Drying and smoking of meat: heat and mass transfer modeling and experimental analysis

There has been recent interest in developing hot smoking kilns avoiding benzo(a)pyrene deposition on meat. An experimental kiln limiting this deposition phenomenon has been designed, built and tested. This kiln is used to dry, smoke and cook pork meat in order to obtain boucané, a traditional smoked product from La Réunion Island. Smoking is performed by using cooled pyrolysis smoke, while heating is obtained by means of radiant metal plates heated by combustion smoke. The dimensioning of the drying-cooking chamber has been performed by developing and solving a dynamic model that takes into account the heat and mass transfer phenomena on a local scale. This paper is mainly devoted to the presentation of this model and to the comparison of the first experimental results-concerning temperature variations in the chamber, and the product temperature and mass loss-to numerical simulation results. Some results obtained from dynamic simulations are discussed. The relative influences of the system dimensions, of the radiative transfers and of the drying phenomena on the performances of the system are discussed.