Phenomenology of Neapolitan Pizza Baking in a Traditional Wood-Fired Oven
Open Access
- 19 February 2023
- Vol. 12 (4), 890
- https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12040890
Abstract
Despite Neapolitan pizza is a globally renowned Italian food, its obligatory baking in wood-fired ovens has so far received little attention in the scientific community. Since heat transfer during pizza baking is not at all uniform, the main aim of this work was to analyze the phenomenology of Neapolitan pizza baking in a pilot-scale wood-fired pizza oven operating in quasi steady-state conditions. The different upper area sections of pizza covered or not by the main topping ingredients (i.e., tomato puree, sunflower oil, or mozzarella cheese), as well the bottom of the pizza and the growth of its raised rim, were characterized by visual colorimetric analysis, while the time course of their corresponding temperatures was monitored using an infrared thermal scanning camera. The maximum temperature of the pizza bottom was equal to 100 ± 9 °C, while that of the upper pizza side ranged from 182 °C to 84 or 67 °C in the case of white pizza, tomato pizza, or margherita pizza, respectively, mainly because of their diverse moisture content and emissivity. The pizza weight loss was nonlinearly related to the average temperature of the upper pizza side. The formation of brown or black colored areas on the upper and lower sides of baked pizza was detected with the help of an electronic eye. The upper side exhibited greater degrees of browning and blackening than the lower one, their maximum values being about 26 and 8%, respectively, for white pizza. These results might help develop a specific modelling and monitoring strategy to reduce variability and maximize the quality attributes of Neapolitan pizza.Funding Information
- Italian Ministry of Instruction, University and Research within the research project entitled “The Neapolitan pizza: processing, distribution, innovation and environmental aspects (PRIN 2017—prot. 2017SFTX3Y_001)
This publication has 14 references indexed in Scilit:
- Effect of cooking temperature on cooked pasta quality and sustainabilityJournal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 2021
- Assessment of Chokeberry Powders Quality Obtained Using an Innovative Fluidized-Bed Jet Milling and Drying Method with Pre-Drying Compared with Convection DryingFoods, 2021
- Quality Evaluation of PizzasPublished by Elsevier BV ,2016
- Browning development in bakery products – A reviewJournal of Food Engineering, 2010
- Bread browning kinetics during bakingJournal of Food Engineering, 2007
- Color measurement in L∗a∗b∗ units from RGB digital imagesFood Research International, 2006
- A simple digital imaging method for measuring and analyzing color of food surfacesJournal of Food Engineering, 2004
- Unit Operations in Food EngineeringPublished by Taylor & Francis Ltd ,2002
- Kinetics of nonenzymatic browning in dried skim milkJournal of Food Engineering, 1990
- Computerized Image Analysis of Surface Browning of Pizza ShellsJournal of Food Science, 1983