(194k) Mathematical Modelling of Salt Transport in Dry Salted Cheeses

Sodium chloride is vital to the production of safe and consistent cheese products through its effects on preservation, texture and functionality, and flavour. Understanding the mechanisms and modelling the movement of salt through fresh cheese curd, especially for dry-salted cheeses, is essential to optimizing production and improving consistency to meet growing global market demand. Current models for salt transport in cheeses have primarily used an unsteady-state Fickian diffusion approach to describe salt mass transfer in cheeses. While simple, these models fail to account for the underlying mechanisms and interactions between the transported salt ions, moisture, and proteinaceous curd matrix that ultimately control the rate of salt uptake during the dry salting process, especially the effects of local moisture content and moisture expulsion. A fundamentally-derived, one-dimensional mathematical model was developed to model the uptake and transport of salt and moisture through fresh, dry-salted cheese curds by defining the curd as a proteinaceous matrix with whey-filled, interconnected pores and accounting for the effects of osmotic pressure induced moisture expulsion. The model provides an essential first step to fundamentally describing the mechanisms that control the uptake and transport of salt and moisture during the salting process of cheese making.