Journal of Food Engineering 89 (2008) 1723

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Journal of Food Engineering

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Technological properties of natural hog casings treated with surfactant solutions

Elisa dos Santos, Carmen M.O. Mller, Joo Borges Laurindo, Jos C.C. Petrus, Sandra R.S. Ferreira *
EQA/UFSC, Chemical and Food Engineering Department, Federal University of Santa Catarina, C.P. 476, CEP 88040-900, Florianpolis, SC, Brazil

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 18 September 2007
Received in revised form 26 March 2008
Accepted 27 March 2008
Available online 4 April 2008
Keywords:
Calabrese sausage
Natural hog casing
Stufng yield
Soy lecithin

a b s t r a c t
Large quantities of natural casings are used in sausage production, affecting quality and cost aspects. The
inuence of different casing treatments with surfactant solutions on the stufng yield of Calabrese sausage was studied in this work. The effect of process variables (soy lecithin and soy oil concentrations,
temperature and treatment time) on casing properties was evaluated with the aid of an experimental
design. Elongation, tensile strength, porosity and water vapor permeability of treated casings, as well
as color, sensory attributes and physicalchemical parameters were determined. Higher stufng yields
were obtained using soy lecithin solutions in concentration up to 1:25 w/w for 3060 min. The surfactant
solutions increased the elongation capacity of the treated casings. On the other hand, no signicant difference was observed regarding the water vapor permeability of treated casings compared with control.
Consequently, the yield of natural hog casings can be improved by the proposed treatment, while the
quality characteristics are preserved.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The development of high added-value products with quality
requisites is a challenge for the meat industry. The sausage packaging process and the technological characteristics of hog casings are
important to maintain the functional properties, the quality attributes and the safety of sausage goods. Moreover, sausage casings
should present good barrier to water vapor, low cost, easy manufacturing and caliber regularity, producing uniform size and
shapes. Therefore, because natural casings present variability in
caliber and elongation capacity, studies to improve casings properties are essential to enlarge the stufng efciency, raising the
sausage production (Bakker et al., 1999; Benli et al., 2008).
Functional and mechanical properties of edible lms like sausage casings can be modied by the action of surfactant substances. The soy lecithin is a surfactant particularly attractive to
food industries due to its functional and nutritional properties,
and attractive cost/benet ratio (Rodrguez et al., 2006; Wong,
1995). The humectant and the surfactant properties of soy lecithin
are related to the phospholipids content, implying characteristics
such as viscosity reducer of fat emulsions, dispersion agent, antioxidant and dissolution accelerator (McClements, 2005).
Natural casings used in sausage stufng are frequently salted to
reduce microorganism activity, with no changes in their technological properties. Chemical preservatives such as lactic, tartaric and
citric acid, hydrogen peroxide or ethanol are also applied (Chawla
et al., 2006; Byun et al., 2001). These chemicals can generate adverse
effects on casings technological characteristics, including an in* Corresponding author. Tel.: +55 48 3721 9448; fax: +55 48 3721 9687.
E-mail address: sandra@enq.ufsc.br (S.R.S. Ferreira).
0260-8774/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2008.03.024

crease in water vapor permeability (WVP) due to the pH reduction.

Another compound extensively used in starch- or protein-based
lms is the plasticizer sorbitol (glucitol). This plasticizer can decrease inter- and intra-molecular attraction forces and increase
chain mobility, improving the lm exibility. However, the sorbitol
also increases the lms WVP (Byun et al., 2001; Rodrguez et al.,
2006). Besides the economical importance of natural casings in sausage production, there is a lack of information on casing waste during the stufng of sausage batters. The exceptions regarding the use
of chemicals on natural casings are the works presented by Houben
et al. (2005), which discusses the application of trisodium phosphate to improve the stufng efciency, and Bakker et al. (1999),
which used food-grade additives to develop the microbiological
and mechanical properties of casings. The use of ozone to advance
casing characteristics was also considered by Benli et al. (2008).
The abundant water usage during the process of sausage stuffing and the product imperfections caused by excess of water, like
surface blistering and the reduction of casing adherence to meat
batter, qualies this operation for process optimization. Hence,
the purpose of the present work was to evaluate the inuence of
hog casings treatment with surfactant solutions on the stufng
efciency of Calabrese sausage. The effect of the treatments on
the sausage quality attributes was also investigated.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Material
Calabrese sausage was produced using pork meat, animal fat,
mechanically recovered meat (MRM), seasoning, salt, spices, additives and salted natural hog casings. The sausage was prepared in

