~ 94 ° C.

Therefore, in foods using gelled agar such as bean paste, tocorotene, etc., the gel becomes sol when sterilized in boil. For example, long-time sterilization has been performed at a temperature of 80 to 85 ° C. or lower. In addition, when foods using gelled agar are stored at room temperature for a long period of time, it was necessary to simultaneously lower the pH, that is, suppress the growth of bacteria under acidic conditions.

Gellan gum, which is known in the literature as a heat-resistant gelling agent, is dissolved in water to form a hot aqueous solution having a concentration of 0.2 to 2.0% by weight, and a metal salt such as an alkali or alkaline earth metal or the like is added to the hot aqueous solution. It gels in the presence of acids such as organic acids. It is known that the gel obtained as a result has heat resistance and therefore maintains a gel state even at a high temperature, for example, 100 ° C., and can withstand boil sterilization.

Therefore, if bean beans, tocorotene, etc. are made using this gellan gum, there is no danger that the gel will turn into a sol even after boiling sterilization, and it is easily assumed that it can be sterilized at high temperatures, for example, 90 to 100 ° C. in a short time. it can.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

However, an agar gel is made using the usual agar as described above, and the bean paste, tocorotene, etc. made using this agar gel must be sterilized for a long time at a temperature of 80 to 85 ° C or less. This is not desirable in the production process and sterilization efficiency. Further, in the case of long-term storage at room temperature, the agar gel is placed under acidic conditions, and during long-term storage, agar molecules, which are carbohydrates, are hydrolyzed under these acidic conditions,
There is a possibility that the viscoelasticity of the agar gel (the property of being highly adhesive and having elasticity like tocorotene) is reduced, resulting in a molyte texture.

In addition, a gel is made using the above gellan gum, and bean beans, trocotene, and the like made using this gel can withstand high temperature or relatively low pH conditions. But,
The gel using gellan gum has a coagulation force with a metal salt, an acid, or the like, and thus lacks viscoelasticity like agar gel and lacks the texture of conventional bean varieties and tocorotene. Therefore, the gel using gellan gum cannot obtain the texture of bean jam, tocorotene, etc. using agar gel. For this reason, gellan gum has good properties such as heat resistance and acid resistance, but it is difficult to make use of these properties to replace agar used for honey beans, cotroten and the like.

Further, this gellan gum can be gelled alone. However, its properties are inferior to those of agar gels. As described above, by adding a metal salt, an acid, or the like, the gels are more firmly gelled, resulting in properties such as heat resistance and acid resistance. Therefore, in order to obtain the above-mentioned properties, the addition of a metal salt and an acid is a necessary requirement, so that the gel once formed becomes sparingly soluble. It becomes difficult to reuse the waste gel. Usually, about 10% of this litter gel is generated, but if it cannot be reused, the cost will increase significantly.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and has excellent heat resistance, acid resistance, and is capable of measuring the reuse of waste gel generated during the manufacturing process. An object of the present invention is to provide a high melting point agar having excellent heat resistance.

[Means for solving the problem]

The inventor has been researching agar having various properties and a method for producing the same for many years. In addition, research on gelling agents other than agar has been continued. And when the gel agar solidified by dissolving the agar once is used for long-term storage food, if the melting point of the gel agar is high,
Since the gel-like agar can be sterilized at a high temperature and in a short time, the high melting point of the gel-like agar is an inevitable factor for improving productivity, and
In order to increase the utility, we conducted intensive research to obtain a gel agar with a high melting point. As a result, gellan gum, a gelling agent other than agar, produces a high melting point gel in the presence of metal salts or acids, but does not redissolve. Furthermore,
Although this gel cannot provide a viscoelastic texture like agar gel, gellan gum is added to agar to form a mixture, and when this mixture is gelled in the presence of a metal salt or acid, a high melting point is obtained. The present inventors have found that a gel can be obtained and a viscoelastic texture like agar gel can be obtained, and the present invention has been achieved.

