Search

Context. Heating of meat leads to structural changes reflected in the juiciness and the tenderness of the cooked meat. Aims. This study aimed to characterise the effect of prolonged ageing and cooking on pork-quality traits. Methods. Longissimus lumborum samples from 12 carcasses were aged 3 days (conventional ageing) or 15 days (prolonged ageing) and pork cuboids were cooked at 50–80°C for 30 min. Cooking loss, total water content (TWC), Warner–Bratzler shear force (WBSF) and shrinkage (longitudinal, transverse and estimated volume) of the pork loin cuboids were measured. Key results. Prolonged ageing for 15 days reduced the WBSF of samples cooked at 50°C, and the cooking loss for samples cooked at 70°Cand 80°C, relative to conventional ageing for 3 days. The WBSF of pork aged for 15 days was not different from that of pork aged for 3 days. Prolonged ageing reduced longitudinal shrinkage of cuboids, but TWC and transverse/ volume shrinkage of cuboids were not affected by ageing. The diameter of cooked muscle fibre fragments was smaller in pork subjected to prolonged ageing. Conclusions. Prolonged ageing was favourable for minimising cooking loss at higher cooking temperatures but was only favourable for tenderness at the lowest cooking temperature . Low pH of the samples is likely to have caused the lack of tenderisation with ageing.

This study aimed to quantify the effect of muscle, ageing and cooking temperature on the texture, cooking loss and shrinkage of cooked beef. Cuboids from unaged (1 day post mortem) and aged (14 days post mortem) semitendinosus, biceps femoris and psoas major muscles, from both sides of five beef carcasses, were cooked at four different cooking temperatures (50, 60, 70 and 80 °C) for 30 min. and their Warner–Bratzler shear force (WBSF), cooking loss and shrinkage (longitudinal and transverse) were quantified. The WBSF was reduced by ageing in the muscles at the specific cooking temperatures: psoas major (cooked at 50, 60 and 80 °C), semitendinosus (70 and 80 °C) and biceps femoris (80 °C). The cooking loss was 3% greater in aged compared to unaged muscles. The longitudinal shrinkage was greatest in psoas major at 80 °C amongst the muscle types and it was reduced by ageing in psoas major (70 and 80 °C) and biceps femoris (80 °C). The transverse shrinkage was reduced by ageing only in biceps femoris, across all temperatures; and the diameter of homogenized fibre fragments from semitendinosus and biceps femoris was reduced more by cooking at 50 °C in unaged compared to aged condition. WBSF was related to transverse shrinkage, and cooking loss was related to longitudinal shrinkage. The effect of muscle type on the physical changes occurring during cooking of beef is dependent on ageing and cooking temperature.