Development of a novel rheological method for determining melting properties of gelatin-based gummies

In this study, a novel rheometer-based method was explored to determine the melting point of gummy, which is one of the most consumed confectionery products. The new method is based on the vertical deformation of a solid sample since melting points of the products were determined by performing onset analysis on the graph of gap values against temperature. Peltier system heating rate and sample thickness parameters were used to develop the method. To verify the obtained melting points, time sweep tests in the rheometer at constant temperature, conventional oven and water bath analysis, thermograms of the samples obtained from differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and their microstructures at various temperatures with polarized light microscopy (PLM) were examined. Herein, it can be realized that the developed method detects the melting point of a gummy with a sensitivity of 1 °C when temperature increase rate and thickness values were 1 °C/min and 4000 μm, respectively. As a result of the application of the novel method for the commercial samples, the melting points of C1 and C2 gummy samples were determined as 45 °C and verified by other experiments with one unit of precision. Therefore, the method has brought a different perspective to the melting temperature analysis with ease of use and short-term detection by sensitive and reproducible results. Besides, it has come to the forefront as it allows the studied materials to be used in solid form in the rheometer.