Shear Properties and Warner‐bratzler Tenderness Measurement of Beef 1

Abstract

The shear properties of raw and cooked beef and their relationship with Warner‐Bratzler (WB) tenderness measurement were evaluated. Shear tests were performed on four muscles, biceps femoris (BF), longissimus dorsi (LD), semimembranosus (SM), and semitendinosus (ST), with three different aging treatments (0, 1, and 2 weeks), using a specially designed device and the WB shear device. Raw beef exhibited a nonlinear behavior characterized by linearity at small deformations, stress yield at intermediate deformations, and work hardening at large deformations. Cooked beef had a different nonlinear behavior with the slope of the force‐displacement curve increasing with displacement before the peak force. Cooking resulted in a large increase (p=0.01) in maximum shear force and strain energy. The effect of muscle type and aging on shear properties was mostly significant (p=0.05). The maximum shear force of cooked beef was correlated with WB measurement with the R2 value ranging from 0.65 to 0.34 for LD, SM, and BF except for ST with a R2 value of 0.10. Correlations of the shear properties of raw meat with WB measurement were low (R2<0.36), indicating the difficulty of predicting WB tenderness from the shear properties of raw meat.

The effect of breed, sex and aging time on tenderness of beef meat

“…Our study found the decrease of 40.79% of WBSF after 4 weeks of aging. Lu et al (1999) proved that aging for 2 weeks had a significant effect on WBSF in beef. The shear force decreased from 70.93 N after slaughter to 62.18 N in beef aged for 2 weeks.…”

“…Many authors conducted studies on beef tenderness (Koohmaraie 1994;Lu et al 1999;Oliete et al 2005;Lepetit 2008;Brewer et al 2008) indicating many variables that affect meat properties, including post-mortem aging. Meat aging is a process involving post-mortem proteolysis of myofibrillar proteins in muscles.…”