Abstract
Water activity (aw) depression in a multicomponent food such as fish sausage was investigated using a 4x3x3 factorial design on combinations of NaCl, nonfat dry milk (NFDM) and lard added to a fixed amount of minced fish. The effects of NaCl, NFDM, lard and the interaction NaCl x NFDM, were significant. The responses across levels of the above factors were linear. From the magnitude of effect of each factor, two extended models for predicting aw were derived in terms of molal salt concentration and two empirical parameters called water activity depressing capacity, di, and water binding capacity, WBC, respectively. Both were demonstrated to predict accurately aw of newly formulated fish sausage.

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