MODELING OF COOKING AND COOLING PROCESSES OF TUNISIAN SALAMI

Abstract

The aim of this work is to develop and validate the heat transfer model in the cooking and cooling process of sausage products to analyze its effectiveness and performance. The modeling of the heat transfer was followed by a numerical simulation to predict the temperature evolution as a function of time. Solving the heat equation was carried out using the finite difference method. Discretizing the equation was carried out in space and in time. Then, a program developed on Matalab was used to solve the discrete equation. The cooked meat was in cylindrical shape (D = 5.6 cm x L = 24 cm) and with a weight of 565 g ± 5 g. The predictions from the model are compared with the experimental results with good agreement (R² = 0.98 for cooking and R² = 0.99 for cooling process). The maximum deviation between measured and calculated temperatures was within 2.59°C for the cooking, within 1.49°C for the cooling by immersion water and within 0.19°C for the air cooling processes. Percentage differences between predicted and experimental temperatures for the cooking, cooling by immersion water and air cooling processes were around 1.58%, 1.72% and 0.66%, respectively. Thus, the developed model can be considered as a valuable tool to assess the effectiveness and the performance of cooking and cooling processes.