Nowadays, carbonated beverages are very common as we can see it everywhere and I believe every one of you drink it before. Examples of the common carbonated beverages or soft drinks are such as tonic water, coca-cola, pepsi, sprite and others. The ingredients of carbonated beverages are high purity water, sweeteners, acidulants, preservatives, carbon dioxide, flavors, colorants, potassium and sodium.
Production of carbonated beverages needs a lot of high purity water. The process chlorination in chemical treatment is needed to prevent oxidation and infection of impurities in the water. Lime is added to reduce the alkalinity of water by removing magnesium and calcium bicarbonate. The remains precipitate is then removed by sand filter. The water contaminants normally will be removed by a process called reverse osmosis. Not only that, the tiny macromolecules and microorganisms are removed by the ultrafiltration process using thin and selective membrane.
The sweetener used in carbonated drinks can be nutritive or non-nutritive. Sweetener is very important in the production of the beverages as its quality will affect the quality of the end products. Nutritive sweeteners composed of granulated sucrose, invert sugar, dextrose, and high fructose corn syrup. Sucrose C12H22O11 is commonly used as the primary sweetener in the production of carbonated beverages. The sucrose will be hydrolyzed into invert sugar which is composed of fructose C6H12O6 and dextrose C6H12O6 (C-Glucose). There is only a few of non-nutritive sweeteners such as, aspartame C14H18N2O5, saccharin C7H5NO3S and acesulfame in the US.
The adding of acidulants causes the carbonated beverages to have a sour taste. It is also functioned as preservative by adjusting the pH value to reduce the microorganisms. Examples of acidulants are phosphoric acid (cola), citric acid (fruit flavors) and ascorbic acid.
Carbon dioxide plays an important role too as it makes the beverages to have bubbles, fizz, acidic bite and a pungent taste. The carbon dioxide used should be free of impurities so that it will not affect the final product. The concentration of carbon dioxide is depends on the formula of the beverages while the carbonation is depends on the CO2 pressure and temperature of the mixture.
Bubbles can be seen in carbonated beverage
Flavor is important for any foods and beverages. Most of the carbonated drinks used the natural sources. Examples of flavors are such as caffeine (cola), juice-based (juices), essential oil, alcoholic solution and emulsion.
Colorants are used to improve the appearance of the carbonated beverages to make it more attractive. There is natural colorants and artificial colorants (caramel). Caramel is colloidal with small ionic charges and normally used in cola and root beer. For some beverages, colorants are added in powder forms.
The essential minerals – potassium and sodium can be found in the carbonated drinks. Potassium originally exists in the water and other ingredients that used to produce beverages. Carbonated drinks consist of very little of sodium and even some of the carbonated drinks do not consist any sodium.
Examples of carbonated beverages
*Here is a video show us about how to make carbonated drinks at home:
Finally, we can also make our carbonated drinks at home!!
No comments:
Post a Comment