Our objectives were to determine the optimal accelerated chill time immediately postmortem necessary to improve the quality of pork muscle and to decrease the incidence of pale, soft, and exudative pork. Carcasses from 81 market hogs were cooled either by conventional chill (CC) at 2 degrees C or by accelerated chill (AC) at -32 degrees C for 60, 90, 120, or 150 min, and then placed into a 2 de...