Heating rate and electrical conductivity of hog short rip during ohmic heating

In order to develop an ohmic heating device for processing raw meat material such as short rip, a single short rip of hog was ohmically heated with an immersion ohmic heating device in this paper. The samples were submerged in the different concentrations of NaCl solution and tap water, respectively, at 1 500 V/m of the electrical field strength. The results showed that when the samples were submerged in tap water and 0.01-0.03 mol/L NaCl solution, the heating rates of each part of the samples were higher than that of the solution, regardless of the orientation of the ribs. But when the concentration of NaCl solution was 0.05 mol/L, only the heating rate of the muscle of sample was slightly higher than that of the solution. The results also showed that the heating rate of each part of the sample with the long axis parallel to the electrical field was higher than that of the corresponding part of the sample with the long axis vertical to the electrical field, and the electrical conductivity of the mixture (the sample and the solution) was increased linearly with temperature. Therefore, in the premise that the average heating rates of the samples were higher than that of the solution, the optimum process conditions were as follows: the long axis of the samples was parallel to the electric field, and the concentration of NaCl solution was no more than 0.03 mol/L. This will provide basis for the ohmic heating technology being used in ribs processing.