ABSTRACT
Immersion chilling or freezing involves immersing food items in a refrigerated liquid or spraying food items with a refrigerated liquid. As compared to air chilling or freezing, direct immersion of food items into a refrigerated liquid results in more rapid cooling or freezing due to the considerably higher heat transfer coefžcients that can be achieved during immersion chilling or freezing. For example, the core temperature of an 8-kg block of cooked meat will decrease from 74°C to 10°C in approximately 500 minutes during air-blast cooling with an air velocity of 3 m s−1.
