No abstract

Toughening of lamb carcasses from cold shortening can be prevented by electrical stimulation of dressed carcasses within 30 min of slaughter. An alternating waveform, of 1130 V, pulsed at 14.3pulses/s, 10 ms duration pulses, applied for 90 s represents optimal stimulation condition. Start of the freezing process should be delayed by about 1~h after stimulation (2 h post mortem) and the time to freeze the carcasses should not be shorter than 12 h if thaw shortening is also to be avoided.