ARS | Publication request: Comparison of sensory descriptive flavor profiles between cooked hot-boned and cold-deboned broiler breast fillets

Submitted to: International Journal of Poultry Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: June 8, 2011
Publication Date: July 7, 2011
Citation: Zhuang, H., Savage, E.M. 2011. Comparison of sensory descriptive flavor profiles between cooked hot-boned and cold-deboned broiler breast fillets. International Journal of Poultry Science. 10 (6): 426-432.

Interpretive Summary: Boneless skinless chicken breast fillets are the most popular poultry meat product in the U.S. The time chicken breast fillets are removed from carcasses for boneless skinless products, or deboning time, directly impact poultry processing practices. Early deboning, including deboning fillets before chill or immediately after chill (< 3 hours) presumably save poultry processors millions of dollars per year; however, it have been also demonstrated that deboning time can significantly affect the texture as well as flavor quality of deboned meat. The objective of our study was to compare the sensory flavor as well as texture quality of boneless skinless chicken breast deboned at the different postmortem times, before chill (hot-boned), immediately after chill (2 h postmortem) and 24 h postmortem (well aged). Our results demonstrate that there are not any perceivable differences in both flavor and texture between the hot-boned and 2-h deboned fillets. However, well-aged fillets (24-h deboned breast meat) have flavor as well as texture significantly different from both early-deboned products. The well aged fillets taste less cohesive, less hard, less chewy and sweeter. Deboning time can result in both flavor and texture changes in cooked boneless skinless chicken breast products.

Technical Abstract: Three replicate trials were conducted to compare sensory descriptive flavor profiles of cooked broiler breast fillets (pectoralis major) that were either hot-boned or cold-deboned. Broiler carcasses (42-d old birds) were hot-boned (about 45 min postmortem), and cold-deboned 2 h postmortem (2h) and 24 h postmortem (24h). Descriptive sensory flavor as well as texture attributes were evaluated by 8 trained descriptive panelists using 0-15 universal intensity scales. There were no significant differences in average sensory descriptive flavor intensity scores between the hot-boned and the 2h fillets. However, the average score of the 24h samples for the flavor attribute cardboardy was significantly lower than the hot-boned fillets and was not different from the 2h fillets, and the score for the attribute sweet was significantly higher than the hot-boned and 2h samples. These results indicate that sensory descriptive flavor profiles of cooked hot-boned and 2h broiler fillets are similar to each other. However, cooked 24h fillets have different sensory descriptive flavor profiles from either hot-boned or 2h fillets.