Chemistry: analytical and immunological testing – Food or dairy products – Wine or alcoholic beverages
Patent
1997-08-27
1999-04-06
Ludlow, Jan
Chemistry: analytical and immunological testing
Food or dairy products
Wine or alcoholic beverages
73 6011, 426477, 436 20, 436 22, 436164, 436168, G01N 3314
Patent
active
058917322
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method for determining the foaming behaviour (foaming analysis) of a liquid. More in particular, the invention relates to a method for reliably simulating in an analysis the practical situation of foaming of a beverage so that by means of a small amount of material the behaviour in daily practice can be predicted.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
In general, it is important to be able to determine the foaming behaviour of liquids that show any form of foaming behaviour. In the first place, this applies to gaseous beverages, but also for other, gaseous or nongaseous, liquids, it may be important to determine the behaviour of the foam. Examples of such liquids, except the above-mentioned gaseous beverages, are other gaseous liquids, but also solutions of components capable of giving a foam, such as detergents. It may also be of importance to the examination of foam-stabilizing or foam-inhibiting additives.
When judging of the quality of carbonated beverages, the properties of the foam are a very important factor. This is in particular the case with beer, but also in soft drinks (including the so-called "sports drinks"), cola, carbonated milk products, wine and champagne the behaviour of the foam plays a great part in the judgment of the quality of the product.
One aspect of the quality of the foam in beer is concerned with the foam height and the rate of the decrease of the foam height. This decrease is caused by drainage, coalescence and disproportionation. The bubble size distribution is of essential importance to the rate of the development of thoses processes.
When judging of the foam quality of beer, it seems most obvious to pour the beverage by hand or with an automatic pouring or tapping device. However, these methods are rather laborious, while, furthermore, much material is required for the analysis. Because of the drawbacks of this method other methods less laborious and requiring less material have been sought for.
At present the most current method for analysing foam is the use of a so-called "flasher". As shown in FIG. 1, the gaseous beverage, in this case beer, in a bottle 1 is pressed under the CO.sub.2 pressure at which the bottle was filled, via a riser pipe 2 through a throttling port 3. Consequently, a pressure drop occurs immediately after the constriction (throttling port), which results in "flashing" of the beer. Thus foam is formed which is collected in a vessel 4 and is analysed. This analysis is conducted by means of a conventional "NIBEM" foaming analyser.
Another method developed in the course of time consists in introducing into a cuvette the liquid to be analysed, from which gas is substantially removed (in the case of beer: carbon dioxide), followed by introducing CO.sub.2 into the liquid through a grid of sintered glass arranged in the bottom of the cuvelle: the so-called NIBEM method. Although a foam could thus be obtained, it turned out to be impossible in this way to predict the foaming behaviour of the liquid in practice, because the bubble size distribution could not be properly controlled.
For this reason, further researches were conducted into improvement of the analysis method, which has resulted in the insight that a reliable simulation of the practical situation can be obtained by generating the foam by means of a, preferably metal, grid provided with holes having a diameter of 25 to 100 .mu.m, which holes are located at a mutual distance of 5 to 15 times the diameter of the holes.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention therefore relates in a first embodiment to a method for determining foaming behaviour of a liquid by means of a gas, which comprises supplying a gas to an amount of the substantially gas-free liquid to form a foam and analysing one or more properties of the foam, wherein the gas is supplied through a grid provided with holes having a diameter of 25 to 100 .mu.m, which holes are located at a mutual distance of 5 to 15 times the diameter of the holes.
According to a second variant the inventi
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de Jong Rudi Leendert
Prins Albertus
Heineken Technical Services B.V.
Ludlow Jan
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