Dimensional change and cook loss during heating of fish: Problem formulation and semi-empirical modeling approach

Summary

Shrinkage of cod filets and loins during heating is associated with unwanted changes in the product appearance and eating properties, including liquid loss, loss of juiciness and increased hardness. In this paper, shrinkage of minced cod filets exposed to 45–100 °C for up to 1800 s in a convection oven with 100% relative humidity was investigated and related to degree of mass loss. The result was compared to data for cut (non-minced) samples of the same dimension. A kinetic prediction for the mass loss was developed, and it was found that the volume of shrinkage could be approximated by the volume of mass loss. The kinetic prediction was coupled with a model for heat transfer to investigate the effect of shrinkage on the temperature prediction. Further work should include investigation of the effect of the fish macrostructure orientation on shrinkage, as well as optimization of the prediction and validation for large samples such as whole loins.