That is, the present invention mainly comprises (A) agar, (B) gellan gum and (C) a metal salt, and (A), (B)
And (C) are 30.0 to 99.7% by weight and (B) are 0.1% by weight, respectively, based on the total weight of (A) + (B) + (C).
2 to 70% by weight and (C) in the range of 0.1 to 50% by weight,
A high melting point agar characterized in that a mixture of (A) agar and (B) gellan gum is gelled with an aqueous solution in the presence of the (C) metal salt.

The greatest feature of the present invention is that gellan gum is added to a gelling agent such as agar to utilize the high melting point of the gelling gum gel and without losing the texture of the gelling agent such as agar. The purpose is to control the melting point of a gelling agent such as agar.

The agar used in the present invention is of the genus Aspergillus (Gelidiu).
m), genus Pterocladia, genus Acanth
opeltis) and the like can be used as long as they are produced by conventional methods, regardless of their chemical constitution or average molecular weight. That is, agar is a complex mainly composed of agarose in which β-D-galactopyranose groups and 3,6-anhydro-α-L-galactopyranose groups linked by 1, 3 are alternately repeated, and agaropectin other than the agarose. Substance.

Further, the agar may be a mixture of the agar and a gelling agent other than the agar. That is, this is to make the texture of the high melting point agar of the present invention compatible with various types according to the purpose. As a gelling agent other than agar, carrageenan, pectin, guar gum, locust bean gum, tara gum, gum arabic, tamarind gum, starch, xanthan gum, gelatin or the like is used.

Gellan gum used in the present invention is a kind of gelling agent, and is a kind of fermented polysaccharide produced by fermenting corn syrup using microorganisms inhabiting aquatic plants, and a polysaccharide having a molecular weight of about 600,000 to 700,000. It is. Its saccharide composition is a linear polysaccharide having a ratio of two molecules of glucose, one molecule of glucuronic acid and one molecule of rhamnose.

The metal salt used in the present invention is necessary for firmly gelling gellan gum. This gellan gum itself is said to gel at a concentration of about 0.4% by weight or more. However, in order to obtain a strong gel made of gellan gum, it is necessary to gel in the presence of a metal salt. That is, the metal salt is not particularly limited as long as it supplies metal ions. However, since high melting point agar is mainly used in foods in many cases, toxic metal salts are rarely used. In general, sodium acetate (NaC ₂ H) such as alkali metal salt (NaCl), potassium chloride (KCl), trisodium citrate (Na ₃ C ₆ H ₅ O ₇ ), etc.
Calcium lactate (CaC ₃ H) of alkaline earth metal salts such as ₃ O ₂ )
Monovalent and divalent metal salts such as ₆ O ₃ ), magnesium sulfate (MgSo ₄ ), and calcium chloride (CaCl ₂ ) are used.

Further, the metal salt used in the present invention may be an acid.
The acid, for example, from high-melting agar is used primarily in food-related, citric acid _{(H 3 C 6 H 5 O} 7), lactic acid _{(H 2 C 3 H 6 O} 3), malic acid (C ₂ H ₃ (OH) (COOH) ₂ ), acetic acid (CH ₃ COO)
H), phosphoric acid (H ₃ PO ₄ ) and the like are mainly used.

The metal salt used in the present invention may be a saccharide. As the saccharide, for example, glucose, fructose, sucrose and the like are used. When a strong gel of gellan gum is prepared by using saccharides in place of metal salts, the effect is ineffective unless the amount thereof is increased, and in general, it is ineffective unless added in an amount of 20% by weight or more.

The high melting point agar of the present invention is a composite substance mainly composed of (A) agar, (B) gellan gum and (C) a metal salt. However, the respective proportions of (A), (B) and (C) in the composite material are (A) + (B) + (C)
(A) is 30.0 to 99.7% by weight, (B) is 0.2 to 70% by weight and (C) is 0.1 to 50% by weight based on the total weight of
If it is out of the range, a high melting point and acid resistance cannot be imparted.

The preferred proportions of the high melting point agar are (A), (B) and (C), in which (A) is 85 to 98% by weight and (B) is 0.2 to 1% by weight.
0% by weight and (C) are in the range of 0.1 to 20% by weight.