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E. dos Santos et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 89 (2008) 1723

an industrial unit following the company formulation (condential) and in accordance with the Brazilian regulations (MAPA,
2000). For the natural hog casing treatments, surfactant:water
solutions were prepared with soy lecithin and commercial soybean
oil. The treated casings were used for sausage stufng in a continuous vertical mechanical unit.
2.2. Experimental design
A fractional factorial design of 341 was used with the aim of
determining the combined effect of process variables on casing
properties. The variables were: (1) lecithin concentration, (2) oil
concentration, (3) solution temperature and (4) residence time of
casing in the surfactant solution. The values of the variables were
dened according to operational limitations and dened in three
levels (1, 0, +1). The experimental plan was obtained using the
software Statistica 6.0 Statsoft, OK USA, and resulted in 27 assays, as presented in Table 1.
The effect of the variables on the casing properties was evaluated through stufng efciency and Calabrese sausage quality.
The stufng efciency, treated as casing yield before cooking
(YBC) and casing yield after cooking (YAC), was determined by the
weight increase of treated sausages related to the control weight
(casing without treatment), as follows:
weightBC  controlBC  100
;
controlBC
weightAC  controlAC  100
%
controlAC

Y BC %
Y AC

where weightBC and weightAC are the mean weight for 30 sausage
pieces for each casing treatment, measured before and after cooking, respectively, and controlBC and controlAC are the average
weights obtained from industry data considering 6 months of production, before and after cooking, respectively.

Table 1
Experimental plan: process variables for the treatment of natural hog casings
Treatment

Soy lecithin
concentrationa

Soy oil
concentration (%
w/w)

Solution
temperature
(C)

Residence
time (min)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27

1:30
1:30
1:30
1:30
1:30
1:30
1:30
1:30
1:30
1:25
1:25
1:25
1:25
1:25
1:25
1:25
1:25
1:25
1:20
1:20
1:20
1:20
1:20
1:20
1:20
1:20
1:20

0.0
0.0
0.0
2.5
2.5
2.5
5.0
5.0
5.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
2.5
2.5
2.5
5.0
5.0
5.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
2.5
2.5
2.5
5.0
5.0
5.0

20
30
40
20
30
40
20
30
40
20
30
40
20
30
40
20
30
40
20
30
40
20
30
40
20
30
40

30
90
60
90
60
30
60
30
90
90
60
30
60
30
90
30
90
60
60
30
90
30
90
60
90
60
30

Soy lecithin:water solution.

