Rheological characterization of ice cream

The knowledge of theological behavior is an important part of processing, handling, quality control and development of food products. Literature shows that most foodstuffs present non-Newtonian behavior, where their viscosity may vary with time, as well as with flow conditions. The rheological characterization of five different kinds of ice cream was carried out in this work. The samples studied were vanilla flavor, light vanilla flavor, lemon, yoghurt and banana soy, supplied by Amoratto Sorvetes Artesanais, located in Florianopolis/SC, Brazil. The rheological data were obtained using a rotational viscosimeter with concentric cylinder geometry. The trials were carried out at three different temperatures (-2, 0 and 2 degrees C) and experimental results were fitted by Bingham, Casson, Herschel-Bulkley and Power Law models. The different samples showed non-Newtonian behavior at the three temperatures. The rheological parameters (k and n) were obtained through fitting of the models and the Power Law model presented the best results, with r = 0.99 for four of the five samples, at the three different temperatures.