EFFECT OF FREEZING METHOD ON PHYSICOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF BEEF MEAT

摘要

The aim of this study was to compare the effect of different freezing systems (commercial and domestic) on the physicochemical quality of beef pieces of different size. Firstly, the time required for freezing and thawing beef pieces of different size for three different freezing systems (a blast chiller, a quick freezing chamber and a domestic freezer) was determined. As a second aim of this work, instrumental measurements of quality of thawed sample (pH, colour, water-holding capacity and texture) were made to compare the effect of each freezing method. Freezing and thawing curves for the four pieces of different size tested followed a similar pattern in the three freezing systems. On the other hand, it was found than commercial systems froze faster than the domestic one. It was noted that lower values of draw losses (DWL) involved higher values of cooking losses (CL); considering the sum of these two losses (DWL+CL), the highest losses were observed with the domestic freezer. The draw and cooking losses did no differ much between the samples of different size, although the lowest values were observed with the smaller ones. Texture analyses showed that there was an inverse relationship between DWL+CL and shear force or hardness.