The experimental plan from Table 1 (casing treatments) was

performed twice to evaluate two mechanical stufng techniques:
(1) free casing release during stufng, FC, and (2) restricted casing
release during stufng, RC. The RC consists of a manual resistance
applied during casing release, providing larger amount of sausage
batter inside a linear length of casing. The traditional industrial
procedure for batter stufng is FC. Calabrese stufng was performed for the 27 treatments (Table 1) with FC and RC procedures,
resulting in 54 assays.
The surfactant solutions used for casing treatments were prepared with commercial soy lecithin and soy oil in an industrial
blender, for homogenization. Each treatment (54 assays) was prepared using 45 m of natural hog casings. The salted casings were
initially immersed in water bath (25 C for 1 min, under agitation)
to reduce the salt content and then submitted to the surfactant
solutions, following the variable levels listed in Table 1.
2.3. Stufng and cooking procedure
Treated casings were placed so as to cover stainless steel pipes,
with the aid of owing water, used to supply the casings to the
mechanical stufng equipment. Thirty Calabrese samples were
prepared for each treatment (54 assays). Next, the sausages were
hung in smoking cages and submitted to cooking/smoking chambers, following the industry protocol to reach an internal product
temperature of 73 C. After cooking/smoking, the samples were
transferred to a cooling chamber and remained for 8 h before the
vacuum packaging in polyethylene bags, and storaged at 5 C for
transport and commercialization.
2.4. Chemical analysis of Calabrese sausage
Moisture, protein and lipid contents, in %, were determined
according to procedures 950.46B, 928.08 and 960.39, respectively,
described by AOAC (2000). Water amount was based on drying
method, protein quantity was according to the Kjeldahl procedure,
based on total nitrogen determination, and lipid content was performed by Soxhlet method. The water activity of sausage samples
was determined using an electronic hygrometer (Aqualab 109
Model Series 3, Decagon Devices Inc. Pullman, WA, USA). These
analyses were carried out in triplicate for all samples. The rancidity
(lipid oxidation) was determined by TBA procedure, according to
AOAC (2000) method, in order to observe the product shelf life.
The rancidity of Calabrese sausages, prepared with treated casings,
were evaluated for up to 90 days after production.
2.5. Calabrese sausage color
The sausage color was evaluated through the values of L*, a*
and b*, representing luminosity, greenness and yellowness, respectively. These data were obtained in a diffuse reectance spectrophotometer (ColorQuest II Sphere Hunter Associates Lab. Inc.,
Reston, VA, USA), equipped with a geometric optic sensor and
following the procedure describe by Argandoa et al. (2002). Calabrese sausages were cut transversally into 8 cm pieces and xed on
the optic sensor. The reading of the color grading was performed in
three different positions of each sample. Sausage samples from the
54 casing treatments (27 assays in FC stufng and 27 assays in RC
stufng) were analyzed and compared with the control sample,
produced as industrial standard.
2.6. Sensorial analysis
Quality attributes of Calabrese sausages were evaluated by the
sensory test order of preference. Briey, the panelist members
received simultaneously three coded samples to rank in crescent

E. dos Santos et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 89 (2008) 1723

order of preference using a 4-point scale, from grade 1 (the least

preferred sample) to grade 4 (the most preferred sample), based
on the Friedman methodology (Newell and MacFarlane, apud SILVA, 1997). The panelists were previously selected using an evaluation test for sensory analysts (Ferreira et al., 2000). The tests,
performed according to the ABNT (1994) description, are divided
in three parts. In the rst part, the 27 FC treatments were tested
by 36 panel members and each treatment was evaluated by 4 panelists. In the second part, 13 favorite treatments (higher scores
from rst part) were selected for a sensory evaluation by 20 panelists. In a third step, 8 treatments with the higher scores in the second step were submitted to a nal evaluation by 25 panelists. The
nal analysis classied the best 4 treatments in terms of sausage
quality attributes. The nal samples were then compared to detect
signicant difference among the treatments.
2.7. Water vapor permeability of hog casings (WVP)
The water vapor permeability (WVP) of casing materials inuences sausage shelf life, because it limits water loss and controls
product moisture. In order to evaluate the effect of surfactant
treatments on the casing properties, the WVP was determined
for casing samples submitted to the 27 treatments (Table 1) and
compared with the control sample (casing without treatment),
following the methodology described by ASTM E 96-95 (1995).
Briey, 30-mm cylinders of casings were cut carefully in order to
t exactly into aluminum diffusion cells (Fig. 1) containing dried
calcium chloride. The cells were conditioned in a closed chamber
with saturated solution of sodium chloride at 26 C. The WVP of
the samples were determined from the mass gain by the diffusion
cell as a function of time, for 26 h. The WVP was calculated according to the following equation (Larotonda et al., 2005):
WVP

G
d
t AP s  RH1  RH2

where d is the average casing thickness (m), A is the permeation

area (0.0007065 m2), RH1 is the relative humidity inside the chamber (0.75), RH2 is the relative humidity inside the diffusion cell
(0.02), Ps is the water vapor pressure at 26 C, in Pa, and the term
G/t (g water/h) was determined by linear regression of the cell
timeweight variation, in steady state (only the linear part of the
curve was used, in order to ensure steady-state permeation
conditions).

