Flow Properties of Tomato Concentrates

The flow properties of over seventy concentrates made from four cultivars of tomatoes were determined with a concentric cylinder viscometer. The apparent viscosity (100 s −1 , 25°C) of the concentrates of each variety was proportional to the 2.5 power of the concentration (% total solids). The apparent viscosity of the Nova cultivar obeyed the Arrhenius temperature relationship; the activation energy for the concentrates was 2.3 ± 0.3 kcal/mole. The simple power law and the Casson model described satisfactorily the flow data of the concentrates but the power law gave higher correlation coefficients. The Herschel‐Bulkley model with the Casson yield stress was also satisfactory but the correlation coefficients were lower than for the simple power law. The consistency index of the power law model also showed a power dependence on the concentration. The natural logarithm of the yield stress and the concentration could be correlated by a quadratic equation.