Rapid cooling of cooked meat
The 9M Technical Meeting will run from 9-10 June 2011. It will be hosted by the Danish Meat Research Institute (DMRI) in Roskilde, Denmark. All Research partners in the consortium will attend the meeting, which will review the results of laboratory trials and focus on the design and building of the COOLMEAT system.
The COOLMEAT project will research and develop an immersion vacuum cooling technique, which will cool cooked meat quickly without compromising on its taste, texture or colour. A prototype system will be built and extensively tested in meat production facilities.
Conventional methods for cooling cooked meat are time consuming and don’t allow manufacturers to meet EU “cook-cool” guidelines. Vacuum cooling has proven to dramatically reduce cooling time, but with negative effects on the flavour, texture and colour of the meat. The COOLMEAT project will develop an alternative, based on immersion vacuum cooling, which cools the meat in its own cooking brine.
The COOLMEAT project will design and develop a prototype immersion vacuum cooling (IVC) system for rapidly cooling cooked meats. The project will build upon research indicating that IVC can reduce the loss of tenderness and juiciness in meat that is normally associated with vacuum cooling.
Conventional methods for cooling cooked meat fall short when it comes to being time efficient. An effective rapid cooling method that does not adversely effect meat quality will advantage both manufacturers and consumers. This need is the driver for the COOLMEAT project.
The COOLMEAT project will build upon research into IVC to apply and validate the technique in industry. Uptake of COOLMEAT could result in significant advantages for its users including higher production throughput, lower energy consumption and decreased product hold up time.
Developed By IRIS and Seventh Framework Programme
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Innovació i Recerca Industrial i Sostenible
Michaela.BITSAKIS@ec.europa.eu