Positive effects of sequential air ventilation on cooked hard Graviera cheese ripening in an industrial ripening room

An industrial ripening room used for Graviera cheese ripening was equipped in order to compare Continuous Ventilation (CV: full time air circulation) and Temperature based Sequential Ventilation (TSV) processes. Under controlled temperature and Relative Humidity of the ripening room, three reference 30-day ripening trials performed in CV mode were compared to three similar trials performed in TSV mode. TSV was monitored between 2 temperature set points. When the lower one (16 °C) was reached, ventilation was stopped; when the higher one (16.8 °C) was reached, ventilation restarted. Power consumption, cheese mass loss and cheese quality were determined as comparison criteria. The use of TSV involved important reductions on ventilation time (48%), energy consumption (42%), cheese mass loss (0.9%) leading to a positive impact on the economy of the ripening process. Additionally, as shown by microbiological, physicochemical and sensory analyses, TSV neither had negative nor significant positive effects on cheese quality.