In recent years Alcohol precipitation has
been declining and one of the processes that
has taken its place is the gel press or KCl
precipitation process. This technology comes
from agar processing and is essentially
identical to the manner in which agar is made
from gracillaria type weed stocks. Eucheuma
Cottonii has a very high kappa carrageenan
content and when purified by filtration it is
then possible to precipitate the carrageenan
using potassium chloride, generally this
forms a large jelly like mass that can be
pressed to remove water. The pressed cake
can then be dried and milled as usual. The
great advantage of this process is that you
have produced a refined product without
incurring the extra costs of the alcohol
recovery. On the downside the process only
Milk protein Interactions
Probably the best-known synergistic carrageenan interaction is that involving milk proteins. Some of
the first uses of carrageenan were in milk gels and flans, and in the stabilisation of evaporated milk and
ice cream mixes. In these applications, the kappa carrageenan forms a weak gel in the aqueous phase
and it interacts with positively charged amino acids in the proteins at the surface of the casein micelles.
The specific kappa carrageenan-kappa casein interaction is shown diagrammatically
Very low levels of 150-250ppm of carrageenan are sufficient to prevent whey separation from a range
of dairy products during manufacture and storage. These include ice cream and milk shake mixes,
cream cheese, and dairy desserts. In chocolate milks, this low level of carrageenan is able to prevent
separation and generate a stabilising network, which maintains the cocoa particles in suspension.