Effects of temperature and immersion time on diffusion of moisture and minerals during rehydration of osmotically treated pork meat cubes

The aim of this work was to study the changes in osmotically treated pork meat during rehydration. Meat samples were osmotically treated in sugar beet molasses solution, at temperature of 23 +/- 2 degrees C for 5 h. After being osmotically treated, meat samples were rehydrated at constant temperature (20-40 degrees C) during different times (15-60 min) in distilled water. The effective diffusivity (m(2).s(-1)) were between 8.35x10(-10) and 9.11x10(-10) for moisture, 6.30x10(-10)-6.94x10(-10) for Na, 5.73x10(-10)-7.46x10(-10) for K, 4.43x10(-10)-6.25x10(-10) for Ca, 5.35x10(-10)-6.25x10(-10) for Mg, 4.67x10(-10)-6.78x10(-10) for Cu, 4.68x10(-10)-5.33x10(-10) for Fe, 4.21x10(-10)-5.04x10(-10) for Zn and 5.44x10(-10)-7.16x10(-10) for Mn. Zugarramurdi and Lupin's model was used to predict the equilibrium condition, which was shown to be appropriate for moisture uptake and solute loss during rehydration.