ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a mathematical model, which was used to describe a vacuum cooling system, and mass and heat transfer in food products under vacuum. Vacuum cooling, like vapor-compression refrigeration, is based on liquid evaporation to produce cooling effect. The difference between vacuum cooling and conventional refrigeration methods is that for the vacuum cooling the cooling effect is achieved by evaporating some water from a product directly rather than by blowing cold air or other cold medium over the product. Vacuum cooling has been investigated as an effective cooling method for cooked meats as typical conventional cooling methods cannot achieve a rapid cooling for cooked meats. The operating parameters of a vacuum cooler mainly including chamber free volume, pumping speed of vacuum pumps, condenser temperature also affect the performance of the vacuum cooler. The vacuum chamber is the place where a food product is kept during cooling.
