Effects of different smoking materials and methods on the quality of Chinese traditional bacon (larou).

Larou is a traditional smoked meat product in China. In this experiment, larou was processed with different smoking materials and methods evaluating whether the control of processing methods could balance the quality of larou and the content of carcinogens. Pork bellies were marinated, dried and divided into four groups then directly smoked by four different smoking materials for 40 minutes. The best index smoking material would be brought into the indirect smoking device for larou single-factor variable indirect smoking with nano-activated carbon fiber. Results showed that the specific surface area of the nano-activated carbon fiber was 978.00 m 2 /g, and such fiber could effectively adsorb the smoking ash particles. In pomelo skins group (PS), the highest phenols content and variety were found as 4.48% and 11, which increased the smoking flavor most significantly. The moisture, SA, LAB, Y&M values were 32.64%, 0.98 log 10 CFU/g, 1.10 log 10 CFU/g, 0.59 log 10 CFU/g, which could best inhibit harmful bacteria and benefit microbial environment for larou fermentation maturity. The benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) content of indirect smoking device (IN) by PS was 1.82 μg/kg, whereas the B[a]P content of direct smoking by PS was 36.1 μg/kg, which indicated a significant difference ( p  < 0.01). These findings suggested that pomelo skins with indirect smoking device of larou could effectively maintain the inspection indexes and reduce the content of B[a]P. The control of this processing method can be used for the actual production of meat.