Eating quality prediction of beef from Italian Simmental cattle based on experts' steak assessment

Influence of Wet Ageing on Beef Quality Traits

Fresh samples of Longissimus thoracis of Charolais (n = 12), Romagnola (n = 15), Limousine (n = 77), and crossbreed (n = 62) animals were evaluated with different storage periods (0, 4, 9, and 14 days). Proximate analysis (i.e., pH, humidity, color, free water content, and physical parameters) was performed for each sample. The data obtained were evaluated with a mixed model, setting 5 fixed effects (breed, storage time, animals age, EUROP conformation, number of animal transports) and the animal as random. The results demonstrated that meat quality was affected mainly by the wet ageing period and that the visual and tactile parameters were also found to be susceptible to the storage time. The conservation entailed a decrease in meat humidity and an increase in L* and b* traits; it also led to a decrease in the hardness of the sample, in turn affecting the other texture profile analysis parameters considered. Fixed effects affected in different ways the traits analyzed i.e., pH and humidity changed with breed, as well as with EUROP classification, animals' age for some TPA parameters, and the number of animal transports for both visual and tactile parameters. Wet ageing influenced the meat quality, often improving it, confirming how important further research would be to identify precise storage times in relation to the parameters studied.

Correlations of Sensory Quality Characteristics with Intramuscular Fat Content and Bundle Characteristics in Bovine Longissimus Thoracis Muscle

The aim of this study was to investigate the relation of sensory quality traits of cooked beef to fresh meat quality and histochemical characteristics, especially muscle bundle traits, in the longissimus thoracis muscle of Hanwoo steers. Cooking loss negatively correlated with softness, initial tenderness, chewiness, rate of breakdown (RB), and amount of perceptible residue (AR) after chewing (p<0.05), and drip loss showed negative correlation with RB and AR (p<0.05). All the attributes of tenderness exhibited negative correlation with the Warner-Bratzler shear force value (p<0.05). Marbling score and the intramuscular fat (IMF) content showed positive correlation with all the organoleptic characteristics, including tenderness attributes, juiciness, and flavor (p<0.05). Regarding histochemical characteristics, muscle fiber size did not have a significant correlation with all the sensory quality traits, although the area percentage of type I fiber was related with softness, initial tenderness, and chewiness (p<0.05). On the contrary, the characteristics of muscle bundle were related to all the sensory tenderness attributes (p<0.05), and the sensory tenderness increased with smaller muscle bundle size (p<0.05). These results suggest that the IMF content and bundle characteristics can be used as indicators for explaining the variations in sensory tenderness in well-marbled beef.