Browsing by Author "Vainio, Matias"

The literature review of this thesis focuses on cooking loss and factors effecting it as well as low-temperature long-time (LTLT) cooking and how it effects meat. Reactions in meat during heating and their effects on meat products quality were also studied. The aim of the experimental research was to find the optimal strip size for one sous vide process to optimize cooking yield and sensory quality. To do so, pre-testing with several different strip sizes were performed and then one strip size was selected. With this strip size tests with 3 different meat types (chicken, pork and beef) were executed. The tests comprised 10 batches of around 100 kg of meat each type and both strip sizes totaling 60 batches with total weight around 7600 kg. The sensory evaluation was made with a panel of 15 workers from the company to determine if any changes occurred regarding the sensory quality. Every meat type was tasted and evaluated using a scale with a free line segment of 10 cm. The results were measured and the difference between the same type of samples were multiplied with 10 to achieve a difference measured in %-units. Every type of meat had higher cooking yield with larger strip size. Chicken improved the most, pork second and beef the least. The effects on sensory quality were moderate. Chicken and beef became less tender and pork improved, while juiciness of every type improved with bigger strip size. Chicken improved 31.9 %-units, pork 9.8 %-units and beef 6.7 %-units in cooking yield. Chicken overall acceptance seemed to have improved 0.3 %, pork 7.0 % and beef 1.7 % according the sensory evaluation.