# Investigation of Salt and Water Diffusion During Dry Salting, Wet Curing, and Ultrasonic Wet Curing
## 3 Results and Discussion
### Determination of Water Content  
The water content results are shown in Figure 3.  
For the water content, the effect of both factors was also confirmed (for curing method F(2;42) = 13.451; \(p\) < 0.001, for curing duration F(6;42) = 11.957; \(p\) < 0.001), and then the separability of the groups was examined with post hoc Tukey tests. The Tukey test could only separate dry salting from the other two procedures. According to the Tukey test, there was no significant difference between wet curing with or without ultrasound treatment ((W(41) = 0.616; \(p\) = 0.296)), see Table 2. According to the present study, the water content of the samples treated with ultrasound was higher than that of the samples without ultrasound, but this difference was not significant. However, others ([PERSON] et al., 2018) [20] managed to demonstrate a significantly favorable effect of ultrasound on yield.  
Figure 2: Average salt content and its standard deviation during curing with the results of the Tukey test. Treatments: DS: dry salting, WP: wet curing, US: wet curing + ultrasound. A, B, C: separable processes. a, b, c, d, e, f: separable treatment times. Significance: for treatment F(2;42) = 34.252; \(p\) < 0.001, for time: F(6;42) = 72.368; \(p\) < 0.001.  
Therefore, the expected value of the moisture content was different in the case of dry and wet curing, but the significance of the ultrasonic treatment could not be confirmed on the sample size examined. The change in the moisture content was examined over time using regression. The linear regression was not significant (F(1;5) = 6.541; \(p\) = 0.51); so, we fitted a saturation curve (water difference-A \(\times\) (1 - EXP(-B \(\times\) Time))) (see Figure 4). The equation of the saturation function is  
\[4.579*\left(1-e^{-\frac{T_{\text{DW}}}{4\pi\rho}}\right). \tag{8}\]  
During the application of both wet curing methods, the excess moisture content of the cylindrical long loin meat sample with a length of 80 mm and a diameter of \(\mathcal{O}\)15 mm approached +4.58 m/m% along the saturation curve.  
The ANOVA model of the regression was significant (F(2;5) = 78.706; \(p\) < 0.001; R\({}^{2}\) = 0.796; RMSE = 0.5977) Among the parameters of the model, A = 4.579; \(p\) < 0.001 was significant, but B = 0.021; \(p\) = 0.066 was not. The saturation model is therefore suitable for estimating the excess moisture achieved during wet processes, but it cannot adequately predict the rate of change. When calculating the economic efficiency of curing processes, it is therefore worth considering that, in the case of wet curing, with the same curing times, an approximately 4.58% yield increase can be achieved than in the case of dry curing. This is disadvantageous for cured-dried hams since this extra water must also be evaporated later. However, in the case of heat-treated products, it can increase the yield of the finished product.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c} \hline
**Treatment** & **Average Water Content [m/m\%] and Tukey Group \({}^{*}\)** \\ \hline Dry salting & 0.582 A \\ Wet curing & 0.610 B \\ Wet curing + ultrasound & 0.622 B \\ \hline \end{tabular} \({}^{*}\)Possible Tukey groups: A: dry salting, B: the other two wet curing methods.  
\end{table}
Table 2: Results of post hoc Tukey test for water content.  
Figure 3: Average water content and its standard deviation during curing with the results of the Tukey test. Treatments: DS: dry salting, WP: wet curing, US: wet curing + ultrasound. A, B: separable processes. a, b, c, d: separable treatment times. Significance: for treatment F(2;42) = 13.451; \(p\) < 0.001, for time F(6;42) = 11.957; \(p\) < 0.001.