Gelation is an important functional property of alimentary proteins, and egg white proteins are extensively used as processed food. The objective of this work was to evaluate changes in the pH, in the texture profile and in the expressible moisture of fresh egg white gels and eggs coated or not by whey protein concentrate, under 3, 7, 10, 14, 21 and 28 days, at 25ºC. Hardness of the albumen gel of non-coated eggs was higher than the coated eggs, during the whole storage period. For the non-coated eggs, the storage period did not affect the hardness of the gels, but for the coated eggs, a linear regression explained 60% of the behavior of the hardness as a function of the storage period. When considering the gel elasticity, no interaction was found between the storage period and the egg coating. Non-coated eggs exhibited gels with higher springiness than coated eggs. The same was found for the cohesiveness index and the gel chewiness, independently of the storage periods. The percentage of expressible moisture for coated eggs was higher than for non-coated eggs.
egg white; gel; hardness; springiness; cohesiveness; expressible moisture
