5. Dry sausage development during drying

5.1 Water content, Aw

For dry sausages, total water loss for a product with 20% fat content (fresh state) is around 40%. Thus, the A _w (core or surface), takes on the following values:

• fresh (embossing): 0.95 to 0.97 ;

• parboiled: 0.92 to 0.94 ;

• refined: 0.87 to 0.90.

For ham, weight losses on drying are of the order of 30 to 33%; for A _w , the following values can be given:

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