Factors affecting the water-holding capacity of fibrinogen/plasma protein gels optimized by response surface methodology

Response surface methodology (RSM) was applied to optimize the water-holding capacity (WHC) of fibrinogen/plasma protein gels heated at 75 degreesC for 10 min to develop a new edible gel. The effects of varying the amount of fibrinogen, plasma protein, calcium, and pH were evaluated to optimize the MC using RSM. Estimation of the overall effects of the 4 factors on the gels revealed that the pH and concentrations of fibrinogen and plasma protein significantly affected the WHC of the gels (p < 0.05). The WHC increases with the concentrations of plasma protein only at concentrations lower than 8%. At lower plasma concentrations, fibrinogen addition had only minimal influence on the WHC. The optimum WHC values were predicted by the RSREG procedure of the SAS program. Model verification was performed by additional independent trials, and the resulting experimental values were very close to the predicted ones with no significant difference (p > 0.05).