Stability and sensory quality of plant-based milk substitutes made from 36 different oat varieties: Relation with oat kernels attributes

The stability and sensory of oat milk remain the key challenges for its overall quality improvement, which might be greatly affected by the oat kernels attributes. In this study, the physical and nutritional properties of 36 different oat varieties and the physical stability and sensory quality of their plant-based milk substitutes were determined to establish the relation between them. Of correlations analysis, the protein content of oat kernels was negatively correlated with creaming and sensory evaluation of oat milk, while positively correlated with instability index. Conversely, total starch content was negatively correlated with both sediment and instability index of oat milk. Among 36 oat varieties, 9754, 9837, HBY14, HBY13, HZY8, HBY1, and DY12 emerged as optimal for processing oat milk. This study provided a reference to select oat varieties with specific characteristics for the production of stable and highly acceptable oat milk and guidance for the purposeful breeding of oat tailored for oat milk production.