When (C) is a saccharide, the proportion of (C) among (A), (B) and (C) is relative to the gel of the final product.
It is in the range of 10 to 50% by weight.

The high melting point agar of the present invention includes not only a dry substance such as powder and flakes but also a gel which is obtained by dissolving the dry substance once and solidifying it.

The high melting point agar of the present invention comprises not only the above (A), (B) and (C) but also (A), (B) and (C) as well as pigments, essences, flavors, acidulants and sweetness. It also includes those added to the extent that the ingredients do not inhibit the high melting point of the formed gel.

The high melting point agar of the present invention is produced, for example, as follows.

Said three substances, namely (A) powdered agar,
A predetermined amount of (B) powdered gellan gum, (C) powdered metal salt (for example, calcium lactate, trisodium citrate) and the like are supplied to a ribbon mixer or the like by a quantitative feeder or the like, and are mixed in advance. It is manufactured, dispersed in water, completely dissolved in hot water, cooled and gelled to obtain a high melting point gel.

Further, a mixture of powdered (A) and (B) is first dispersed in water, heated and boiled, and the mixture is completely dissolved in hot water. This hot aqueous solution may be dissolved by adding the powdered metal salt of (C) and cooling to gel. Alternatively, an aqueous solution of the metal salt of (C) is prepared in advance, and this is added to the above-mentioned hot aqueous solution. A high melting point agar having a mixing ratio of the above (A), (B) and (C) may be used, and then cooled and gelled to obtain a high melting point gel. Further, the hot aqueous solution may be cooled and gelled, and the gelled product may be added to the solution of the metal salt (C) to obtain a gel having a high melting point. In this way, for example, during the production of bean sprouts, litter gel formed when forming a dice-like gel, since no metal salt is added, it can be easily dissolved by raising the temperature and reused. Can be.

[Action]

In the present invention, the mechanism itself of forming a gel having a high melting point by mixing gellan gum with ordinary agar is not clear. However, it is known that gellan gum itself produces a gel having a high melting point in the presence of metal salts, acids and the like. Even if this gellan gum is added to ordinary agar and mixed to form a gel in the presence of a metal salt, acid, etc., only the apparent gel melting point increases, and if the temperature exceeds the melting point of the agar alone, the agar The gel may elute.
However, in reality, such a phenomenon is not seen, and as a result, the melting point of agar is increased. This is considered to be because the affinity between the gellan gum molecule and the agar molecule, that is, the entanglement of the gellan gum molecule and the agar molecule in the three-dimensional structure is strong.

〔The invention's effect〕

As described in detail above, the high melting point agar of the present invention is obtained by mixing conventional agar with a certain ratio of gellan gum, and further gelling in the presence of a certain ratio of a metal salt or the like, so that the conventional agar is used. It is obtained by obtaining a gel having higher heat resistance and acid resistance than gel. Therefore, the high melting point agar of the present invention has both the heat resistance and acid resistance, which are the properties of the gel alone of gellan gum, and the viscoelastic texture, which is the property of the gel of agar alone. For this reason, the post-sterilization of gelled products such as bean paste and tocorotene can be performed at a high temperature for a short time and the sterilization efficiency can be increased.
Sterilization equipment can be downsized and fuel consumption can be reduced. Further, in the case of foods to be stored for a long period of time, high-temperature sterilization can be performed, so that sterilization is complete, and there is no need to suppress the propagation of bacteria by making the foods acidic. Therefore, the gel is not hydrolyzed by placing the gel on the acidic side, and this gel can maintain a viscoelastic texture for a long time and does not have a Moroy texture. Furthermore, agar which could not be used because of its low melting point even if it had a viscoelastic texture in the past can be used by mixing gellan gum.

In addition, gellan gum forms a heat-resistant, acid-resistant gel in the presence of metal salts and the like, so it gels with a mixture of agar and gellan gum, and if this gel is used to make products such as bean sprouts and tocorotene, Since the waste gel produced in the production process is not a heat-resistant and acid-resistant gel obtained in the presence of a metal salt or the like, it can be easily dissolved, reused and wasteless.

