Beverages are prone to precipitation and suspension during storage, which not only affects the appearance, but also the flavor and quality of the beverage, the successful development of stabilizers has solved this problem, and has become an indispensable and important additive in the beverage industry. The effect of using a certain stabilizer alone is not as good as using it in combination, so it is generally necessary to search for the optimal amount of additives and the ratio of combination to ensure the quality and flavor of beverages after experimental investigation.

In addition, the choice of stabilizers is also a matter of concern, and it is important to choose non-hazardous natural products as stabilizers as much as possible, while the influence of other additives in beverages on stabilizers should not be ignored.

Influence factors of beverage stabilizers

The preparation process of beverages is different, and the selection of beverage stabilizers is also different. Most of the stabilizers used in beverages have gone through many steps of experimental exploration, the preparation process is strict, and both color, aroma and taste of the beverage to meet the standards. There are many factors affecting the stability of beverages, mainly the preparation process, the type of beverages and the choice of stabilizers. These three factors interact with each other, but at present, the choice of stabilizers is mainly used to improve the stability of beverages.

Stabilizer is the key factor to ensure the stability of beverages, but it is also affected by temperature, pH value, pressure, the ratio of various stabilizers and beverage types and other factors. Whether the choice of beverage stabilizers is reasonable or not is directly reflected in the stability of beverages, and the appropriate stabilizer addition conditions can give beverages good stability. Compound stabilizer is generally better than a single stabilizer, and the stabilizers used for different kinds of beverages are not the same.

The stability of fruit and vegetable type beverages is generally higher than that of vegetable protein type and milk beverages, which is mainly based on the influence of the beverages’ own composition, vegetable protein type beverages are easy to stratify and precipitate, and the stability of milk beverages is more sensitive to the influence of external conditions. The homogenizing pressure during the preparation of beverages is too small to mix the stabilizer and the beverage body completely, which affects the effect of the stabilizer, and the temperature is too high to destroy the nutrients in the beverages, so these factors should be taken into full consideration when adding stabilizers.

The selection of stabilizers in beverages is a complex process, according to the different quality of beverages on the choice of stabilizers and compounding, compounding a variety of forms, there are similar products are compounded, there are similar products are compounded, there are also different functions are compounded.

Some fruit juice drinks in the process of high temperature sterilization, so we must choose a good thermal stability of the stabilizer, but also consider the pH value and other factors on the impact of stabilizers, and more importantly, can not affect the nutritional value of beverages.

Second, the application of stabilizers in the beverage industry

Beverage raw materials are mostly fruits and vegetables and emulsions, which contain a certain percentage of pulp particles, pectin, suspensions and emulsions, and beverage juice with a greater density difference between. In addition, the protein contained in beverages is easily denatured under the influence of external factors, resulting in beverage layering, precipitation, suspension and other phenomena. The addition of stabilizers can prevent these phenomena from occurring during the preparation of beverages and improve the sensory effect and comprehensive properties of beverages.

Beverage stabilizers consist of two parts, thickeners and emulsifiers. Thickeners can improve the concentration of beverages, so that it has enough buoyancy to ensure the uniform suspension of particles; emulsifiers can improve the hydrophilicity of lipids in beverages, so that beverages and lipids are mutually soluble, stable dispersion; its compounding can be synergistic, with the effect of improving the flavor and quality.

1、Application in fruit and vegetable drinks

Fruit and vegetable beverages are fruit as raw materials through physical methods such as pressing, centrifugation, extraction and other juice products, generally refers to pure fruit and vegetable juice or 100% fruit and vegetable juice. Fruit and vegetable juice is divided into two phases of clarification and turbidity according to its form, and the indicators for evaluating fruit and vegetable drinks include color, taste and appearance. Fruit and vegetable juice is prone to delamination after natural settlement or physical action, which seriously affects the overall quality of the beverage, commonly used stabilizers include pectin, agar, sodium carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), xanthan gum, sodium alginate and so on.

Fruit and vegetable beverages have a fresh and fragrant quality that is incomparable to other beverages, with a delicate taste and easy to make. Fresh kiwifruit and suitable stabilizers are used to formulate nutritious kiwifruit juice drinks, which are homogenized and other processes to make the kiwifruit juice not only nutritious, but also with unique flavor and good stability.

At a temperature of 60 ℃, respectively, 25MPa, 20MPa two homogenization, stabilizer for xanthan gum 0.15%, sodium carboxymethyl cellulose 0.12%, alginate propylene glycol ester 0.06%, the kiwifruit juice beverage prepared in all aspects of the quality of all the good, can be used for the industrialization of the production of theoretical reference.

Composite juice drink can combine the nutrients of various raw materials, so that the drink has a unique flavor. The experiment found that the formula of compound fruit juice drink: mulberry juice 20%, orange juice 20%, sugar 6%, citric acid 0.15%, xanthan gum 0.2%. The drink has a similar aroma and color with fresh mulberry sweet orange pulp, fresh taste, pure flavor, sweet and sour, is a fruit juice drink with great development potential.

