The holes could be
cavities on a fat or soot layer. Fig. 3d to g shows the physical
structure of external (3.d, 3.f) and internal (3.e, 3.g) depths of slices
of 5-day-smoked chorizo stuffed in natural (3.d, 3.e) and synthetic
(3.f, 3.g) casings.As these figures show, after 5 days of smoking the
smoked chorizo mass has become a more homogeneous and
compact material, with no cavities, the opposite to what is
observed in Fig. 3a and b. The internal depth of ChN (3.e) and ChS
(3.g) is smoother and less irregular than the unsmoked raw mass
(3.a and 3.b).During smoking, thewater content in chorizo probably
starts to flow up from the internal depth of the product across the
large cavities present in the raw material