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Influence of Raw Materials and Processing Conditions on Spaghetti Hydration Kinetic During Cooking and Overcooking

¹Istituto di Produzioni e Preparazioni Alimentari, University of Foggia, Via Napoli, 25 - 71100 Foggia, Italy. ²Corresponding author. E-mail: ma.delnobile@unifg.it. Phone: (+39) 881 589 233. Fax: (+39) 881 740 211. ³Istituto Sperimentale per la Cerealicoltura, Sezione Operativa di Foggia, S.S. 16 km 675 - C.P. aperta - 71100 Foggia, Italy. ⁴Universitad Politecnica de Valencia, Dpto. Tecnologìa de Alimentos, Camino de Vera, s/n, Valencia-Spain. ⁵Department of Materials and Production Engineering, University of Naples “Federico II”, P.le Tecchio, 80 - 80125 Naples, Italy.

A study of the influence of raw materials and processing conditions on the hydration kinetic during cooking and overcooking of spaghetti is presented. Water sorption tests on commercially available spaghetti and on three different types of homemade spaghetti were run at 100°C. In particular, the weight, diameter, and length of spaghetti strands were monitored over time for ≈200 min. The spaghetti hydration process was quantitatively resolved into the controlling phenomena (i.e., water diffusion, macromolecular matrix relaxation kinetic, and residual deformation release kinetic) by fitting a novel mathematical model to the experimental data. The different behavior of spaghetti was analyzed for each of the phenomena involved during hydration. Results suggest that processing conditions highly influence the quality of spaghetti with respect to raw materials.