COMPARISON OF COOLING OF

COOKED VEGETABLES BETWEEN

VACUUM COOLING AND TRADITIONAL
COOLING METHODS
Zhihang Zhang, Da-Wen Sun
FRCFT, Department of Biosystems Engineering,
University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 2,
Ireland
PRINCIPLE OF VACUUM COOLING

• Pressure & Boiling point

• Tfood > Tvacuum → Boil/flash off
• Evaporation → Latent heat
• Removal of latent heat causes reduction of food
temperature
TYPICAL VACUUM COOLING CYCLE

101.325 kPa

Flash point
31.16 kPa

10oC 70oC 100oC

VACUUM COOLING SYSTEM

Condensing
system

Vacuum Vacuum
pumping system chamber
CONDITIONS FOR VACUUM COOLING
 Enough moisture
 Large evaporation surface
 High specific surface area
 High porosity & open pores
APPLICATION OF VACUUM COOLING IN THE
FOOD INDUSTRY

 Agricultural products (e.g. lettuce, mushroom,

pepper, cabbage)
 Bakery products (e.g. bread, biscuit)

 Seafood (e.g. whiting)

 Meat & meat product (e.g. ham, smoked pork,

sausage)
 Other foods (high fat cream)
ADVANTAGE OF VACUUM COOLING
 High cooling efficiency
 Homogeneous/similar temperature distribution

 Not depend so much on food size as conventional

cooling times
 Easy to strictly control the final temperature
DISADVANTAGE OF VACUUM COOLING
 High investment costs
 High mass loss of vacuum cooled product

 Limited range of product that can be cooled

 Impact to qualities of the cooled product

OBJECTIVES
 Compare cooling efficiencies of vacuum cooling
and conventional cooling method (air blast
cooling, cold room cooling and plate cooling)
 Evaluate the impact of vacuum cooling to the
qualities of the chilled foods
MATERIAL AND PROCESSING METHODS
 Carrot Vacuum cooling
(With water spray)

Blast cooling
(3oC,1.92 m/s)

Cold room cooling

(2.5oC)

 Broccoli Cooked Plate cooling (-

food 7.5oC)
TEMPERATURE PROFILES OF CARROT
SLICES DURING COOLING
COOLING TIME
Carrot (min) Broccoli (min)
Vacuum cooling 12.1 7.8
Blast cooling 43.6 44.1
Cold room cooling 212.4 192.8
Plate cooling 243.6 215.5
MASS LOSS IN COOLING
Carrot (%) Broccoli (%)
Vacuum cooling 2.48 7.76
Blast cooling 8.13 8.46
Cold room cooling 6.85 6.92
Plate cooling 4.68 5.42
QUALITIES OF THE CHILLED BROCCOLI
Vacuum Blast Cold room Plate
cooling cooling cooling cooling
Texture (N) 523.8 544.6 520.5 511.4
(L) 30.44 28.73 29.91 43.26
Colour
(a) -7.65 -7.02 -7.05 -6.81
TVC (cfu/g) <10 <10 <10 <10
Drip loss (%) 28.14 21.92 22.18 16.4
Moisture 90.70 91.39 90.91 90.12
content (%)
Carotene 6.40 5.87 5.60 5.67
(mg/100g)
Vitamin C 322.7 410.1 310.1 370.1
(mg/g)
QUALITIES OF THE CHILLED CARROT
Vacuum Blast Cold room Plate
cooling cooling cooling cooling
Texture (N) 509.3 511.0 568.1 522.2
(L) 43.96 45.03 43.23 44.62
Colour (a) 23.89 22.52 23.12 23.12
(b) 25.41 25.88 24.89 25.35
TVC (cfu/g) <10 <10 <10 <10
Drip loss (%) 16.82 16.30 12.94 16.33
Moisture 91.30 91.40 91.78 91.57
content (%)
Carotene 0.99 0.98 0.91 0.84
(mg/100g)
CONCLUSION
 Much shorter cooling time for vacuum cooling
 Water spray can reduce mass loss in vacuum
cooling
 Vacuum cooling with water spray give similar
qualities to the chilled vegetables as the
conventional cooling methods
THANKS