Rheological characterization of aseptically packaged pudding

The flow behavior of commercially available, aseptically packaged vanilla pudding was measured using a Thermo Haake RheoStress rheometer (RS1, Thermo Electron Corporation, Waltham, MA) with a concentric cylinder system. Six different shear rates, ranging from 1 to 100/s, and three reasonable serving temperatures were investigated using constant shear rate tests. A time-dependent, Herschel-Bulkley model characterized the thixotropic nature of pudding. The model's five parameters were related to temperature. The model was validated at three constant shear rates and at two different temperatures, and was found to predict viscosity well as a function of time, shear rate and temperature.