Characterization of thermorheological behavior of Alaska pollock and Pacific whiting surimi

Thermorheological behavior of Alaska pollock (AP) and Pacific whiting (PW) surimi was evaluated during gelation at different moisture contents (80% to 95%). The temperature sweep data (storage modulus, G', compared with temperature) for both surimi clearly indicated G' minima. Unlike for the PW surimi, the minimum values of the AP surimi was moisture-content dependent and there was a linear relationship between logarithm of concentration and reciprocal absolute temperature at gelation. The activation energy (Ea) for aggregation after gelation temperature at each moisture content was calculated by a nonisothermal kinetic model for both AP and PW Surimi. The Ea values increased with moisture content of the system and ranged from 172.8 to 232.9 kJ/mol. Based on the assumption that melting temperature for a thermo-reversible gel may be considered equivalent to gelation temperature for thermo-irreversible gels, an Arrhenius-type model was used to estimate the enthalpy of cross-links formation for AP surimi to be 300.3 kJ/mol.