Influence of technological parameters on the sensory quality of smoked pork chop samples

Abstract

The importance of meat in consumption is due to its nutritional qualities, being a source of macronutrients, high-quality proteins and lipids, and highly bioavailable micronutrients such as iron, zinc, selenium, phosphorus, vitamin A and the B complex of vitamins. In addition to its nutritional quality, meat is also known for its sensory properties. The sensory quality of meat is determined by the technological processes the raw material undergoes, such as maturing, salting and heat treatments. By differentiating the parameters of the production technology (ageing time, salting degree, heat treatment time and temperature), the sensory differences between the experimental batches were investigated. The ageing time had a significant impact on the textural characteristics, the batches matured for 7 days showed lower hardness and higher juiciness. The heat treatment parameters (time and temperature) mainly influenced the aroma, imparting a slightly more intense burnt flavour to the batches subjected to the highest temperatures (P1 and P2). The rancid flavour had subunit mean scores for all six experimental batches produced, with no significant differences. For the colour attributes evaluated, no significant differences were observed between the experimental batches studied, the highest average were scores achieved by P5 (8.08 ± 0.310 points) for colour intensity and P2 (8.43 ± 0.383 points) for colour uniformity.