To have a long life, people try to eat the noodles whole, without biting through them. Long life noodles are fully boiled noodles and are pasteurized with heat. Very thin noodles made from hard wheat four, which is high in gluten, they are similar to vermicelli.
Fresh noodles are cooled for 10-15 minutes, rinsed and cooled in running water, steeped in dilute acidic water before packing, and further steam pasteurized for more than 30 minutes. Common acids used include citric, malic, lactic, gluconic and acetic aid in a pH range of 1.9-2.5.
Most long life noodles are udon noodles; although a small portion of long life noodles are chukamen. Long life noodles are typically made from 100% flour, 32-34% water and 2-4% salt.
There are two types of long life noodles, acidified (pH less than 4.5) which predominates and non-acidified.
Acidified noodle undergo low temperature processing (98-100 °C) while non-acidified noodles are usually canned and subject to much higher temperature.
Long life noodles
