Abstract:To elucidate the requirements of different cooked foods for specific cooling conditions，with the help of a composite vacuum cooler，cooked pork was cooled with cold air，vacuum，mixed use of cold air and vacuum，or vacuum cooling with an ultrasonic water supplement.An optimal cooling method was selected based on cooling rate，weight loss rate，and total energy consumption.Vacuum cooling of cooked pork was better than cold air cooling in terms of cooling rate and energy consumption，but the weight loss rate was higher than that of cold air cooling.Neither single cooling method was found to be optimal.The mixed cold air and vacuum cooling method was best for cooling cooked pork to a final temperature of 65℃，but the ultrasonic water-filled vacuum cooling method was obviously better for cooked pork than mixed cold air and vacuum in terms of maximizing cooling rate and minimizing weight loss rate after cooling.Energy consumption by these two methods was similar.Therefore，the use of ultrasonic water-filled vacuum cooling for cooked pork is the optimal cooling process.These experiments demonstrate that the designed composite vacuum cooler can meet requirements for different cooling conditions for cooked pork，providing a reference for future studies of cooling of cooked pork.