DryMeat

The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) study of a dry-cured ham revealed two thermal phase transition events in dry-cured ham: the freezing of the moisture and the glass transition. The freezing point of dry-cured ham was found to be in the range between –12.5 and –14.4 °C, which makes it possible to store the product at -10 °C without ice formation. The inflection point of the glass transition of the salted meat and the dry-cured ham was lower when compared with fresh pork (–85.0 vs –71.0 °C). The amount of unfreezable water was also higher (22.0 % vs 6.8 %), which was explained by salting and ripening processes. The application of a new DSC Tzero technology helped to define the heat capacity of the product in the temperature range from –10.0 to +20.0 °C, which can reduce the error of the heat loads calculation.