In this work the loss of crispness of commercial crackers was assessed by determining the water v... more In this work the loss of crispness of commercial crackers was assessed by determining the water vapour isotherms either by the gravimetric method at different levels of water activity (aw) in the range of 0-0.977, or using a controlled atmosphere microbalance in the relative humidity (RH) range of 5-85%. Once the crackers had been equilibrated at different RH values, they were submitted to puncturing tests, thus establishing an empirical relationship between the loss of cracker crispness, as measured by the irregularity in the corresponding force-strain curves, and puncturing work at break (WB).
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jul 1, 2021
Rough beer clarification in large-sized breweries is mainly carried out using powder filters. In ... more Rough beer clarification in large-sized breweries is mainly carried out using powder filters. In this work, it was attempted to explain why two rough beer samples yielded quite different filtrate volumes (~965 vs. 2,068 hL) from industrial-scale powder filters coated with equal doses of filter-aids of the same nominal permeability, but of different lots. By resorting to a bench-top dead-end filtration apparatus, the above 50% reduction in beer filterability was attributed to the lots used, the permeability of the corresponding filter cakes slightly varying from ~0.19 to 0.25 Darcy. When using a bench-top plant equipped with a 0.8-µm ceramic tubular membrane operating under constant values of the transmembrane pressure difference (3.73 bar), feed superficial velocity (6 m.s-1), and temperature (1.5 °C), the volumes of permeate recovered, as well as the limiting and average permeation fluxes, were not statistically different. Thus, membrane clarification of rough beer may overcome the intrinsic variation in the particle size distribution of commercially available filter-aids of the same nominal permeability.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Jun 15, 2019
In this work, the main chemico-physical cooking quality of commercial spaghetti was evaluated usi... more In this work, the main chemico-physical cooking quality of commercial spaghetti was evaluated using two typical home gas-or electric-fired hobs by setting the cooking water-to-pasta ratio (WPR) and power supplied (P C) during the pasta cooking phase in the presence or absence of stirring at 3 or 10 L kg-1 and 0.15 or 1.0 kW, respectively. The average values of cooked pasta water uptake (1.3±0.1 g g-1), cooking loss (38±4 g kg-1), degree of starch gelatinization (12±1 %), hardness at 30 % (6.0±0.4 N) or 90 % (15±1 N) deformation, and resilience (0.60±0.02) resulted to be practically constant and independent of the cooking system, WPR and P C values used at the 95 % confidence level. The overall energy efficiency of the induction hob was about the double of that of the LPG-fired one. Moreover, at WPR=3 L kg-1 and P C =0.25 kW, it was possible to cook spaghetti under mild mixing in no more than 15 min with a minimum energy consumption of 0.54 Wh g-1 , this amounting to about the 35 % of that consumed with the same sustainable cooking procedure at WPR=10 L kg-1. The intermittent mixing degree at a rotational speed of 50 rev min-1 appeared to be sufficient at WPR=3 L kg-1. The induction hob was thus eligible to develop a specialized appliance for pasta cooking.
Within the final goal of reducing the anti-nutritional factors in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) a... more Within the final goal of reducing the anti-nutritional factors in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and yellow soybean (Glycine max) by means of their malting process, the main aim of this work was to study the kinetics of water hydration of such seeds at different temperatures in the range of 12-36 °C for as long as 24 h. The kinetics of such a process was reconstructed using the well-known Peleg model. The Peleg rate constant (k 1) decreased with increasing temperature and was described by an Arrhenius type relationship. The estimated activation energy was equal to 36±6 or 60±3 kJ mol-1 for chickpea or yellow soybean, respectively. The Peleg capacity parameter (k 2) was approximately constant and led to an equilibrium moisture ratio of 1.4 or 1.8 g of water per g dry matter for the above seeds. A 5-h soaking at T≥24 °C rehydrated both seeds up to a moisture content of ~50% (w/w), this being preliminarily assessed as sufficient for activating the metabolic processes of germination.
