Physicochemical properties of pork meat during salting process

Abstract

The salt contents of pork meat (pork spare ribs) increased from 0.5% of raw meat to 3.1% after one day's salting process at 4% (w/w) NaCl addition, and then the contents was almost constant. By DSC analysis, it became clear that denaturation of the meat mainly occured on myosin by salting. As the denaturation proceeds, the enthalpy change, ΔH, (cal/g of meat) of 1.212 rapidly decreased to 0.830 for 3 day's salting and then gradually decreased to 0.736 for 27 day's salting. Elastic modulus, viscosity and rupture strength of the meat increased during salting as a whole. The change of dynamic rigidity of the pork meat pastes by heating exhibited the tendency to decrease at the temperature range from 52°C to 58°C after 6 day's salting. The result was considered to come from the structure change of the sample due to thermal denaturation of myosin.