Elucidating Mechanisms Involved in Flavor Generation of Dry-Aged Beef Loins Using Metabolomics Approach

Abstract The present study was conducted to identify flavor-related chemical compounds and to elucidate beef flavor development in response to dry-aging. Paired grass-fed beef loins (n=18) were obtained at 7 d postmortem, cut into two sections and assigned to 3 aging methods: conventional dry-aging (DA), vacuum packaged wet-aging (WA) and dry-aging in a bag (DW) for 28 days. Following aging, samples were analyzed for UPLC-MS metabolomics, volatile, fatty acid profiling, and consumer sensory comment analysis. Greater number of proteins and nucleotides derived metabolites were liberated in dry-aged samples compared to WA (P 0.05), higher concentrations of volatile compounds were found in the dry-aged (P