Influence of energy removal rate on the quality of minced meat from undersized crawfish during frozen storage

Undersized crawfish have little economic value and are often discarded. Producing crawfish minced meat (CMM) from undersized crawfish and using an appropriate freezing technique may enable an economically viable market. The objective of this research was to evaluate the effect of the energy removal rate using two techniques, cryogenic freezing (CF) and air blast freezing (BF), on CMM’s quality during frozen storage. CMM was separated into two batches; one batch was cryogenically frozen with liquid nitrogen and the other batch was frozen with an air blast freezer. CMM batches were frozen and stored at − 18 °C. They were analyzed for moisture content, color, pH, and lipid oxidation during 180 days of storage. The CMM yield was 64.67% of the total crawfish weight. Cryogenic freezing achieved the highest freezing rate. Cryogenically frozen CMM showed 22% less lipid oxidation than CMM frozen by air blast freezing at 180 days of storage. This study showed that CMM could be mechanically produced from undersized crawfish and freezing techniques with high energy removal rate could better maintain quality attributes for CMM during frozen storage.