The Effects of Enhancement Strategies of Beef Flanks on Composition and Consumer Palatability Characteristics

Abstract

Beef rectus abdominis muscles (n = 100; 20/treatment) were assigned randomly to 1 of 5 treatments: untreated control (Control, No Treatment; CNT), vacuum tumbled control without marinade (Tumbled Control, No Treatment; TCNT), vacuum tumbled with marinade (TUMB), injected with marinade (INJ), and injected with marinade plus vacuum tumbled (IPT) to determine how enhancement techniques influence consumer palatability. After processing, flank samples were cooked (72°C), cut into 1.3-cm strips, and served as fajita strips for consumer evaluation (n = 200). Treatment influenced (P < 0.01) the rating and acceptability of all palatability traits, overall liking, and willingness to pay (WTP). Consumers scored IPT and INJ more tender compared to all other treatments (P < 0.05). Samples processed using IPT and INJ were juicier (P < 0.05) than all other treatments, except INJ and TUMB were similar (P > 0.05). Samples processed using TUMB and INJ were similar (P > 0.05) for flavor and WTP, and INJ, IPT, and TUMB samples were similar (P > 0.05) for overall liking. Thus, consumers were willing to pay more for IPT than TUMB (P < 0.05). Consumers scored CNT and TCNT lower for all palatability traits which resulted in lower WTP (P < 0.05). Inclusion of a marinade improved the eating quality of samples compared to CNT and TCNT. The delivery method of the brine solution was less important to palatability as the presence of a marinade, as IPT, INJ, and TUMB were all similar (P > 0.05) for overall liking. Injection plus tumbling improved tenderness, juiciness, and flavor liking scores over tumbling alone, but not over injection alone. Injection influenced consumer tenderness more than tumbling, but tumbling had greater effects on cooked moisture than injection. While IPT did not surpass either TUMB or INJ in all sensory categories, IPT does excel when considering moisture retention along with palatability.

Can Tumbling without Brine Improve Tenderness and Proteolysis of Beef Loin Muscles?

“…It could be postulated that tumbling would result in larger gaps between cooked muscle fibers, resulting in more cooking loss (Pearce et al, 2011). Morrow et al (2019) found cooking loss of beef rectus abdominus muscles tumbled without brine to be higher relative to the nontumbled control, in agreement with the findings in the present study. However, despite increased cooking loss, moisture content of both the raw and cooked products were equivalent, and consumer juiciness scores between tumbled without brine and control muscles were comparable (Morrow et al, 2019).…”

“…However, it is poorly understood how quality of fresh beef would be affected through the application of tumbling without the use of a brine solution. Recently, Morrow et al (2019) observed no positive effect of tumbling without brine on tenderization of beef rectus abdominus muscles. However, beef tenderization is known to be muscle-specific (Juárez et al, 2010;Kim et al, 2018b;Nair et al, 2019), and the flank muscle is often described as tougher than the loin owing to larger muscle fibers and higher amount of connective tissue (Jeremiah et al, 2003;Couvreur et al, 2019).…”

Exploring Consumer Palatability of Australian Beef Fajita Meat Enhanced with Phosphate or Sodium Bicarbonate

“…Enhancement can increase muscle pH and decrease free water, increasing moisture retention [5,24]. Morrow et al [10] found that enhanced flank steaks had a greater cooked moisture percentage than non-enhanced samples, and consumers scored those enhanced samples as juicier. Flavor liking and overall liking increased in the current study due to enhancement, again aligning with previous results [5,6,24].…”

“…Nonetheless, saltiness did not appear to be overwhelming or detrimental in the current results, as flavor liking improved with enhancement. Likewise, Morrow et al [10] had consumers score flank steaks for saltiness using "Just about right" scales, where 50 was "Just about right". Their brine solution had a similar salt concentration as the current study.…”

“…Beef fajitas are commonly found on menus of Mexican restaurants in the US and utilize muscles, such as the inside or outside skirt steak or the flank steak, combined with marinade or seasoning. Huerta-Montauti et al [9] investigated processing techniques of several muscles for thin meat alternatives, including the outside and inside skirt steaks for fajitas, but limited research has been done exploring the use of enhancement on flank steaks [10] or other muscles from the round or sirloin.…”