Effect of sequential ventilation on cheese ripening and energy consumption in pilot ripening rooms

The aim of this work was to enable improvements in cheese maturation through control of airflow and climatic conditions in ripening rooms, and the minimisation of energy consumption using sequential ventilation. Sensors and advanced software were installed to monitor and control pilot scale ripening chambers of 12.3 and 4.2 m3. Techniques in computational fluid dynamics were used to improve the ventilation uniformity and level around the cheeses. The initial chamber (12.3 m3) was modified by reducing the room length from 3.2 to 1.1 m by changing the location of the wall in front of the cheese stack, altering the location of the two fans and varying their flow rate from 160 to 250 m3 h−1. Sequential ventilation (1/3 of ripening time) did not significantly affect the respiratory activities, microbiological, physico-chemical or sensory characteristics of ripened, pressed, non-cooked cheeses, but it did lead to a reduction in energy consumption of approximately 18%.