Salting of Minas cheese by vacuum impregnation

Minas cheese salting by vacuum impregnation was studied using cylindrical cheese samples of about 500 g and 120 ' 60mm (radius ' height), that were immersed in a hermetic chamber with 22g NaCl/100g, where sub-atmospheric pressures were applied. The essays were performed after the press stage, used in this to obtain more compact cheeses and facilitate the reproducibility of an average cheese pore structure. Vacuum intensity of 85.3kPa (absolute pressure of 16kPa) was applied intermittently, interleaving with the atmospheric pressure recuperation in the chamber. After pre-determined periods, the chamber was opened and the cheeses were weighed and cut, in order to determine the salt concentration distributions, by means of a modified Mohr method. The results showed that cheese salting by vacuum impregnation (VI) attained an average concentration of 1.6g NaCl/100g in only 15 minutes, while by the classical salting method, it is necessary about 2.5 hours, for cheese samples studied in this work. Cheese salt distributions were more homogeneous in vacuum impregnated salted cheeses when compared with atmospheric pressure salted cheeses. Therefore, VI can be a very good alternative to salting Minas cheese in the industry.

Minas cheese; salting; vacuum; rate; distribution