Water determination in Caramel Mass

For water determination in food samples, Karl Fischer (KF) titration offers significant advantages over traditional drying techniques. When food samples are heated and dried, a reaction can occur between amino acids and reducing sugars (the Maillard reaction) that generates additional water. In a drying method, this water would also be detected as weight loss, and thus would produce an incorrect result. Furthermore, volatile components contained in food samples are prone to evaporate, and hence would also bias the loss on drying result. KF titration is not influenced by any of these problems and, as a consequence, is a more widely used method for determining water content in all industries.