Effects of Aging Period Prior to Freezing on Meat Quality of Hanwoo Muscle (Longissimus dorsi)

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the aging period prior to freezing on the meat quality of Hanwoo longissimus dorsi (LD) muscle. Three different combinations of aging and freezing periods (0/90, 20/70, and 40/50) were examined using LD muscle at 24 h postmortem under an identical storage time of 90 d. The pH and lightness slightly increased with increasing aging period. However, there were no significant (p>0.05) differences in redness and yellowness. The solitary freezing treatment (0/90) had the significantly (p<0.05) lowest moisture content. The un-aged treatment had a significantly (p<0.05) higher total loss than the aged treatments due to an increase in thaw drip loss. The aging significantly improved the myofibrillar fragmentation index and shear force of Hanwoo LD muscle (p<0.05). In addition, the aged treatments produced a higher flavor, tenderness, juiciness, and overall acceptability relative to un-aged treatment. However, there was no significant (p>0.05) difference in shear force and sensorial properties between 20 and 40 d aging prior to freezing. Therefore, 20 d aging prior to freezing may be a sufficiently effective strategy to improve the tenderness and sensorial properties of Hanwoo LD muscle

Effects of aging and freezing/thawing sequence on quality attributes of bovine Mm. gluteus medius and biceps femoris

“…The aged first then-frozen/thawed beef samples (A3F2) had the numerically lowest purge loss among other frozen/thawed beef samples. Previous studies have suggested that aging prior to freezing could improve WHC of frozen/thawed meat, particularly thaw loss [2,3,16,17]. Farouk et al [16] explained this phenomenon as “sponge effect” that aging prior to freezing decreased purge/thaw loss of meat samples through the structural disintegration by proteolysis and subsequent disruption of drip channel, which, in turn, entraps the free water in muscle tissue.…”

Effect of beef long‐storage under different temperatures and vacuum‐packaging conditions on meat quality, oxidation processes and microbial growth

“…However, it is important to highlight that both CHF and CH meat were scored positively (at least ‘like slightly’). It has been reported that ageing prior to freezing may be an effective procedure to improve beef tenderness and sensorial properties 40,42 . The flavor of VPAM + CH treatment was the least preferred by consumers.…”

“…It has been reported that ageing prior to freezing may be an effective procedure to improve beef tenderness and sensorial properties. 40,42 The flavor of VPAM + CH treatment was the least preferred by consumers. We hypothesized that meat stored for 120 d under CH condition and packaged with VPAM bags that had greater OTR and MVTR would promote the slight appearance of some off flavors having a small negative impact on consumers' preferences.…”