**Acknowledgements**

a decrease of this rheological parameter was observed for reconstituted juices after spray drying especially for samples with 4% of fructans, which could be due to the solubility of

The viscosity of agave fructans solutions (*Agave tequilana* Weber blue var.) at different concentrations and temperatures has been studied by Ponce et al. [20]. They observed that solutions with concentrations inferior to 30% [w/v] at temperatures ranging between 30 and 60°C presented a low viscosity, similar to water. Meanwhile, the viscosity of solutions with concentrations superior or equal to 30% [w/v], increased when increasing the concentration up to 70%, forming a highly viscous fluid. The results obtained in this work are in agreement with previous findings; lower plastic viscosity was observed in fructans powders with lower concentrations, this

Eq. 2. This shear thinning behavior at low shear rate (20 s−1) followed by thickening behavior at high shear rate [300 s−1] in low fructans concentrations (Cfructans ≤ 30% in weight) could be due to flow instabilities such as vortices, since the viscosity of the samples is close to that of water [33]. The effect of adding maltodextrin on tomato pulp during spray-drying has been studied by Goula and Adamopoulos [30]. They observed that reconstituted tomato pulp from the resulting powder showed a non-Newtonian behavior with low stress, and a decrease in viscosity when the maltodextrin concentration and dextrose equivalent increase. This same effect is observed in the reconstituted chayote and pineapple powders and is attributed to the fact that

Chayote, carrot, mango and pineapple juices [fresh and reconstituted] did not present the same rheological behavior [specially for the yield stress]. In this sense, studies have found that a decrease in sweet-potato solids, as well as interaction between maltodextrin and sweetpotato polysaccharides contributed to a decrease in viscosity of the reconstituted purée [34]. In general, the flow behavior of fresh and reconstituted sweet-potato solutions was different suggesting that the solids concentration being modified by the molecular changes during spray-drying. This could also explain the distinct rheological behavior for each reconstituted

The addition of native agave fructans contributes to a significant decrease in the mass fraction of maltodextrin added in this type of industrial products. All fresh or reconstituted juices present a flow behavior typical of plastic fluids [Bingham model]. The addition of maltodextrin [10%] and fructans [up to 4%] as well as the step of spray-drying did not change significantly the plastic viscosity of juices. Only the yield stresses, which represent the behavior of fluids at rest, were impacted by these parameters. The combination of native agave fructans with maltodextrin as a stabilizer produced spherical particles with shrinkage, lumps, and caking between them. The flow behavior as a function of concentration indicates that the agave native fructans and the fructans-maltodextrin mixtures behave similar to simple sugars but

) obtained with

according to the flow parameters such as plastic viscosity (η') and yield stress (τ0

the 10% maltodextrin concentration is higher in comparison to that of fructans.

fructans above 95% [10].

128 Polymer Rheology

fruit powder in the present study.

with an increase in the viscosity of the mixture.

**3. Conclusions**

The authors thank CONACyT [México] for their support in conducting the work throughout project number 210874 and for the scholarship granted to Jimenez-Sanchez D. E.