Juice drink stabilizers used in fruit pulp drinks, as long as to determine the selection of stabilizers in the processing of fruit pulp beverages and the best formula, you can develop a sense of taste, good flavor, nutrient-rich, stable system of fruit pulp drinks, an effective solution to the production process of fruit pulp due to flocculation and sedimentation of the pulp or taste viscous, poor mobility, resulting in the texture of the pulp is not obvious, the taste is not fine and smooth, and the impact on the marketing and sales of fruit pulp drinks. Sales and other issues, for the development of new fruit pulp drinks to provide a certain reference value.

2、Application in plant protein drinks

Plant protein beverages are rich in nutrition, the market is becoming more and more extensive, and the industrial production process is becoming more and more mature. Product development of a wide variety of colors, such as cocoa soy milk, coconut soy milk, fruit juice soy milk and peanut soy milk, etc., greatly enriching the beverage market, but also the color and flavor of the product and the organization of the state put forward higher requirements. In order to develop plant protein beverages with harmonious taste and stable organization, it is especially important to fully apply reasonable emulsification stabilizers.

At present, there are many domestic and foreign studies on the stability of plant protein beverages, but they mainly focus on the effect of additives on their stability, and a number of studies have shown that the use of compound stabilizers can improve the stability of the beverage.

Liquid plant protein drink is a macroscopic system with water as the dispersing medium and plant protein as the main dispersing phase, which is in the form of emulsion and has thermodynamic instability.

Protein precipitation has been an important factor affecting the quality of acidic double protein drinks, and it is difficult to achieve the desired effect by using a certain stabilizer alone.

3、Application in milk beverage

Milk beverages refers to the fresh cow’s milk (containing more than 30% milk) on the basis of the addition of other functional auxiliary materials, such as juice, coffee, cocoa, sucrose and other substances to increase taste, rich in nutrients, by mixing with a certain proportion of water, after effective sterilization, the formation of a variety of corresponding flavors of the milk-containing beverages.

Milk beverages are often prepared into acidic flavored drinks, this is because the milk protein is more likely to coagulate and precipitate under acidic conditions, therefore, the production of some hydrophilic acid-resistant stabilizers are often used to increase viscosity, such as CMC, xanthan gum, PGA, pectin.

Acidic dairy beverages can compensate for the anionic charge of the protein, due to electrostatic repulsion, so that the unstable proteins in the vicinity of the re-dispersion to prevent the occurrence of protein cohesion, and thus can prevent precipitation, so that the product is more stable.

Dairy acidic beverage pH value between 3.6-4.5, close to or below the isoelectric point of casein, resulting in a weakening of the electrostatic repulsion between the casein, easy to gather to form large particles and precipitation, while the calcium in the milk in the acidic condition is free, resulting in the precipitation of the protein stratification.

Adding a certain amount of phosphate can remove the free calcium ions in solution through chelation, and a large number of phosphate groups increase the electronegativity of the protein system and improve the electrostatic repulsion between protein molecules, which has a great enhancement effect on the improvement of the stability of acidic milk beverages.

Composite stabilizers can enhance the effect through synergistic interaction between them, thus reducing the amount of stabilizers and lowering the production cost, and at the same time, it can also avoid a single one of the stabilizers to add too much and affect the flavor and taste of the beverage.

Carrageenan, CMC, guar gum in the control of yogurt stability there is a certain degree of interaction, through the compounding can significantly reduce the amount of a single stabilizer, a variety of stabilizers can be effectively avoided in the process of controlling the stability of activated lactic acid bacteria beverage, the taste of activated lactic acid bacteria beverage due to the addition of too much thickening agent weakened the problem.

In addition to industrial control of raw milk, water quality, process flow and other related to improve the stability of yogurt drinks, the most critical way to improve the stability of yogurt drinks is to add appropriate stabilizers, the use of composite stabilizers to increase the stability of the product in order to take full advantage of the synergistic interactions between a variety of stabilizers monomers in order to reduce the amount of stabilizers to reduce the cost of production.

Pectin, CMC (carboxymethyl cellulose), PGA (propylene glycol alginate) three kinds of stabilizers compound, the optimal additive amount of 0.056%, 0.050%, 0.055%, respectively, and the total additive amount of 0.161% when the stability of sour milk beverage was significantly improved.

When selecting stabilizers for milk beverages, the ratio of thickeners must be controlled, and the amount of thickeners added directly affects the taste of milk beverages, which plays a vital role in the whole process of beverage preparation.

Some studies have shown that carrageenan has the greatest viscosity, xanthan gum has the best suspensibility, and can be used as the preferred thickener for translucent milk beverages, carrageenan can be applied in low acidic milk beverages, and polysaccharide compounds have the best thickening effect when applied to acidic milk beverages, which provides a reference to the selection of thickening agents for various types of milk beverages.