19

2.8. Thickness and mechanical properties of the hog casings

Film thicknesses were determined (0.001 mm) using a Digimatic digital external micrometer (Mitutoyo Co., Japan), at seven
measurement points for each lm sample, resulting in an average
thickness value per sample.
Tensile strength (MPa) and elongation at break (%) of lms
were derived from tension versus deformation data obtained in
traction tests (Okamoto, 1978; Krochta, 2002). These two
mechanical properties (treated casings and control) were determined from traction tests performed in a TA-XT2i Texture Analyzer, Surrey England, based on the ASTM-882-91 method
(1996). The casing samples, cut into pieces of 120 mm long and
77 mm wide (width of an open casing), were clamped between
the equipment grips, with initial distance of 40 mm. Tension
and relative deformation data were recorded over time during
traction tests at 12 mm/min. Tensile strength (MPa) and relative
deformation (elongation) at break (e, %) of each lm were determined from the tension/deformation prole using eight replicate
results.
2.9. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) of hog casings
Scanning electron microscope analysis was performed for hog
casing samples using a Philips XL-30 SEM. Casing samples treated
with surfactant solutions were compared with control in order to
observe the effect of the surfactant on the surface characteristics
of the natural hog casings.
2.10. Statistical analysis
The stufng yield data (YBC and YAC) of sausage were evaluated
using the Paretto chart and the software STATISTICA 6.0 (2001).
The statistical signicance was determined by analysis of variance
(ANOVA). The Dunnetts test was used to observe the effect of the
casing treatments compared to control. This test is indicated to
compare group means with the mean of the control.

3. Results and discussion

Fifty-four assays (experimental plan applied for FC and for RC,
Table 1) were performed to observe the sausage samples weight
loss during the cooking process. The results showed that the average weight loss, for the 54 assays, was 16 1%. This value is equivalent to the control weight loss values, obtained from industry data
during 6 months of production, showing that the casings treatment
did not affect the cooking process.
3.1. Casing yield of Calabrese sausage production

Fig. 1. Diffusion caps for determination of water vapor permeability.

Preliminary assays performed in this work using treated casings

with 1:20 (soy lecithin:water) solutions showed stufng yield increases of 10.2% and 11.5% for YBC and YAC, respectively. These results indicate the enhancement in the amount of batter inside a
linear length of treated casing, compared to control. Therefore,
the inuence of casing treatments on stufng yield was evaluated
through the assays performed according to experimental plan (Table 1) for two stufng procedures (FC and RC).
The results for the 54 assays, carried out with treated casings
using FC and RC stufng procedures, are listed in Table 2. These
data compare the stufng yield before cooking (YBC) and after
cooking (YAC), for treated and non-treated (control) casings. Only
positive values for YBC and YAC are presented in Table 2, indicating
an increase in the elongation capacity for all treated casings, compared with control ones.

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E. dos Santos et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 89 (2008) 1723

Table 2
Experimental results obtained for YBC and YAC, for assays performed with free casing
release (FC) and restricted casing release (RC)
Treatment

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Mean
a
b

FC

RC

YBC (%)a

YAC (%)b

YBC (%)a

YAC (%)b

16.18
4.53
25.43
16.86
28.42
31.50
16.84
12.47
9.13
13.91
9.05
9.81
16.00
4.36
2.28
13.85
24.09
19.04
1.60
7.62
2.62
2.32
20.26
10.39
3.94
9.27
33.20

19.72
3.55
30.75
21.02
28.58
35.89
19.64
14.34
12.23
17.21
10.85
13.61
19.69
6.31
3.91
15.46
27.69
23.22
3.15
5.62
4.19
2.56
22.59
12.49
4.76
11.89
38.35

16.99
26.67
25.53
24.03
42.50
33.08
12.47
14.02
10.71
32.30
24.25
27.12
33.85
18.90
22.12
40.98
34.74
39.57
17.37
14.71
22.72
15.09
35.92
12.20
17.45
25.27
45.72

22.92
24.65
30.86
27.12
43.25
37.14
32.78
15.73
14.41
37.71
27.31
32.38
37.35
21.51
25.19
44.01
40.50
46.47
18.86
12.94
26.39
17.10
40.77
13.96
21.47
25.70
51.96

14 8

16 10

25 9

29 10

YBC: yield before cooking.

