Physical and mathematical modelling of the process of cooking minced meat with spelt flour and champignon mushrooms

Abstract

The introduction of additives of plant or animal origin into meat products is currently a steady trend in food technologies due to the possibility of obtaining unique properties of products and reducing their cost, which justifies the relevance of the conducted research. The purpose of the study was to build a mathematical algorithm that can determine the regularities of changes in the main parameters of the process of preparing minced meat semi-finished products with vegetable additives, which would help to establish the trends in the development of technical and technological efficiency of mechanisation of the system of fine grinding of raw materials for the production of sausage products. The addition of spelt flour and mushrooms as ingredients to the minced meat mass was investigated, which allows, together with reducing the cost of production of cooked sausage products, significantly improving the organoleptic quality indicators of products, reducing their caloric content and extending the shelf life for consumption. The wild variety of spelt used in this scientific work as an alternative to its cultivated varieties has significantly less allergic activity and, accordingly, a lower proportion of gliadins, which form the basis of wheat gluten; which justifies the practical significance of the study. A microstructural analysis of minced meat of control and experimental samples of boiled sausages was performed, which revealed that the latter category of meat product is characterised by increased density and elasticity due to the inclusion of spelt microparticles in the vacuole of the meat fraction. According to the results of experimental studies, using the “dimension analysis” method and the Federman-Buckingham theorem, it was possible to obtain a criterion equation for the process of heat and mass transfer under conditions of intensive mechanical mixing. These process characteristics were described using the Euler, Fourier, and Sherwood criteria. The compiled function contains the main factors of external influence on raw materials and their physical and mechanical characteristics, which allows adequately assessing the diffusion processes in the technological environment and creating the recommended range when designing technical and technological support for obtaining high-quality food products