TY - JOUR AU - Chacón Villalobos, Alejandro PY - 2005/09/17 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Effect of aging, cooking and freezing on tenderness, yield and microbial counts of “solomo” (outside) meat cuts. JF - Agronomía Mesoamericana JA - Agron. Mesoam. VL - 16 IS - 2 SE - Articles DO - 10.15517/am.v16i2.11873 UR - https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/agromeso/article/view/11873 SP - 199-213 AB - <p>A total of 115 outside cuts with a medium weight of 2.9 kg</p><p>were used. Five samples were used for the estimation of the</p><p>internal variation of the cut force and 10 samples for chemical</p><p>composition evaluation. Eighty cuts were vacuum-packed and</p><p>then aged for seven days at 7 ºC. After aging, four subgroups</p><p>of 20 units were established. The first was frozen at -25 ºC for</p><p>a month. The second and the third subgroups were cooked by</p><p>immersion in hot water until the internal temperature reached</p><p>70 ºC. At the end of the cooking process, the third group was</p><p>frozen as described above. The fourth group only underwent</p><p>aging (seven days/7 °C). Twenty fresh cuts were used as a</p><p>control group. The “cut force” of the 100 treated cuts was</p><p>evaluated by the methods of the American Meat Science</p><p>Association. Microbiological quality and weight losses of</p><p>every treatment, and the pH values for fresh and aged cuts</p><p>were evaluated. Fresh cuts showed high variability in</p><p>tenderness, expressed as a function of the cut force estimated</p><p>in 7.45 kg/cm<span>2</span>, and exhibited slightly higher proportion of</p><p>connective tissue (2.9%). Outside fractions, both fresh and</p><p>aged, showed low pH values, but did not show statistically</p><p>significant differences among each other. Microbiological</p><p>evaluations showed that all treatments were sanitarily</p><p>executed. All treatments improved outside tenderness. The</p><p>treatments composed by cooking and by freezing showed the</p><p>least improvement. The best results were obtained under</p><p>aging during seven days at a temperature of 7 ºC.</p> ER -