This paper was aimed at focusing on the sceneries induced by the present energy and environmental... more This paper was aimed at focusing on the sceneries induced by the present energy and environmental crisis on food processing and main criticalness of the Italian food industry in the short-medium term, as illustrated during the Conference on the Research Perspectives to Foster a Competititve Subtainable Development for the Italian Food organised by the National Academy of Sciences in Roma on the 5 th of June, 2008 (http:// www.federalimentare.it/Documenti/ SISTAL-Convegno5Giugno.html). To keep up with the increasing global competition, the Italian food companies have to be able to respond quickly to consumer request. This will ask for new "smart manufacturing" software systems capable of selecting the most appropriate operating variables on the basis of the intrinsic raw material characteristics in order to reduce the variation in the generally recognised quality for most of the typical Italian foods to at least the Three Sigma Level, which is equivalent to 0.27% defects.
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Mar 26, 2009
In this work, a purified acid urease preparation was covalently immobilized on Eupergit C 250 L a... more In this work, a purified acid urease preparation was covalently immobilized on Eupergit C 250 L and stabilized with glycine. Its average activity was found to be 69 (16% of the initial one after 34-day storage at 4°C. The kinetics of urea degradation in a model wine solution by immobilized enzyme was confirmed to be of pseudo-first-order with respect to the urea concentration in the liquid bulk, its apparent pseudo-first-order kinetic rate constant (k Ii) being about one-fourth of that (k If) pertaining to the free enzyme. In the operating conditions tested, the reaction kinetics was estimated as unaffected by the contribution of the external film and intraparticle diffusion mass transfer resistances. Because in the presence of the high-inhibitory tannins extracted from grape seeds in the range of 3-620 g of GAE m-3 the loss in k Ii was quite smaller than that in k If , the biocatalyst tested here is likely to overcome the present limits to the application of free acid urease in wine treatment.
Trends in Food Science and Technology, Jul 1, 2018
Background The environmental performance of food and drink production may be currently assessed b... more Background The environmental performance of food and drink production may be currently assessed by several standard methods. Except the ISO Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental Product Declaration ® and Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methods, all the other international standards account for the single impact category of climate change. The PEF method requires the estimation of as many as 14 impact categories and is thus regarded as complex and expensive. Several independent studies have shown that climate change is the impact category with the lowest uncertainty level.
Abstract The cradle-to-grave environmental impact of 1 kg of dry pasta, produced from a medium-si... more Abstract The cradle-to-grave environmental impact of 1 kg of dry pasta, produced from a medium-sized pasta factory located in the North of Italy and packed in 0.5-kg polypropylene bags, was investigated by using a well-known life cycle assessment software in compliance with the cumulative energy demand, PAS 2050, IMPACT 2002+, ReCiPe 2016, and product environmental footprint standard methods. All these methods allowed durum wheat cultivation and pasta cooking to be identified as the primary and secondary hotspots. Improvements in the cultivation phase were outlined by resorting to conservative farming systems with low N fertilizer inputs. However, the smaller the grain yields, the greater the land occupation and damage to the ecosystem quality became. The replacement of the ordinary home gas-fired hobs with a more eco-sustainable pasta cooker reduced the damage to “climate change,” and “resource depletion". Both mitigation actions reduced the primary energy sources, greenhouse gas emissions, and overall weighted scores of the global environmental impact by about 40%, 48%, and 29%–42% with respect to the reference case, respectively. Although a more sustainable field phase is still to be identified, the environmental impact of dry pasta might be henceforward relieved by replacing the current domestic appliances with novel energy-saving pasta cookers.
In this work, two beers of the industrial and craft types were stabilized and clarified by combin... more In this work, two beers of the industrial and craft types were stabilized and clarified by combining a commercial enzyme preparation of fungal origin (Brewers Clarex ®), which is commonly used for the production of gluten-free beers, with crossflow microfiltration. By resorting to some European Brewing Convention indicative forcing tests (i.e., sensitive proteins, alcohol chill haze, and chill haze development), it was possible to confirm the efficacy of the enzyme preparation for both beers examined. By combining the enzymatic and polyvinylpolypyrrolidone (PVPP) treatments, each beer exhibited a greater colloidal stability with respect to that achievable with any single treatment. Independently of the stabilizing pretreatment used, final membrane clarification gave rise to permeated beers with almost the same chill haze development. By coupling the enzymatic treatment to crossflow microfiltration, it would be possible to replace PVPP, and avoid its expensive recovery and regeneration processes, thus leading to a simpler one-step beer conditioning process.
