Effects of Meat Shape and Size, Freezing Method and Thawing Temperature on the Drip Loss of Beef Brisket and the Protein Content of Its Thaw Exudates

The effects of meat shape and size, freezing method and thawing temperature on the drip loss of beef brisket and the protein content of its thaw exudates were examined in this study. The beef brisket was cut into the following shapes: cube; brick-shape with rectangle cross-section; and brick-shape with square cross-section and were then frozen using a standard freezer (-15 oC), an air-blast freezer (-36 oC) and a deep freezer (-78 oC). After 24 hours, the frozen samples were taken out of the freezer and thawed in an incubator at 25 oC for 5 hours. In another experiment, the meat was cut into the brick-shape with rectangle cross-section with different sizes and then frozen in another standard freezer and stored until use. The frozen meat samples were thawed in incubators at different air thawing temperatures. The drip loss and protein content in the drip of the samples were determined. There were no significant differences in the drip loss of thawed beef brisket using different freezing methods. For the shapes of beef brisket showed highly significant effect on the drip loss of frozen beef cuts. The drip loss obtained from the sample with brick-shape rectangle cross-section was significantly higher compared to those from samples with cube and brick-shape square cross-section but there was no significant difference in mean values of drip loss between these samples. Furthermore, the drip loss from the sample with smaller size was significantly higher compared to those from samples with bigger sizes. In contrast, there was no significant difference in mean values of drip loss of the samples with bigger sizes. In addition, the drip losses from different thawing temperatures were significantly different. The drip loss of samples thawed at 45 oC was significantly greater compared to those from samples that were thawed at 25 oC but not significantly different with the mean values of the samples thawed at 35 oC. The freezing method, shape and size of meat and air thawing temperature had no significant effects on the protein content of exudates from thawed beef briskets, with values ranging from 11 to 12% wet basis.