YAC: yield after cooking.

sented in terms of linear (L) and quadratic (Q) effect. The results
indicate the surfactant concentration and the oil concentration as
the most signicant variables because the magnitude of the variables are near the signicance line (p = 0.10). Therefore, these variables present a direct relation with stufng yield. The highest
values for YBC and YAC were obtained with the use of surfactant
solution, indicating that the treatments affect the casings physical
characteristics, improving their performance for all concentrations
studied. Indeed, according to Rodrguez et al. (2006), the use of surfactants could be incorporated into the lm formulation to reduce
surface tension, which is a function of the surfactant concentration.
The stufng procedures (FC and RC) are also compared in Table
2. The yield data show higher casing efciency for RC stufng, i.e.
larger amount of sausage batter stuffed inside a linear length of
casing when compared with FC stufng. This behavior is observed
through the YBC and YAC results. The mean values of YBC were
14 8% and 25 9% for FC and RC procedures, respectively, and
the values of YAC were 16 10% and 29 10% for FC and RC procedures, respectively. The comparison of the above yield results
shows a yield increase of 11 6% and 12 7% for YBC and YAC,
respectively. These results are explained by the much higher elongation capacity of treated casings.
As observed in Table 2, the RC procedure is more effective for all
treatments than the FC procedure in terms of yield results, indicating that the use of restricted casing release during stufng is a suitable industrial procedure. Furthermore, comparing treated casings
with control (non-treated), the use of RC decreased casings rupture
from 3.5% to 0.8%, as observed in the results for 3 months of industrial sausage production. It represents a considerable reduction on
casings rupture and leads to an impressive material saving due to
the use of surfactant solution for casing treatment.
3.2. Chemical composition of Calabrese sausage

The YBC and YAC results for the RC procedure indicated higher
stufng yield for treatment 27, for casings treated with upper lecithin concentration (1:20) and oil concentration (5.0%), solution
temperature 40 C and residence time of 30 min. On the other
hand, the lowest yield was obtained for treatment 9, with the inferior lecithin level (1:30).
The Paretto chart presented in Fig. 2 shows the effect of the
yield after cooking (YAC) for Calabrese sausage, calculated for treated casings. The level of signicance of process variables are pre-

Chemical analysis of Calabrese sausages was performed to

determine whether the casing pretreatments affect the product
quality and acceptability. The average data for lipid content was
30% w/w, in accordance with Brazilian legislation requirements
(MAPA, 2000), which allow a maximum concentration of 35% lipid
content for Calabrese sausage.
The medium value of protein content for treated samples was
17 1%, comparable to control samples (17.5 0.5%), in accordance

Fig. 2. Paretto chart for YAC for Calabrese sausage prepared with treated casings. The effect of the process variables is presented by level of signicance. L and Q represent the
linear and quadratic effect, respectively.

