Osmotic dehydration of pork in three different solutions-mass transfer kinetics

Abstract

The presented paper describes an investigation of osmotic dehydration of pork (M. triceps brachii) in three different osmotic solutions (sugar beet molasses, ternary solution and combination of these solutions in a 1:1 ratio) under atmospheric pressure and room temperature (20oC). The main objective was to examine the influence of different osmotic agents and immersion time on the mass transfer kinetics during osmotic treatment. The most important kinetic parameters of the process: water loss (WL), solid gain (SG), water loss/solid gain ratio (WL/SG), weight reduction (WR), normalized solid content (NSC) and normalized moisture content (NMC) were determined after 1, 3 and 5 hours of dehydration. Mass transfer coefficients were calculated using Hawkes and Flink's model. The results indicate that all three solutions are satisfying osmotic agents and that extensive dehydration occurred during the first 3 hours of the process.