A great challenge in producing a good cured ham is to reduce the variability of the salt content between pieces of ham and to obtain homogeneity in terms of flavour and quality in general. This reduction in variability would imply a reduction in salt content, a recommendation of the World Health Organisation (WHO, 2007). This work focuses on the salting process of boneless Cerretan hams and our aim is two-fold: 1) to build a mathematical model that enables —through predictions— the reduction of the variability of salt between pieces, and 2) to determine an ‘appropriate’ salting time for each ham. We propose a novel strategy within the ham industry to determine appropriate hams extraction time from the salting pile and we postulate that it is statistically and practically advantageous to the habitual hams extraction strategy (removal based on fat and weight classification and all at the same time). We build a non-linear mixed (NLM) model that, according to the final salt uptake target of 1.7%, would allow to decide each ham extraction time depending on the initial weight and fat, plus the weight decrease on day one. This model has to be applicable in industrial production, albeit in an approximate form. To account better for the salting-time estimated uncertainty, we run a nonparametric bootstrap. A further aim is to extrapolate the use of the NLM modelling methodology and proposed novel extraction strategy to other boneless hams industrial production systems in Europe.

Peer Reviewed