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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania » Eastern Regional Research Center » Microbial and Chemical Food Safety » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #426819
Research Project: Advanced Methods for Predictive Modeling of Bacterial Growth and Survival in Foods

Location: Microbial and Chemical Food Safety

Title: Thermophysical properties of cured and uncured beef, pork, poultry meats and ready-to-eat hams measured by the transient plane-source method

Author
item Sheen, Shiowshuh
item Huang, Lihan
item Hwang, Cheng An

Submitted to: Journal of Food Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/11/2025
Publication Date: 12/5/2025
Citation: Sheen, S., Huang, L., Hwang, C. 2025. Thermophysical properties of cured and uncured beef, pork, poultry meats and ready-to-eat hams measured by the transient plane-source method. Journal of Food Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.70727.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.70727

Interpretive Summary: Thermal physical properties (such as thermal conductivity, heat capacity, and diffusivity) of foods are very important parameters which may affect the food temperature profile undergoing thermal treatment and therefore impact the accuracy of thermal lethality estimation and food safety. Those properties of raw ground beef, pork, chicken, turkey, chicken breast, cured ground beef, cured ground pork and ready-to-eat (RTE) hams were measured and reported which may fill the data gaps needed for the heat-related food processing operation and risk assessment for microbial safety concern.

Technical Abstract: Physical properties of foods, including thermal conductivity (k), heat capacity (Cp), density (rho), and diffusivity (a), are important parameters for predicting the temperature during conductive heating of solid foods to evaluate the survival of foodborne pathogens, since temperature-dependent thermal properties may affect the accuracy of temperature prediction. In this study, we measured k, volumetric heat capacity (rhoCp), and a, for raw ground beef, ground pork, ground turkey, chicken breast (5-60ºC), cured ground beef and cured ground pork (5-70ºC), and uncured/cured ready-to-eat (RTE) ham (5-80ºC) using the transient plane-source (TPS) method. At temperatures above 60ºC, protein denaturation and fat melting in raw meats significantly affected the measurement of thermal properties. Cured ground meats maintained stable in texture and moisture holding potential up to 70ºC. However, uncured, and cured RTE ham were found able to maintain the texture even at 80ºC due to other ingredients added. The physical properties of the tested items were found either constant or temperature dependent. In general, the k values are 0.2-0.6 W m-1 ºC-1; rhoCp values are 2.0-5.0 MJ m-3 ºC-1 (1 MJ = 10**6 J) and a [=k/(rhoCp)] are 0.5-3.5 x 10-7 m2 s-1. The results may fill the data gap, which is much needed for thermal processing, especially to estimate the foodborne pathogen lethality. More studies are needed to accurately measure the thermal properties of raw meats affected by protein denaturation and fat melting.