The filled sausages were then hung vertically on metal rods, set on the cart and transferred to an air-conditioned chamber for ripening and drying. Temperature and relative humidity (RH) conditions in the air-conditioned chamber during ripening and drying were set as follows: 22 C/95%, 20 C/90%, 18 C/85%, 18 C/82%, and 17 C/78% on 1st day to 5th day, respectively, and 14e15 C/72% from the 6th to 40th day. At the end of the ripening/drying (40 days), the samples were collected and 5 sausages from each treatment were randomly selected, placed in plastic bags, sealed and assigned to the 1 (sampling day), 15 and 30 days storage groups.