Ohmic thawing of frozen ground meat

11th International Conference of Food Physicists ICFP -- JUN 10-12, 2014 -- Plovdiv, BULGARIAWOS: 000209738700026In this study, the applicability of ohmic heating on tempering of the frozen ground meat was investigated. Ground beef meat has been shaped as a block of 1 cm 7 cm 10 cm in a specially designed container, and then frozen at air blast freezer (-30 degrees C). It was aimed to reach the center temperature of the frozen block meat to +20 degrees C from -18 degrees C. The ohmic tempering was performed by the application of different voltage gradients (10, 15 and 20 V cm(-1)) whereas conventional tempering was performed at controlled conditions in the refrigerator (4 degrees C). The effects of the thawing method and the voltage gradient on tempering time, temperature distribution, color and pH were investigated. As the voltage gradient increased, the tempering time decreased in the range of 92-95 % comparing to conventional tempering. Average initial thawing temperature was measured as -1.1 degrees C for the samples. At the end of the tempering, the cold point of the ground meat was 0 degrees C while the minimum temperature value of surface were -4.7 degrees C, -3.3 degrees C and -3.4 degrees C for 10, 15 and 20 V cm(-1) voltage gradients, respectively. Similarly, the thawing method and the voltage gradient affected the color properties (L*, a*, b*, Hue angle, chroma and total colour differences), significantly (p