The use of carbon electrodes in ohmic cooking of meat patties

Abstract

Ohmic cooking is the process of cooking by passing an electrical current through food. The electrical conductivity of the food causes heating and hence a rise in the interior temperature of the food. Previous research has shown that combined ohmic and plate cooking process improves the cooking time of hamburger patties over a conventional plate cooking process. However, it has been observed that after ohmic cooking the electrode plates suffered from corrosion or pitting even when current is passed at high frequency. In this research, carbon plates were tested to find out if the combined ohmic and plate cooking would result in pitting. Loss of carbon material, believed to be caused by pitting corrosion, was observed on the plates after ohmic cooking at a power frequency of 50 Hz. Frequencies of 5 and 100 kHz were tried to eliminate the pitting. It was shown that the higher frequencies resulted in reduced pitting. © 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.