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Modeling of pH and Moisture Content Distribution During Ripening of Camembert Cheese

Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org

Citation:  Paper number  056064,  2005 ASAE Annual Meeting . (doi: 10.13031/2013.19601) @2005
Authors:   Shaowei Liu, Virendra M. Puri
Keywords:   Modeling; pH; Finite element method; Moisture content ; ripening; Camembert cheese; L. monocytogenes

Listeria monocytogenes is a foodborne pathogen that can survive and grow during ripening of Camembert, a soft cheese. During the ripening phase, the pH and spatial moisture content continually change, which impacts the growth of L. monocytogenes. An experimental trend-based statistical model for pH using dimensionless time and pH as variables was developed to determine the evolution of pH. The pH model showed good agreement with the mean pH measured values, i.e., the pH model was able to capture the magnitudes and trends sufficiently. The R2 values for top surface, center, inner-outer side surface, and bottom surface regions mean measured and pH model-predicted values were 0.97, 0.95, 0.99, and 0.99, respectively. A finite element model (FEM) was developed for moisture content distribution during ripening of Camembert cheese. With the initial and boundary conditions, the MATLAB-based FEM was used to calculate the moisture content at six locations. The FEM showed good agreement with the mean moisture content measured values. The standard error of the predicted moisture content values ranged from 0.0001 to 0.01 g/g. The maximum absolute moisture content difference at six locations during ripening duration was 0.04 g/g. Together, the pH and moisture content models can be integrated with a dynamic predictive growth model to enable the prediction of survival and growth of L. monocytogenes during ripening of Camembert cheese.

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