E. dos Santos et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 89 (2008) 1723

to Brazilian regulations, which indicates a minimum of 14% protein

content for Calabrese sausage (MAPA, 2000).
The moisture content of the Calabrese sausage, manufactured
using treated casings (mean value of 54 samples), was 47 1%,
while for control sausage was 49 1%. This moisture decline of
4% is caused by the exibility increase of treated casings, reducing
the water use during casings winding. The casing exibility is a result of the enhancement in slippery characteristic of the casings
treated by surfactant solution, facilitating the casing gliding over
the testing tubes. The same behavior was obtained by Houben
et al. (2005) when using trisodium phosphate for casing treatment.
The manufacture of Calabrese sausage at the industry where this
study was performed is about 50 tons/day. Considering this production, the use of treated casings for sausage stufng can represent up to 1 ton/day of water reduction in sausages submitted to
cooking process.
The mean value of water activity (aw) for the 54 assays with
treated samples was 0.94, while the result for control sample
was 0.95. These data are in accordance with industry standards
and government regulations (MAPA, 2000). The behavior of aw
versus moisture content (%) is presented in Fig. 3 for sausages prepared with treated casings, using FC and RC stufng, and compared
with control sample. The data scattering in Fig. 3 show a relatively
small deviation, with moisture content of 46 1% and aw value of
0.94 ( 0.01). More than 87% of the values of aw, for sausages
stuffed in treated casings, were lower than the value for control
sausage (aw of 0.95). This behavior indicates that the use of the
proposed casing treatments to reduce water content in Calabrese
sausages (between the sausage batter and hog casing) are technologically viable, although the inuence of the treatments must be
further investigated.
No rancidity was observed for the samples of Calabrese sausages prepared with treated casings (27 samples) and stored up
to 90 days, the proposed shelf-life of this product. These results
certify the innocuity of the surfactant solutions proposed in this
study for casing treatments, if compared with casings without
treatment. Recently, Chawla et al. (2006) found that reduced water
activity in combination with radiation can improve the safety of
natural casings, without affecting their functional properties.
3.3. Color attribute of Calabrese sausage
The color is one of the appearance aspects that characterize the
global product quality. The sausage color was evaluated comparing

0.955
FC
RC
Standard

Water activity

0.950

0.945

0.940

0.935

0.930
43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

Moisture content (%)

Fig. 3. Relation between moisture content (%) and sausage water activity (aw) for
sausages samples obtained with treated casing in RC stufng and in free casing
release (FC), compared with non-treated casing (control).

21

treated samples with control in terms of luminosity (L*). The average values of L* were 45.3 and 46.6 for treated and for control sausages, respectively. According to the Dunnet test, a signicant
difference at the 5% level was detected between treated samples
and control, with slightly brighter values for control. The evaluation of the process variables for the 54 treatments, related to the
L* values, indicate the lecithin concentration as the only variable
that affect the product luminosity, at level of 5%, compared to control result. The results obtained for a* and b* were 20.7 and
23.3, mean values for 54 treatments, while the respective values
for the control samples were 20.2 and 22.2. These results showed
no signicant difference (p > 0.05), comparing treated samples
with control. Complementarily, the sensorial analysis for the color
attribute showed no difference between treated samples and control, indicating that the surfactant solution does not interfere on
product appearance. Considering that the control product is a very
successful brand, the absence of color interference of surfactant
solution allows its use in industrial production in terms of product
appearance.
The color attribute was also evaluated by sensory analysis (preference test). This attribute was estimated with other quality attributes in order to designate the preferred samples. The results,
performed by the global sensorial analysis, selected the sausage
samples prepared with casings submitted to the following surfactant treatments: 1, 11, 13, and 15. These preferred treatments used
low lecithin concentrations (1:25 and 1:30) and low soy oil
concentrations (0% and 2.5%). The grades obtained by the four preferred tests (treatments 1, 11, 13 and 15) were compared and the p
variance values indicate no signicant variation among treatments
(p > 0.05).
3.4. Physical attributes of natural hog casings
The physical attributes of natural hog casings evaluated in this
study were water vapor permeability (WVP), mechanical properties (tensile strength, elasticity modulus and elongation capacity)
and surface aspects by SEM, as described in Sections 2.7, 2.8 and
2.9, respectively.
The WVP of natural hog casings were evaluated comparing treated casings with control. Samples of natural hog casings submitted
to surfactant treatment 13 were selected for WVP evaluation. The
treatment 13 present a suitable casing yield (according to mean value in Table 2) and was selected by sensory analysis as one of the
better treatments for sausage quality attributes. The conditions
of the selected treatment were: 1:25 soy lecithin concentration,
1.25% soy oil, 24 C of solution temperature and 60 min of residence time. The results of WVP for control and treated samples
(assays in triplicate) were 2.4  107 0.3  107 (g m1 Pa1 h)
and 2.0  107 0.2  107 (g m1 Pa1 h), respectively. According
to the Students t-test, no signicant difference at a 5% level was
detected between treated samples and control.
The results of traction tests, performed for ve treated casings
(1, 2, 8, 13 and 24) and control sample, are compared in Fig. 4.
The traction data are expressed in TS (tensile strength, MPa) and
e (elongation at break or elongation capacity, %) (Srinivasa et al.,
2007).
The values for TS and for e are dependent on the chemical and
physical structure of the material. The results from Fig. 4 show a
conservative behavior for TS values. All treated casings presented
a TS value varying from 4.4 to 5.5 MPa, while the TS value for the
control casing was 4.6 MPa. Otherwise, all treated casings had
the elongation capacity increased by an average of 77% (from
e = 28% to e = 4655%). This behavior has been reported in the literature as being a characteristic of protein- and carbohydrate-based
lms plasticized with glycerol or sorbitol (Park et al., 1993; Moore
et al., 2006). Briey, hog casings can be considered as formed