Wood‐fired ovens are mandatorily used to bake the Neapolitan pizza. Unfortunately, they are still... more Wood‐fired ovens are mandatorily used to bake the Neapolitan pizza. Unfortunately, they are still empirically operated. In this work, a pilot‐scale wood‐fired oven was kept operating in quasi‐steady‐state conditions. Once the combustion reaction of oak logs had been modeled, the composition of flue gas measured, and the external oven wall and floor temperatures thermographically scanned, it was possible to check for the material and energy balances and, thus, assess that the heat loss rates through flue gas and insulated oven chamber were, respectively, equal to 46% and 26% of the energy supplied by burning firewood. The enthalpy accumulation rate in the internal fire brick oven chamber amounted to about 3.4 kW, this being adequate to keep not only the temperatures of the oven vault and floor practically constant but also to bake one or two pizzas at the same time. Such a rate was predicted by contemplating the simultaneous heat transfer mechanisms of radiation and convection between the oven vault and floor surface areas. The efficacy of the semiempirical modeling developed here was further tested by reconstructing quite accurately the time course of water heating in aluminum trays with a diameter near to that of a typical Neapolitan pizza. The heat flow from the oven vault to the water‐containing tray was of the radiative and convective types for about 73% and 15%, whereas the residual 12% was of the conductive type from the oven floor.Practical ApplicationDespite wood‐fired ovens are largely used in the restaurant and food service industry, their operation is highly dependent on the operator's ability. This study shows how the heat loss rates through flue gas and insulated oven chamber can be assessed, and how the enthalpy accumulation rate in the internal fire brick oven chamber can be predicted by accounting for the simultaneous heat transfer mechanisms of radiation and convection between the oven vault and floor surface areas. The efficacy of this semi‐empirical modelling was further checked for via some water heating tests.
In this work the loss of crispness of commercial crackers was assessed by determining the water v... more In this work the loss of crispness of commercial crackers was assessed by determining the water vapour isotherms either by the gravimetric method at different levels of water activity (aw) in the range of 0-0.977, or using a controlled atmosphere microbalance in the relative humidity (RH) range of 5-85%. Once the crackers had been equilibrated at different RH values, they were submitted to puncturing tests, thus establishing an empirical relationship between the loss of cracker crispness, as measured by the irregularity in the corresponding force-strain curves, and puncturing work at break (WB).
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jul 1, 2021
Rough beer clarification in large-sized breweries is mainly carried out using powder filters. In ... more Rough beer clarification in large-sized breweries is mainly carried out using powder filters. In this work, it was attempted to explain why two rough beer samples yielded quite different filtrate volumes (~965 vs. 2,068 hL) from industrial-scale powder filters coated with equal doses of filter-aids of the same nominal permeability, but of different lots. By resorting to a bench-top dead-end filtration apparatus, the above 50% reduction in beer filterability was attributed to the lots used, the permeability of the corresponding filter cakes slightly varying from ~0.19 to 0.25 Darcy. When using a bench-top plant equipped with a 0.8-µm ceramic tubular membrane operating under constant values of the transmembrane pressure difference (3.73 bar), feed superficial velocity (6 m.s-1), and temperature (1.5 °C), the volumes of permeate recovered, as well as the limiting and average permeation fluxes, were not statistically different. Thus, membrane clarification of rough beer may overcome the intrinsic variation in the particle size distribution of commercially available filter-aids of the same nominal permeability.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Jun 15, 2019
In this work, the main chemico-physical cooking quality of commercial spaghetti was evaluated usi... more In this work, the main chemico-physical cooking quality of commercial spaghetti was evaluated using two typical home gas-or electric-fired hobs by setting the cooking water-to-pasta ratio (WPR) and power supplied (P C) during the pasta cooking phase in the presence or absence of stirring at 3 or 10 L kg-1 and 0.15 or 1.0 kW, respectively. The average values of cooked pasta water uptake (1.3±0.1 g g-1), cooking loss (38±4 g kg-1), degree of starch gelatinization (12±1 %), hardness at 30 % (6.0±0.4 N) or 90 % (15±1 N) deformation, and resilience (0.60±0.02) resulted to be practically constant and independent of the cooking system, WPR and P C values used at the 95 % confidence level. The overall energy efficiency of the induction hob was about the double of that of the LPG-fired one. Moreover, at WPR=3 L kg-1 and P C =0.25 kW, it was possible to cook spaghetti under mild mixing in no more than 15 min with a minimum energy consumption of 0.54 Wh g-1 , this amounting to about the 35 % of that consumed with the same sustainable cooking procedure at WPR=10 L kg-1. The intermittent mixing degree at a rotational speed of 50 rev min-1 appeared to be sufficient at WPR=3 L kg-1. The induction hob was thus eligible to develop a specialized appliance for pasta cooking.
