Application of the SAFES (systematic approach to food engineering systems) methodology to the sorption of water by salted proteins Original Research Article

In the meat industry there are some processes like drying or storage of salted meat products in which the knowledge of water sorption phenomena in salted proteins could be very useful. The sorption and desorption of most salted products is a singular process with three differentiated steps: aw < 0.75, aw = 0.75 and aw > 0.75. SAFES methodology allows the analysis of different elements in a system: the components, phases and states of aggregation in the food during the process to understand the process stages with a suitable level of complexity. It also analyzes the transport functions, chemical reactions and the phenomena occurring during the processing of the product. The aim of this paper is to analyze the sorption phenomena of water in salted proteins using the SAFES methodology for the three different steps of the water desorption process. Salted pork meat isotherms at different three different salt concentrations and three various temperatures were analyzed in order to observe differences between them, in terms of mass transport, reactions, etc. With SAFES methodology, differences in the behaviour of the system, depending on the amount of NaCl added to the pork meat were observed. Differences in mass fluxes were found in relation to temperature and NaCl concentration.