Rapid cooling of cooked meat joints

Abstract

Conventional cooling by air-blast or even by immersion in liquid is unlikely to achieve recommended cooling rates when dealing with joints weighing 5kg or more because meat has a low thermal conductivity. The objective was to investigate vacuum cooling as a technique for rapid chilling of cooked meat joints. In vacuum cooling, the food is enclosed in a chamber and reduction of the pressure to about 7 mbar causes evaporation of water from the surface of the food and from cavities in the food. The energy required to evaporate the water is extracted from the food, resulting in rapid chilling