4. Conclusions
In this study, moisture content decreased as cooking temperatures
increased. In addition, there were no significant differences
in moisture content between the three formulation systems, indicating
the difference in sucrose to corn syrup ratio had no significant
effect on boiling point elevation. As expected, Tg and solubility
temperature decreased significantly as moisture content increased,
which agrees with previous research. The impact of sucrose to corn
syrup ratio was more evident on solubility temperature than Tg. No
significant differences in Tg were detected among the three systems,
whereas the solubility temperatures were notably depressed
as the corn syrup level increased.
Sucrose crystal growth rates were highly related to temperature,
concentration, and sucrose to corn syrup ratio.
Concentration and temperature significantly influenced sucrose
crystal growth rates, with increases in concentration and temperature
initially giving higher growth rates; however, after reaching a
maximum point, growth rates started to decrease as either supersaturation
or molecular mobility decreased. The addition of corn
syrup reduced the magnitude of growth rates and diminished the
regions of high growth rates (maximum zones per each graphic
are not equal in contour plots), with higher addition level having
greater effects.
Evidence of GRD was found in all experiments for systems of
sucrose, corn syrup and water, showing that individual crystals
grown under identical conditions do not have the same growth
rates. The growth rate distributions of all crystals in this study
were approximately normally distributed. The extent of the GRD
increased with increasing growth rate. Similar trends were seen
from the contour plots of GRD as concentration and temperature
changed. In general, a lower degree of GRD was observed with an
increase in the level of corn syrup, related to the reduction in average
growth rate.