Developing a novel protocol for ready-to-eat beef sausage using superheated water (SW)-assisted radio frequency (RF) heating
Ke Wang, Baozhong Cui, Chao Mao, Yanan Sun, Chuanyang Ran, Pengfei Ye, Yiming Jia, Tong Liu, Xiangwei Chen, Yunyang Wang
Abstract
This study aimed to develop a novel protocol using superheated water (SW)-assisted radio frequency (RF) for evaluating the heating performance of food products. Beef sausage was selected as the ready-to-eat (RTE) food for the research. In this study, thermal properties (TPs) and dielectric properties (DPs) were measured. A computer simulation model was developed to explore the influence on internal temperature distribution during SW-assisted RF heating. Food qualities including texture, color, and microstructure were investigated. The results indicate an electrode gap of 180 mm and a sample height of 80 mm was chosen based on the electric current, respectively. The distribution of the electric field was well simulated using Comsol software, and simulated temperature profiles were found to be highly consistent with experimental results. Simulated results revealed the temperature profile was more uniform when the cylindrical sample was surrounded by circulating water. Furthermore, SW-assisted RF treatment demonstrated superior quality attributes in terms of texture, color and microstructure compared to SW heating alone owing to shorter heating time and relatively uniform temperature distribution. Therefore, SW-assisted RF heating has the potential to be a fast and efficient experimental tool for heating the various RTE foods safely and efficiently.