Investigation of the Milkfish (Chanos Chanos sp) Freshness by Infra-Red Spectroscopy

Abstract

The milkfish (Chanos Chanos sp) is one of the flagship products of Banten Province, Indonesia. As the export potential product, the freshness is needed to control its quality. In this study, we investigated the freshness of the fish by combining infra-red spectroscopy. The milkfish was taken directly from the fishpond was used as the experimental samples and varied in different condition: (1) complete fish body; (2) head and gills removed; (3) and fresh fillet. The samples were measured for 48 hours that recorded every 2 hours. It was seen that the spectroscopy can give us information about postmortem products such as pre-rigor and rigor mortis phases. The first and second samples showed that the freshness was decreased exponentially as a function of time under 14 hours of death in the rigor mortis phase. In contrary, the last one which prepared in fillet decreased linearly. The fishes that prepared with fillet have a high durability compared to the others. Our results demonstrated that the combined system of infra-red spectroscopy can conveniently and nondestructively evaluate the freshness of milkfish.