Applying Peleg's equation to modelling the kinetics of solid hydration and migration during soybean soaking Aplicación de la ecuación de Peleg para modelar la cinética de hidratación y de migración de sólidos durante el remojo de soya

Legume soaking is an important practice in food processing; the characteristics of beverages and tofu mainly depend on this operation regarding soybeans. Peleg’s equation has been used in this work to describe the kinetics of water absorption and solid loss during soaking at 20°C, 40°C and 80°C. The moisture content of grain and solids in the remaining water was measured for 10 hours. Variance analysis and principal components analysis showed high fitting of kinetics to Peleg's equation for predicting both transference phenomena. This work found that the value of k1 (rate) depended on temperature according to a polynomial function while k2 (capacity) did not, meaning that the value of equilibrium moisture content was independent of soaking temperature. k1 had the minimum value for the migration of solids to soaking water at 40°C; this was related to lost solids’ high speed and the microbial degradation of carbohydrates; the values obtained for k2, showed that it was possible to lose total soluble solids at 20°C, while further migration of insoluble compounds occurred at 80°C