SUMMARYAttempts to relate mechanical measures of raw meat tenderness to cooked meat tenderness have generally been unsuccessful. Therefore, a study was designed to evaluate the use of a simple penetration test to predict cooked meat tenderness from the force required to penetrate the raw meat sample. An Allo‐Kramer Shear Press was modified to function as a penetrometer by replacing the Standard Shear‐Compression cell and shearing blades with a plate containing 5 needles. The needles were made from 1/8‐in.‐diameter drill rod and were semiblunt, having 0.007‐in.‐diameter land and 0.472/1.0‐in.‐taper. Using slices from the longissimus dorsi muscle of pork, various factors of the time‐force curve were analyzed to determine which would give the best indication of tenderness. It was found that the maximum force value gave the best results. Regression analysis showed correlations significant at the 1 level between the force necessary to penetrate the raw sample versus both force necessary to penetrate the cooked sample and trained technological
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