Within the final goal of reducing the anti-nutritional factors in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) a... more Within the final goal of reducing the anti-nutritional factors in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and yellow soybean (Glycine max) by means of their malting process, the main aim of this work was to study the kinetics of water hydration of such seeds at different temperatures in the range of 12-36 °C for as long as 24 h. The kinetics of such a process was reconstructed using the well-known Peleg model. The Peleg rate constant (k 1) decreased with increasing temperature and was described by an Arrhenius type relationship. The estimated activation energy was equal to 36±6 or 60±3 kJ mol-1 for chickpea or yellow soybean, respectively. The Peleg capacity parameter (k 2) was approximately constant and led to an equilibrium moisture ratio of 1.4 or 1.8 g of water per g dry matter for the above seeds. A 5-h soaking at T≥24 °C rehydrated both seeds up to a moisture content of ~50% (w/w), this being preliminarily assessed as sufficient for activating the metabolic processes of germination.
This paper was aimed at focusing on the sceneries induced by the present energy and environmental... more This paper was aimed at focusing on the sceneries induced by the present energy and environmental crisis on food processing and main criticalness of the Italian food industry in the short-medium term, as illustrated during the Conference on the Research Perspectives to Foster a Competititve Subtainable Development for the Italian Food organised by the National Academy of Sciences in Roma on the 5 th of June, 2008 (http:// www.federalimentare.it/Documenti/ SISTAL-Convegno5Giugno.html). To keep up with the increasing global competition, the Italian food companies have to be able to respond quickly to consumer request. This will ask for new "smart manufacturing" software systems capable of selecting the most appropriate operating variables on the basis of the intrinsic raw material characteristics in order to reduce the variation in the generally recognised quality for most of the typical Italian foods to at least the Three Sigma Level, which is equivalent to 0.27% defects.
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Mar 26, 2009
In this work, a purified acid urease preparation was covalently immobilized on Eupergit C 250 L a... more In this work, a purified acid urease preparation was covalently immobilized on Eupergit C 250 L and stabilized with glycine. Its average activity was found to be 69 (16% of the initial one after 34-day storage at 4°C. The kinetics of urea degradation in a model wine solution by immobilized enzyme was confirmed to be of pseudo-first-order with respect to the urea concentration in the liquid bulk, its apparent pseudo-first-order kinetic rate constant (k Ii) being about one-fourth of that (k If) pertaining to the free enzyme. In the operating conditions tested, the reaction kinetics was estimated as unaffected by the contribution of the external film and intraparticle diffusion mass transfer resistances. Because in the presence of the high-inhibitory tannins extracted from grape seeds in the range of 3-620 g of GAE m-3 the loss in k Ii was quite smaller than that in k If , the biocatalyst tested here is likely to overcome the present limits to the application of free acid urease in wine treatment.
Trends in Food Science and Technology, Jul 1, 2018
Background The environmental performance of food and drink production may be currently assessed b... more Background The environmental performance of food and drink production may be currently assessed by several standard methods. Except the ISO Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental Product Declaration ® and Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methods, all the other international standards account for the single impact category of climate change. The PEF method requires the estimation of as many as 14 impact categories and is thus regarded as complex and expensive. Several independent studies have shown that climate change is the impact category with the lowest uncertainty level.
