Processing Properties of Pork as Affected by Electrical Stimulation, Post‐Slaughter Chilling and Muscle Group

Abstract

Left sides of 30 slaughtered pigs were electrically stimulated (ES); right aides were not stimulated (NES). Sides were placed in a conventional cooler (24 hr) or blast freezer (3 hr) or showered with a brine solution (15.8% salt, -5.6"C for 3 hr). Twenty-four hr postmortem, picnic shoulders were removed, dissected into four muscle groups and determinations made for certain processing properties. ES decreased (P < 0.05) pH values for predominantly white muscles, increased (P < 0.05) juice loss during cooking for shank muscles and decreased (P < 0.05) percentages of salt-soluble protein (SSP) for both predominantly red and shank muscles. Other muscle properties were not affected by ES. Rapid initial chilling did not affect (P > 0.05) processing properties of muscle groups.

Assay and Storage Conditions Affect Yield of Salt Soluble Protein from Muscle

“…Based on these results, we concluded that the best combination of assay conditions for extraction of salt soluble protein of beef and pork muscle included pH 6.0, extraction volume 15 X sample weight, centrifugation force 4000 x g and homogenization time 90-120 set (Table 5). Using this combination of assay conditions resulted in higher yields of SSP from pork LD and beef LD and SM muscles than most previous studies including some using chicken (Saffle and Galbreath, 1964;Hudspeth and May, 1967;Maurer et al, 1969;Acton, 1972a,b;Anderson and Gillett, 1974;Swasdee et al, 1983;Turgut, 1984) except those with buffers containing phosphate (Bernthal et al, 1991).…”