Study of the temperature regime effect on the process of cheeses vacuum drying

Abstract

Vacuum drying is a promising way to cheese processing. The heating temperature is the most significant factor in vacuum drying. The purpose of this work was the selection of temperature regimes of vacuum cheese drying. Experiments on vacuum drying of cheeses were conducted at different temperatures and heat flow density. It has been established that the temperature decrease rises significantly the duration of drying process. Increasing the drying temperature up to 60 °C and more leads to a decrease in the temperature gradient across the thickness of the layer of dried cheese. The organoleptic characteristics of dry cheeses have been found to be most appreciated at vacuum drying temperatures of 50 and 60 °C. Based on the conducted research, the influence of temperature and heat flow density on the process of vacuum cheeses drying was analyzed. The recommended temperature for vacuum cheeses drying is (60 ± 3) °C, the recommended value of the heat flow density is (7.36 ± 0.3) kW/m2.