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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Athens, Georgia » U.S. National Poultry Research Center » Quality and Safety Assessment Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #269427
Title: Marination effects on water states and water-holding capacity of broiler pectoralis major muscle with different color lightness

Author
item Zhuang, Hong
item ELIZABETH, SAVAGE - RETIRED ARS EMPLOYEE

Submitted to: European Symposium on Quality of Poultry Meat
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/4/2011
Publication Date: 9/4/2011
Citation: Zhuang, H., Elizabeth, S. 2011. Marination effects on water states and water-holding capacity of broiler pectoralis major muscle with different color lightness. European Symposium on Quality of Poultry Meat.

Interpretive Summary: Marination is a technique for improving meat water states, such as free water, bound water and total water, and meat water-holding capacity. Therefore it is commonly used by meat processors to enhance meat sensory quality and processing yield. Raw meat color lightness has a negative relationship with water states and water-holding capacity of chicken breast fillets (pectoralis major). We studied marination effects on water states and water-holding capacity of broiler breast fillets with different color lightness. We found that marination with sodium chloride and phosphate did not significantly affect the total water content of chicken breast meat. The marination could reduce free water content only for light-colored chicken breast meat; however, it increased both bound water content and potential capability of chicken breast meat to hold or retain water regardless of raw meat color. These results demonstrate that marination effects vary with water states and water-holding capacity of meat. Marination can be used to reduce free water in light-color fillets and enhanced water-holding capacity of chicken breast meat.

Technical Abstract: Experiments were carried out to investigate the effect of marination on water states and water-holding capacity (WHC) of broiler pectoralis (p.) major muscle. Boneless, skinless p. major were collected 6-8 h postmortem from deboning lines at a commercial processing plant, and separated into light, medium and dark categories based on meat CIE L* values. Muscle was marinated with a solution containing NaCl and sodium tripolyphosphate at 4C for 24 h. Moisture content, drip loss, expressible fluid and salt-induced water gain were measured. Regardless of meat color lightness, there was no significant difference in moisture content between the marinated and non-marinated samples. However, the % salt-induced water gain and bound water were significantly higher for marinated samples. For drip loss, there were no differences between marination treatments for the medium and dark p. major; however, drip loss was significantly reduced for the light p. major by marination. This study demonstrates that the marination effects on water states and WHC of chicken breast meat vary with the water states, the methods used for WHC estimation and meat color lightness.