CHM 148P Food Chemistry and Analysis

Exercise No. 1 Determination of pH, Titrable Acidity and Total Soluble Solids of a Food Sample Materials Needed: 1 pH meter 1 titration set-up with 1 acid burette and 1 base burette 1 hand-held refractometer (up to 100oBx) 3 50ml erlenmeyer flasks 1 wash bottle 3 100 ml beaker 1 blender or hand-held mixer Suitable indicator 0.1N standardized NaOH 0.1N HCl Tissue paper Distilled water Food Sample Procedure for pH Determination: 1. Measure 10g of the food sample which has been reduced to a very small size (grated, minced, etc.) 2. Homogenize with 10ml of distilled water. 3. Determine the pH of this sample and record the reading. 4. Repeat (1) (3) three times. Procedure for Titrable Acidity Determination: 1. Measure three ten (10) gram (or 10 mL) portions of the sample into separate 100 mL Erlenmeyer flasks. If the sample is solid, blend equal amounts of sample and distilled deionized water. If the color of the filtrate does not interfere with the detection of the titration endpoint, proceed with (2). Otherwise, filter an aliquot of the blended sample, dilute and proceed. Remember to consider the dilution factors during calculation. 2. Dilute each aliquot to 50 mL. 3. Titrate with standardized 0.1N NaOH until pH 8.1 (or in the presence of 3 drops of phenolphthalein indicator in each flask, until faint pink endpoint). 4. Record the volume of titer used per sample. 5. Calculate the titrable acidity of the sample. Express titrable acidity as mL of 0.1N NaOH per 100 mL sample if a liquid sample was used. As for solid samples, express titrable acidity in percent. Use the milliequivalent factor of the predominant acid in the sample (in this case, acetic acid was used as reference with a milliequivalent factor of 0.0600).

TA (%)

conc NaOH * volume NaOH * acid factor * 100 weight ( grams ) of the sample

Procedure for Total Soluble Solids Determination: 1. Measure 5 g of the food sample which has been reduced to a very small size. 2. Homogenize with 20 ml of water. 3. Place 1 2 drops of the homogenized sample on the prism of the hand-held refractometer. 4. Record the reading as oBx but apply the 1:4 dilution factor. 5. Repeat (1) (4) three times.

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CHM 148P Food Chemistry and Analysis

For each run, make a table like this Test Trial 1 pH Titrable acidity Total soluble solids

Trial 2

Trial 3

Average +/- standard deviation

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