83 Tenderness and cooking loss of beef loins

摘要

The focus of this study involved measuring two variables of meat quality: tenderness and cooking loss. Experiments were conducted on a premium cut of meat – the loin. The loin contains the Longissimus muscle, with pieces of the Iliocostalis and Spinalis dorsi muscles. The Longissimus muscle was cored for tenderness. Two sources of loins were evaluated: Akaushi breed, and from a commercial grocery store. Meat used consisted of Akaushi loins from 6 different animals (prime grade) and one select grade loin (control). The protocol involved dividing each loin into 6 (907-1134g) roasts, cooking at 104.40 C (to internal temperature of 73.90 C), measuring by weight the cooking loss of the roasts after a 30-minute resting period, and determining tenderness by Warner-Bratzler Shear Force (WBSF) (after overnight storage in a cooler). Cores were taken at 6 different locations of the roast, over the same regional area for WBSF determinations. The WBSF coring instrument used was provided. Tenderness of each loin was measured in 36 cores (n = 36). In overall tenderness, the control loin ranked third out of the seven loins and had the least amount of cooking loss. No differences were found in tenderness (P > 0.05). However, a difference was found in average cooking loss 181.44g ± 0.03 (control); 254.01g ± 0.03 (Akaushi) (P < 0.05). When observing tenderness consistency, the control loin had a somewhat larger standard deviation (1.38 vs 0.756) than the Akaushi loins.Loins used in this study showed variation in cooking loss, tenderness, and consistency between a commercial grocery store source and the Akaushi beef source. These data indicates that quality attributes of beef loins used in this study may be different in ways not related to grade.