A Standardized Method for the Instrumental Determination of Cooked Spaghetti Firmness

Abstract

Cereal Chem. 85(3):440-444A standardized method to determine cooked spaghetti firmness was developed. The effects of process and instrument variables were investigated and optimized to provide reproducible results between laboratories and to enable discrimination among samples with similar firmness characteristics. Commercial spaghetti samples of varying thickness were chosen to artificially create a range in firmness, and used to investigate the effect of a wide range of variables on cooked spaghetti firmness including sample preparation, cooking procedure, postcooking treatment, sample presentation, and instrument settings. Cooked spaghetti firmness determined using a TA-XT2i texture analyzer was significantly affected by optimum cook time, postcook cooling, rest time, and crosshead speed (P < 0.001), as well as strand length, spaghetti to cooking water ratio, number of strands cut, and strand position (P < 0.05). Although previous work showed a reasonable correlation between laboratories when using in-house methods (r = 0.85), the correlation improved to r = 0.96 when using the standardized method to analyze 29 commercially produced spaghetti samples. The Spearman rank correlation increased from r s = 0.81 to r s = 0.95, prestandardization and poststandardization, indicating greater agreement between laboratories in sample ranking.

Evaluation of White Salted Noodles Enriched with Oat Flour

“…Noodles were cooked on hot plates in glass beakers (8 g of noodles in 250 mL of distilled boiling water). Optimum cooking time was measured for all noodles and was found to be between 6.30 and 7.30 min (Approved Method 66-50.01, AACCI 2010; Sissons et al 2008). Subsequently, it was decided to cook all noodles for 7 min before commencing the firmness measurements.…”

“…The texture analyzer was equipped with a 5 kg load cell and a cutting blade (1 mm), and standard protocol was used: test mode, force of compression; crosshead height calibration, 10 mm; test speed, 2 mm/sec; posttest speed, 10 mm/sec; distance blade travels, 9.9 mm; trigger, button; unit force, grams; and unit distance, millimeters. The noodle firmness was determined by the height of the peak (in grams-force), which is analogous to maximum cutting force (Sissons et al 2008). This procedure was determined in triplicate in replicate samples.…”

Pasta‐to‐Water Ratio, Hotplate Surface Temperature, and Beaker Material Affect Pasta Cooking Time and Cooked Quality

“…Over the years, research has been conducted to determine the effects of variation in cooking parameters on pasta quality (Grzybowski and Donnelly 1979;Fortini 1988;D'Edigio and Nardi 1996) and on instrumental measurement of textual properties of cooked pasta (Voisey and Wasik 1978;Sissons 2008aSissons , 2008b. This work has been used to establish standard methods such as AACCI Approved Method 66-50.01, "Pasta and Noodle Cooking Quality-Firmness," which is commonly cited in research publications.…”

Pasta Production: Complexity in Defining Processing Conditions for Reference Trials and Quality Assessment Methods

“…Weaknesses in the method, such as a lack of specifications for cooking vessel, hot plate temperature, human error and variation when determining pasta doneness, differences between texture analyzers, and time between cooking and analysis, among others, were detailed by Sissons et al (2008Sissons et al ( a, 2008b and de la Peñ a et al (2014). Unlike the pasta production methods (AACCI Approved Methods 66-42.01 and 66-41.01) the cooking/firmness method is utilized regularly in pasta studies.…”