Smoking is an excellent food preservation method but also a source of contamination of foodstuffs with carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Herein we investigated the influence of smoking temperature, smoking time, and type of wood sawdust used as smoke source on PAH levels attained through controlled smoking of pork sausages. Four PAHs (benz[a]anthracene, chrysene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[a]pyrene) were monitored, as required by European Commission Regulation 835/2011. PAH concentrations increased continuously both with higher temperatures (55-95 °C) and with longer smoking periods (2-9 h), although the level of benzo[a]pyrene exhibited a tendency to plateau after 6 h. Among seven types of hardwoods tested, plum, alder, and birch yielded PAH concentrations considerably higher than that of commonly used beech, and oak showed similar levels to beech while apple and, to a lesser extent, walnut caused lower levels of sausage contamination. These findings could guide the establishment of good practices in the smoked meat industry.
Keywords: gas chromatography−mass spectrometry; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon; smoked pork sausage; smokehouse temperature; smoking time; type of wood.