ABSTRACT
Tasajo is a traditional Cuban intermediate moisture product made from beef sheets that are soaked in brine, drained, rubbed in salt, and layered with salt in vats for several days, washed, and sun-dried. Tasajo is stored under normal atmospheric conditions and finally is desalted and minced before its consumption. This chapter analyses the salting step during Tasajo making. It aims to compare the traditional salting method with brine salting working at atmospheric pressure and with the initial application of a vacuum pulse. Fresh beef semitendinosus Muscle was used in two sets of experiments, and the brine salting process was accomplished under stirring conditions. Weight changes during meat salting can be attributed to three main fluxes: water outflow, meat-soluble solids outflow, and NaCl gain. The traditional salting operation was characterized by using whole sheets and meat pieces. Salting kinetics could be related with two main phenomena: weight changes and liquid phase NaCl concentration.
