Effect of jet-cooking on rheological properties of navy bean flour suspensions

Authors: Xu, Jingyuan - James; Selling, Gordon; Liu, Sean

Submitted to: Food Chemistry Advances
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/14/2023
Publication Date: 5/15/2023
Citation: Xu, J., Selling, G.W., Liu, S.X. 2023. Effect of jet-cooking on rheological properties of navy bean flour suspensions. Food Chemistry Advances. 2. Article 100316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.focha.2023.100316.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.focha.2023.100316

Interpretive Summary: Navy beans are inexpensive, gluten-free, nutrition-rich pulses, which can be useful for gluten-free food products. Jet-cooking is a common process used to modify materials to provide higher value products. Jet-cooking is a processing method that has been used to prepare water dispersions of food materials by employing high temperature steam and high pressure. Jet-cooking can alter the structures of carbohydrates and proteins in plant materials including navy beans. These changes in structure can affect how navy bean products will respond to mixing during processing or how they perform in the end-user’s hands (for example, baking, springiness and mouth feel). The flow properties (rheology) of a material is evaluated using rheological techniques on a rheometer. The rheology of water navy bean mixtures would be influenced by the interactions of the navy bean’s carbohydrates and proteins. In order to create new products using navy beans, ARS scientists in Peoria, Illinois investigated the rheological properties of water navy bean flour mixtures before and after jet-cooking. It was determined that jet-cooking has great impact on the flow behaviors of navy bean flour suspensions. Jet cooked water navy bean suspensions were much thicker than the as-is navy bean suspensions. This may allow navy bean flour to enter industrial markets as a thickener. The information generated in this study will have value in preparing new products using navy beans. All parts of the value chain, from the producer (through the creation of new uses of their crops) to the ultimate consumer (through the development of new non-gluten foods or high value industrial products) will benefit from this technology.

Technical Abstract: Navy beans are a gluten-free pulse containing great heathy sources for human beings. In this work, we compared the rheological properties of suspensions of untreated navy bean flour suspensions (UNBFS) and jet-cooked navy bean flour suspensions (JCNBFS). Jet-cooking is a direct-contact heating process employing high-temperature and high-pressure steam for producing food and beverage products. We found that the linear rheological properties of 8% (wt. %) UNBFS exhibited viscoelastic fluid behavior; while 10% (wt. %) UNBFS displayed viscoelastic fluid/solid cross-over behavior; but 12% (wt. %) UNBFS displayed weak viscoelastic solid behavior. Unlike UNBFS, all three (8%, 10%, and 12%) (wt. %) jet-cooked navy bean flour suspensions (JCNBFS) displayed linear rheological properties having viscoelastic solid gel-like behaviors. The rheological properties of JCNBFS were strongly dependent on the concentration of the suspensions. The non-linear viscoelastic properties of the three suspensions of UNBFS exhibited similar viscosity shear thinning behavior. The degree of shear thinning was slightly reduced both at very low and high shear rates. The non-linear rheological properties of the three suspensions of JCNBFS also displayed shear thinning behaviors. The viscosity curves of the JCNBFS were much steeper than those of the UNBFS. This demonstrates that JCNBFS possessed greater shear thinning capacity than UNBFS. Both linear and non-linear rheological property studies for UNBFS and JCNBFS revealed that jet-cooking processing alters the molecular structures of navy bean flours’ starch and proteins, which would influence the navy bean flour suspensions’ properties. The results of this work will be useful to develop new food products from navy beans.