Prediction of cooking times and weight losses during meat roasting

SANDRO M. GOÑI; VIVIANA O. SALVADORI

JOURNAL OF FOOD ENGINEERING

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

Año: 2010 vol. 100 p. 1 - 11

0260-8774

In this work, a meat oven cooking model is developed, and its ability to predict  three main process variables  –  evaporative loss, dripping loss and cooking time  –  is  evaluated. Heat transfer is modelled by Fourier’s law, while the internal moisture  content  variation is modelled as a  function of  water demand, which depends on the  water holding capacity of beef. Experimental cooking of  semitendinosus  muscle  samples was  carried out in a convective oven to obtain general information about the  process and to assess the model accuracy. Simulations were done by means of the finite  element method, using three-dimensional irregular geometries as simulation domains.  The model predictions were in good agreement with the experimental ones; the average  absolute relative error was 3.91% for cooking time prediction, and 7.96% for total weight loss prediction.