To produce excellent pasta you cannot ignore the characteristics of the raw materials, which must be excellent. However, the entire production process has a significant influence on quality: in recent decades, interesting progress has been made to identify some events that occur during processing, particularly in drying. In fact, the most significant innovations have turned to optimize this technological phase. The process consists in progressively eliminating a part of the water content from the product, providing heat. Lowering the degree of moisture means reducing enzyme activity, thus minimizing fermentation.
How to control moisture changing phenom
This phase is crucial and difficult to control due to the fact that it is like the “litmus test” of important quality elements of grain and of the entire production process. By eliminating the moisture content of pasta from 30% to 12.5%7, the texture of theproduct becomes hard and compact, the structure is consolidated and the food can be stored without deteriorating.
A proper drying, in addition to making the food dry, stabilizes it: the reduced moisture content mustremain uniform and stable to thevalues that ensure the shelf-life of the food under storage conditions (Mondelli G., 2008).
to be continued…
