The sequential ventilation of cheese ripening rooms: an eco-design approach?
2011
Mirade, Pierre-Sylvain | Perret, Bruno | Guillemin, Herve | Picque, Daniel | Callon, Cecile | Montel, Marie-Christine | Corrieu, Georges
The main objective of the present work was to assess the effects of sequential air ventilation on: (i) the working conditions of an industrial large-scale ripening room used for PDO Saint-Nectaire cheese ripening, (ii) the reduction of electrical energy consumption, (iii) the evolution of cheese ripening dynamics and final quality. Six ripening trials were performed: 2 with continuous ventilation (reference conditions), 2 with time-based sequential ventilation, and 2 with temperature-based sequential ventilation.The main findings are as follows: Cheese ripening caused substantial respiratory activity. This activity was not significantly affected by either continuous or sequential room ventilation procedure. Air renewal and door opening were identified as the two major factors acting on the amount of CO2 and O2 measured in the room. In the conditions of this study, mean economy on electrical energy consumption when adopting temperature-based sequential ventilation with a temperature variation range close to 0.7°C reached 125 kWh per day and corresponded to a 0.42% increase in ripening room productivity. Finally, sequential ventilation had no significant effect on ultimate cheese quality: focusing on ripening microbial flora, the main biological characteristics of the cheese, and sensory descriptors, there was little evolution versus ripening time compared to continuous ventilation.
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