Development of beer diet jams sweetened with artificial or natural sweeteners

Resumo

The objective of this work was to develop formulations of beer jams sweetened by using natural compounds extracted from stevia, such as steviosides and rebaudiosides A and C. Formulations sweetened by using artificial compounds or sucrose were elaborated for centesimal and sensory evaluations aiming at comparison purposes. The final formulations were demonstrated to be microbiologically safe for consumption. The centesimal evaluation shows that the greatest physical-chemical differences are found in the formulation sweetened with sucrose regarding those using sweeteners: lower energy and higher levels of protein, moisture, ash, and total soluble solids. The residual alcohol content was 0.9 ºGL in all formulations. The general sensory evaluation showed statistically significant differences among all formulations, which indicates products of different characteristics, with averages ranging between "I liked it slightly" and "I liked it moderately". Regarding the purchase intent, the formulation sweetened with a mix of sucralose/rebaudioside-C/stevioside/rebaudioside-A (F4) was the one with the highest purchase intention and best evaluated regarding all other attributes. These results demonstrate that the formulation of beer jam sweetened with a sucralose/stevia mix (F4) was the most appreciated in the set of its functional properties, sensory evaluation, purchase intent and presented an average acceptability index of 80%. Thus, the use of natural sweeteners, such as stevia derivatives, can be considered a viable alternative to replace sucrose in beer jams.