A statistical approach to define some tofu processing conditions

Abstract

The aim of this work was to make tofu from soybean cultivar BRS 267 under different processing conditions in order to evaluate the influence of each treatment on the product quality. A fractional factorial 25-1 design was used, in which independent variables (thermal treatment, coagulant concentration, coagulation time, curd cutting, and draining time) were tested at two different levels. The response variables studied were hardness, yield, total solids, and protein content of tofu. Polynomial models were generated for each response. To obtain tofu with desirable characteristics (hardness ~4N, yield 306gtofu.100g-1 soybeans, 12gproteins.100g-1 tofu and 22gsolids.100g-1 tofu), the following processing conditions were selected: heating until boiling plus 10minutes in water bath, 2% dihydrated CaSO4w/w, 10minutes coagulation, curd cutting, and 30minutes draining time.