Abstract The cradle-to-grave environmental impact of 1 kg of dry pasta, produced from a medium-si... more Abstract The cradle-to-grave environmental impact of 1 kg of dry pasta, produced from a medium-sized pasta factory located in the North of Italy and packed in 0.5-kg polypropylene bags, was investigated by using a well-known life cycle assessment software in compliance with the cumulative energy demand, PAS 2050, IMPACT 2002+, ReCiPe 2016, and product environmental footprint standard methods. All these methods allowed durum wheat cultivation and pasta cooking to be identified as the primary and secondary hotspots. Improvements in the cultivation phase were outlined by resorting to conservative farming systems with low N fertilizer inputs. However, the smaller the grain yields, the greater the land occupation and damage to the ecosystem quality became. The replacement of the ordinary home gas-fired hobs with a more eco-sustainable pasta cooker reduced the damage to “climate change,” and “resource depletion". Both mitigation actions reduced the primary energy sources, greenhouse gas emissions, and overall weighted scores of the global environmental impact by about 40%, 48%, and 29%–42% with respect to the reference case, respectively. Although a more sustainable field phase is still to be identified, the environmental impact of dry pasta might be henceforward relieved by replacing the current domestic appliances with novel energy-saving pasta cookers.
In this work, two beers of the industrial and craft types were stabilized and clarified by combin... more In this work, two beers of the industrial and craft types were stabilized and clarified by combining a commercial enzyme preparation of fungal origin (Brewers Clarex ®), which is commonly used for the production of gluten-free beers, with crossflow microfiltration. By resorting to some European Brewing Convention indicative forcing tests (i.e., sensitive proteins, alcohol chill haze, and chill haze development), it was possible to confirm the efficacy of the enzyme preparation for both beers examined. By combining the enzymatic and polyvinylpolypyrrolidone (PVPP) treatments, each beer exhibited a greater colloidal stability with respect to that achievable with any single treatment. Independently of the stabilizing pretreatment used, final membrane clarification gave rise to permeated beers with almost the same chill haze development. By coupling the enzymatic treatment to crossflow microfiltration, it would be possible to replace PVPP, and avoid its expensive recovery and regeneration processes, thus leading to a simpler one-step beer conditioning process.
Wood‐fired ovens are mandatorily used to bake the Neapolitan pizza. Unfortunately, they are still... more Wood‐fired ovens are mandatorily used to bake the Neapolitan pizza. Unfortunately, they are still empirically operated. In this work, a pilot‐scale wood‐fired oven was kept operating in quasi‐steady‐state conditions. Once the combustion reaction of oak logs had been modeled, the composition of flue gas measured, and the external oven wall and floor temperatures thermographically scanned, it was possible to check for the material and energy balances and, thus, assess that the heat loss rates through flue gas and insulated oven chamber were, respectively, equal to 46% and 26% of the energy supplied by burning firewood. The enthalpy accumulation rate in the internal fire brick oven chamber amounted to about 3.4 kW, this being adequate to keep not only the temperatures of the oven vault and floor practically constant but also to bake one or two pizzas at the same time. Such a rate was predicted by contemplating the simultaneous heat transfer mechanisms of radiation and convection between the oven vault and floor surface areas. The efficacy of the semiempirical modeling developed here was further tested by reconstructing quite accurately the time course of water heating in aluminum trays with a diameter near to that of a typical Neapolitan pizza. The heat flow from the oven vault to the water‐containing tray was of the radiative and convective types for about 73% and 15%, whereas the residual 12% was of the conductive type from the oven floor.Practical ApplicationDespite wood‐fired ovens are largely used in the restaurant and food service industry, their operation is highly dependent on the operator's ability. This study shows how the heat loss rates through flue gas and insulated oven chamber can be assessed, and how the enthalpy accumulation rate in the internal fire brick oven chamber can be predicted by accounting for the simultaneous heat transfer mechanisms of radiation and convection between the oven vault and floor surface areas. The efficacy of this semi‐empirical modelling was further checked for via some water heating tests.
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