Abstract:

Growth characteristics of microorganisms in liquid whole eggs and sterilized liquid whole eggs stored at 4, 15, 20, 30 and 37 were investigated by a predictive microbiological method to fit a sigmoid curve in this study. A primary model was established to describe the relationship between total number of bacteria and time. Meanwhile, a secondary model was also established to demonstrate the relationship between maximum growth rate and storage temperature of sterilized liquid whole eggs. Both the models were validated by experiments. Results indicated that microorganism growth in liquid whole eggs and sterilized liquid eggs could fit to the sigmoid curve except at 4 . Under other temperature conditions, microorganism growth in liquid whole eggs could fit well to Richards model, while microorganism growth in sterilized liquid whole eggs could fit to Gompertz model. Moreover, the secondary model for sterilized liquid whole eggs was U=0.00329[T ( 7.14)], which could effectively predict microorganism growth rate at different temperatures.

Key words: liquid egg, predictive microbiology , mathematical model , sum of viable organism