Efecto de dos sistemas de cocción sobre la transferencia de calor y la letalidad microbiana durante la cocción de jamones

Cooking systems for cooked meat derivatives must provide efficient and homogeneous heat transfer, in such a way as to assure the quality and microbiological safety of the final product. In this study, the effect of two cooking systems on heat transfer efficiency and the process lethality during cooking of York-type hams was evaluated and compared. For this, York-type hams were cooked in a cooking module with water and a steam oven, at a temperature of 80 ° C until reaching an internal temperature of 72 ° C. The variables measured were the cooking time, the cooking speed, the convective heat transfer coefficient, the pasteurization value (P value) and the accumulated lethality of the equivalent process, the latter two taking as reference Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella spp. The results showed that the heating time decreased significantly (p < 0.05) during cooking in the module. While the heating rate and the convective coefficient were significantly higher (p < 0.05) in this same system. For P0, no significant differences (p > 0.05) were found between treatments, highlighting that this was greater than the lethality criterion defined for both microorganisms and was reached before reaching 72 °C in the hams. These results allowed us to conclude that cooking in water offers a more efficient and homogeneous heat transfer, as well as microbiological safety in the final product.