Confectionery and Water Activity Determination of AW by Calculation

Abstract

Despite their wide diversity of forms and textures, confectionery products possess two common characteristics: 1. a low moisture content: between 0 and 20%. 2. a high sugar content (50 to 100%). Furthermore, a number of them also contains texture agents in proportions of between 0 and 40%. The sugars employed are essentially of two kinds: 1. Sucrose; 2. glucose syrups, obtained by the incomplete hydrolysis of starch. These have a broad carbohydrate spectrum including glucose, maltose and polysaccharides with a degree of polymerisation of more than 2. The generic term glucose syrup in fact encompasses a whole family of products of rather different compsition, according to the type of hydrolysis (acid or enzymic) and its intensity. They are traditionally characterized by the DE (Dextrose Equivalent), which is a measure of the average degree of hydrolysis, and to which an average molecular wight corresponds, although nowadays the composition can be known more accurately by virtue of new chromatography techiques.