Color changes in beef meat during pan cooking: kinetics, modeling and application to predict turn over time

Abstract

The kinetics of heat-induced color changes in beef meat was determined and implemented in a numerical model for double-sided pan cooking of steak. The CIELab color space was used to obtain the lightness (coordinate L^*) and the reddish tone (coordinate a^*) of the cooked meat. L^* was the CIELab coordinate that contributed the most to the change in the absolute color. Two response surfaces were found to describe the evolution with time and temperature of both color coordinates, L^* and a^*. The model results were successfully verified with experimental data of the two coordinates along the thickness of the meat for three degrees of cooking. The Root-Mean-Squared Errors (RMSE) for coordinate L^* were 5.17 (very rare), 2.02 (medium rare) and 3.83 (done), and for coordinate a^* 1.44 (very rare), 1.26 (medium rare) and 0.89 (done). The applicability of the model for practical cooking purposes was illustrated by determining the optimum turn over time to achieve a similar color profile on both sides of the meat. The turn over time depended on the desired degrees of cooking, and were comprised between one-half and two-thirds of the final cooking time, increasing from very rare cooking degree to done cooking degree.