intensity settings. It is possible that a threshold was reached at the lowest
power setting or the energy was dissipated in the large liquid volume.
Furthermore, US treatment did not have any significant effect on
the quality or sensory attributes of the product. The enhanced mass
transfer with no effect on quality attributes suggests that US is a surface
phenomenon, most active at the saline interface. Therefore, further optimisation
of processing conditions could be possible by increasing the
surface area of the meat samples. This study focused on proving the
mechanism and assessing the effect of ultrasonic curing on meat quality.
It has been shown that US can accelerate the migration of NaCl into the
meat matrix and therefore, the technology has potential for industrial
application. Nonetheless, energy and cost analysis is required. It is recommended
that the next step is to implement power US into real industrial
processes and perform optimisation, cost analysis and comparisons
to conventional techniques.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the Department of Agriculture, Food and
the Marine for their funding through the Food Institutional Research
Measure