22

E. dos Santos et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 89 (2008) 1723

70

Tensile Strength (MPa)

TS (MPa)

(%)

60
50

40

30
20

Elongation (%)

10

10

0
Control

Treat.1

Treat.2

Treat.8 Treat. 11 Treat.13 Treat. 24

Fig. 4. Tensile strength (TS) and elongation (e) for control casing compared with
treated casings (treatments 1, 2, 8, 11, 13, 24).

Several studies have used SEM to correlate the physical properties of materials with the morphological structure of the resulting
lms (Larotonda et al., 2005; Salmieri and Lacroix, 2006). Fig. 5a
and b shows the SEM results for samples of hog casings without
treatment (control) and with treatment 24 (1:20 lecithin concentration, 2.5% edible oil, 40 C and 60 min), respectively. It can be
observed that the surfactant solution evidenced clearly the morphologic structure of the casing surface (Fig. 5b) due to the coating
of the lm bers with lecithin and vegetable oil. Treatments with
surfactant solutions also resulted in a lighter casing surface, as discussed previously. The comparison of Fig. 5a and b indicates also
that the surfactant treatment affect the collagen bers causing a
swelling of the casing.
4. Conclusions

basically of 90% collagen and 5% elastin (Houben et al., 2005), evidencing its protein based composition, with a predisposition to the
action of a plasticizer.
According to Benli et al. (2008), the rupture force indicates the
casings capacity to resist the internal force applied during stufng
and can be used as an alternative rheological method to compare
bursting strength. It explains the results obtained in the present
work, where the elevated elongation capacity (e values) of treated
casings produced higher casing yields during stufng (YBC and YAC).
Comparing the elongation capacity of treated samples, we observe slightly higher values of e (%) for treatments 1 and 13, performed at the lowest temperature level (20 C).

The yield results showed that the treatment of hog casings

with oillecithin solutions improved the stufng process of Calabrese sausage. Among the studied process parameters, the soy
lecithin concentration was the most signicant variable, affecting
positively the stufng yield. Comparing treated casings and control, an enhancement in casing exibility, due to surfactant treatment, was detected by the positive yield results, reaching 29% for
RC procedure during stufng. Also, treated casings reduced the
amount of water necessary for stufng preparation and considerably decrease the casing wastefulness. The product appearance
was improved with surfactant treated casings, compared with
control, as well as quality attributes, evaluated in terms of physicalchemical and sensorial properties. Therefore, these results
are useful to sausages industries since there was a reduction in
industrial costs, due to water and casing savings, and an increase
in product quality.
Acknowledgement
The authors thank the FINEP/CT-AGRO/FNDCT No. 0.1.020104.00 for their nancial support that made this study possible.
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