Combinations of hydrocolloids show enhanced stabilizing effects on cloudy orange juice ready-to-drink beverages.

Cloudy ready-to-drink beverages have to be stabilized by hydrocolloids in order to prevent turbidity loss and undesirable sedimentation during storage time. The present work focuses on the stabilizing effects of pectin, guar gum and locust bean gum and the combinations of two of them on ready-to-drink beverages containing 7% of orange juice. The application and the potential combined effects of the mentioned hydrocolloids in these drinks has not been reported yet. The particle size distribution, zeta potential, viscosity, turbidity and sedimentation behaviour of beverages were measured to evaluate the impact of the different concentrations and combinations of the stabilizers. Applying 2.5g pectin and 2.5g guar gum per kg base was identified to be most suitable for stabilizing the turbidity over five weeks of beverages with orange juice concentrate, which contained large juice particles ranging from 0.6 to 200μm. In contrast, 2g pectin as well as the application of both 2.5g...