This study investigated the effects of pressure level, holding time, and storage period on the physicochemical properties of chilled abalone. Pressure level and storage period had a significant effect on the qualities of abalone, while the impact of holding time was negligible compared to those of pressure level and storage period.
Pressurization at 400_ 500 MPa had the potential advantage to extend shelf-life of abalone to more than 15 days, while quality modifications were noticeably identified. Moderate pressurization (< 200 MPa) had no effect on the shelf-life of abalone. The optimal processing condition was 200 _ 300 MPa at which the shelf-life of abalone could be extended to around 10 days with minimizing quality modification. Although, the mechanisms involved in shelf life extension and quality modification of pressurized abalone were not fully understood, the present study demonstrated the potential application of high pressure in the abalone industry.Keywords: abalone, high pressure, surface response methodology, physicochemical, shelf-life
IntroductionAbalone has a long history as a major marine source of consumption in East Asia. In recent years, abalone has become a highly valuable sea product worldwide due to its nutritional advantages. Despite the limited harvest of wild abalone, explosive consumer demand triggered abalone production via farming. It was generally reported that abalone has high lethality and mortality, and the shelf life of chilled abalone muscle is very limited (~3 days), which accounted for the majority of economic damage to abalone farming (Chiou et al., 2002;Braid et al., 2005;Jo et al., 2014). Although, freezing or drying techniques have been adopted to extend the shelf life of abalone, these products manifested quality modifications against chilled products. Strategies regarding how to extend the shelf life of abalone under chilled condition are necessary.Traditionally, freezing and drying have been adopted to preserve abalone for long-term storage. However, these processes also caused textural modifications, which were seen by consumers as lowering product quality. To extend the shelf life of abalone under chilled state, therefore, application of high pressure processing has been recommended. Briones et al. (2010) reported that pressurized abalone at 500 _ 550 MPa extended the shelf life of abalone to longer than 65 days. However, the authors also observed the quality modifications of abalone after high pressure processing (Briones-Lebarca et al., 2012).Based on our previous study (Jo et al., 2014), more than 300 MPa (3 min holding time) was required to achieve the pasteurization effect of chilled abalone, and the shelf-life of abalone could be extended for 10 days via 300 MPa pressurization.Still, protein denaturation was also found the pressurized abalone at higher than 300 MPa. Actually, increasing holding time is an alternate parameter contributing to the shelf-life of abalone in high pressure processing, although the impact of holding time on the shelf life of abalone wa...