〔Example〕

 Hereinafter, an embodiment will be described.

Example 1 A mixed powder was prepared by mixing 95.0% by weight of agar powder and 5.0% by weight of gellan gum powder prepared by a conventional method, and 0.8 part of the mixed powder was added to 99.2 parts of water, heated to boiling and dissolved, and then placed in a container. A hot aqueous solution is allowed to flow, and the mixture is cooled and gelled. The gelled product was extruded with tocorotene, and this was bagged with a 0.1% by weight solution of calcium lactate.
Boil sterilize for a minute. After sterilizing the boil, open the bag and visually observe the state of the gel.

Comparative Example 1 0.8 part of agar powder produced by the conventional method is put into 99.2 parts of water and dissolved by heating and boiling, and a hot aqueous solution is poured into a container, followed by cooling to gel. The gelled product is extruded with a tocorotene squeeze, bagged with a 0.1% by weight solution of calcium lactate, and sterilized in a boil for 20 minutes. After sterilizing the boil, open the bag and visually observe the state of the gel.

 Table 1 shows the results.

As is clear from Table 1, a small amount of gellan gum is added to the agar prepared by the conventional method, whereby the high melting point agar of the present invention, which can obtain a high melting point gel, can be obtained.

Example 2 In Example 1, a high melting point measurement of the tocorotene-like gel extruded with a tocorotene thrust, that is, a tocorotene-like gel before being put in a calcium lactate solution, and a dissolution experiment were conducted by placing the tocorotene-like gel in an open kettle. Do.

Comparative Example 2 In the same manner as in Example 2, the melting point measurement and dissolution experiment of the tocorotene-like gel of Comparative Example 1 are performed.

The melting point was measured by the following method. That is, 7 ml of a 0.8% by weight agar solution (dissolved by heating)
Pour into a 1.2 cm, 1.0 cm inner diameter, 10.5 cm long test tube, allow to solidify, place in incubator and keep at 20 ° C. for about 15 hours. 20
Water is poured into a 00 cc beaker, and the test tube is inverted and fixed therein, and the temperature is increased while stirring with a magnetic hot plate. The temperature at which the agar gel in the test tube melts and drops to form bubbles at the top of the test tube is defined as the melting point.

As is evident from Table 2, the melting point of the high melting point agar of the present invention is only slightly higher, so that it completely dissolves under substantially the same conditions. Therefore, the waste gel can be easily reused.

Example 3 The gel obtained in Example 1 is formed into a dice so that it can be used for honey beans, and the dice gel is bagged together with a syrup having a pH of 3.5 and sterilized by boiling for 5 minutes. After boiling sterilization, open the bag and visually observe the state of the gel.

Comparative Example 3 The gel obtained in Comparative Example 1 was formed into a dice shape so that it could be used for honey beans, and the dice gel was bagged together with a syrup of pH 3.5 and boiled for 5 minutes. After boiling sterilization, open the bag and visually observe the state of the gel.

 Table 3 shows the results.

As is clear from Table-3, it is recognized that the high melting point agar of the present invention has acid resistance.

Claims (5)

(57) [Claims] 1. The agar, gellan gum and metal salt are mainly composed of 30.0 to 99.7% by weight of agar, 0.2 to 70% by weight of gellan gum and 3% to 9% by weight, respectively, based on the total weight of the agar, gellan gum and metal salt. 0.1 to 50 metal salt
A high-melting point agar, wherein the mixture of agar and gellan gum is gelled with an aqueous solution in the presence of the metal salt. 2. The high melting point agar according to claim 1, wherein the metal salt is an acid. 3. The high melting point agar according to claim 1, wherein the metal salt is a saccharide. 4. The high melting point agar according to claim 1, wherein the agar is a mixture of the agar and a gelling agent other than the agar. 5. The high melting point agar according to claim 1, wherein the gelling agent is carrageenan, pectin, guar gum, locust bean gum, tara gum, gum arabic, tamarind gum, starch, xanthan gum or gelatin.