Browsing by Author "Kaajakari, Emma"

Large part of world’s meat products are smoked to achieve desired sensory properties, typical to these products. Many attributes affect the color formation of sausage surface perceived after smoking. Surface color is a substantial part of the quality criteria of the smoked sausage. The aim of this study was to see if fat and frozen meat content of the sausage has effects on the surface color after smoking assessed by sensory evaluation. Assumption was that fat percentage, and the frozen meat content would both affect the color formation and the achieved surface color. The sensory evaluation method that could be applied to production environment was also developed and studied. Sensory study was conducted in three parts with three different semi-trained panels (n=21, n=13 n=13). In the study the color evaluation of sausages was made by using the 6-point color scale and ranking test. The sample sausages had three different frozen meat levels (20 %, 50 % ja 60 %) and four different fat levels (19 %, 21 %, 24 % ja 26 %). The protein, moisture and fat contents and cooking loss of the product were instrumentally measured. Also, the temperature during the cooking was recoded. Sausages with higher fat content were evaluated as lighter than the lower fat level sausages both with the color scale and by the ranking test. The frozen meat content didn’t affect the perceived color of the smoked sausages. The fat content or the frozen meat content did not have an effect to cooking loss. The method of the color evaluation could be used in the production as the result of color evaluation made with the scale gave good results. However, the use of color scale needs to be instructed to all employees doing the color evaluation in the production before using it and is still quite subjective. The main use of the method would have in the reject-accept evaluation to help in t the decision making.