ISHS Acta Horticulturae 566: II International Symposium on Application of Modelling as an Innovative Technology in the Agri-Food Chain; MODEL-IT
PREDICTION OF THAWING TIME OF COOKED CURED MEAT |
| Authors: | A.E. Delgado, D.-W. Sun |
| Keywords: | ham, modelling, heat transfer, mass transfer, finite difference method |
| Abstract:
Failure to thaw frozen meat adequately is considered to be a contributory factor in sporadic outbreaks. Although much of the frozen products are thawed domestically, there are circumstances where large quantities of frozen foods must be thawed in industrial scale. Because the thawing process is generally assumed to be identical to that of freezing, any solution applied to freezing should also be valid for thawing. However, care must be taken when using these solutions, because the mass transfer at the product-air interface is of great importance in thawing. In this study heat and mass transfer during the thawing of ham was analysed. A computer program using the explicit finite difference scheme was implemented. The developed procedure was used to examine the influence on the thawing time of various operating conditions and physical properties. The results showed that knowledge of transport properties inside the product is important, since the solid matrix could change in more or less extent as a consequence of the freezing process. The results of the simulation were compared with experimental measurements and predictive values were found to agree comparatively well with the experimental ones. | |
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