Very fast chilling modifies the structure of muscle fibres in hot-boned beef loin

Effect of Carcass Chilling on the Palatability Traits and Safety of Fresh Red Meat

“…However, Sikes et al. () found no difference in the degradation of major proteins caused by fast chilling, and Steen, Claeys, and Demeyer () found higher proteolytic activity did not overcome the toughening effect of the cold shortening.…”

“…As listed in Table , most of the studies that have applied fast chilling on excised beef muscles (F1 to F17), found higher WBSF or lower sensory tenderness in fast chilled meat. There have been some exceptions, for example, Sikes, Jacob, D'Arcy, and Warner () found that the shear force of pre‐rigor loins chilled at –20 °C, or initially held at 15 °C and then chilled at –20 °C, achieving a temperature of –1.5 °C within 5 hr, were not different from samples chilled under conventional conditions (Table , F1 and F2). Pinto Neto, Beraquet, and Cardoso () found that the WBSF of loins aged for 2 days and chilled at 0 °C for 2 hr (Table , F4) was similar to the control, and there was no effect on the sensory tenderness for samples aged for 2, 7, or 14 days.…”

“…It is worth noting that two studies found very tender meat after the muscles were fast chilled by dropping the temperature to –1.5 °C within 5 hr postmortem (Sikes et al., ) or to –1.6 °C at 1.5 hr postmortem (Jacob et al., ). The latter study found that the pH increased 0.29 of a unit for fast chilling muscles from 0.5 to 1.5 hr postmortem and then decreased faster than under control chilling (Jacob et al., ).…”

“…Severe shortening (such as typical cold shortening, where the sarcomere length was reduced almost 50% of the original length) was only found in one of three tested animals in one study (Van Moeseke et al., ). Physical restraint either by the outer layer of the frozen crust or the external force of package wrapping likely explains the reduction in shortening of fast chilled meat (Joseph, ; Sikes et al., ), which benefits tenderness improvement. The study of Jacob et al.…”

“…Sikes et al. () found that although the sarcomere length was not affected by fast chilling, the sarcomeres were mis‐aligned and the banding pattern was less regular compared with conventionally chilled samples. Also the particle size of fragmented myofibrils was smaller in the fast chilled samples, which indicated that the physical damage caused by the fast chilling had potential to result in less tough meat. 4)Others.…”