Abstract:This study aimed to explore the optimal liquid smoking temperature for Chinese bacon.To be specific，the effect of five smoking temperatures on fatty acid composition and crystallization of Chinese bacon was investigated.The fatty acid composition and lipid hydrolysis and oxidation of bacon smoked at five different temperatures were compared and analyzed，and the differential scanning calorimeter，X-ray diffractometer and polarized light microscope were used for examining the lipid crystallization and melting characteristics，polymorphism and crystal morphology.The results showed that the bacon lipid demonstrated significant decrease in acid value and polymorph α and increase in the crystal size as the temperature of liquid smoking rose.In the case of smoking at 40℃，the relative content of monounsaturated fatty acid（MUFA）peaked.In the instance of smoking at 45 ℃，the relative content of saturated fatty acid（SFA）was the highest and polymorph β′dominated.Moreover，the temperature at which the first crystallization peak appeared was the highest.At the smoking temperature of 55 ℃，the yielded bacon had the highest peroxide value of（0.072±0.003）g/100 g，maximum content of malondialdehyde，strongest lipid oxidation，and highest relative content of polyunsaturated fatty acids（PUFA）and PUFA/SFA，with abundant polymorph β.Therefore，considering the stability and nutrition，liquid smoking at 55℃was optimal for the processing of Chinese bacon.