Effects of beer-battering on the frying properties of rice and wheat batters and their coated foods.

BACKGROUND: Beer in batter formulation or beer-battering has been popular in fried food recipes, but the topic is rarely reported in scientific journals or the claims substantiated with reliable studies. In this research, we prepared and characterized rice and wheat batters with and without using beer to replace water in the formulation. We studied and provided data on the effect of beer on the frying properties of batter and its coated foods.
RESULTS: With beer in the formulation, oil uptake of fried batters generally increased by up to 18%. Instrumental textural analyses indicate that beer-battering treatment generally decreased the hardness, increased the fracturability and improved the crispness of the fried batters. Sensory evaluations show similar trends, though to a lesser extent, that fish and onion rings coated with batters were softer but crispier with beer than without.
CONCLUSION: In general, beer-battering caused an increase in the oil uptake of the batter during frying. It also made the texture of fried batters slightly softer and crispier. The effects are more pronounced for rice batters than wheat batters.